Directed by Robert M. Young (Short Eyes, Nothing But a Man) for KCET's “Visions” series, Alambrista! was featured at most major international film festivals in 1978-79 and hailed as an excellent example of American “regional” independent filmmaking. Shot on location in Mexico and the Southwest, it offers a view of America as seen by an illegal Mexican immigrant. Robert Ramirez, played by Domingo Ambriz, leaves his farm and family in Mexico in search of a dream that is nothing but a nightmare from the word go. Surviving a nighttime border patrol raid, he enters California alone. He finds companionship with a waitress (Linda Gillin) and with other farmworkers who teach him the ropes so that he won't hang himself with his own naiveté (in one hilarious scene, Trinidad Silva gives a Chaplinesque lesson in how to be gringo). But his troubles are only just beginning. J. Hoberman of the Village Voice writes, “Domingo Ambriz is an apt guide to the matter-of-fact institutionalization of illegal immigration. Without preaching, the film coolly depicts the numerous tricks by which illegals are exploited and discarded, the casual cruelty with which they're transported and housed.”