Over the past twenty-six years, Robert M. Young has earned a reputation as one of America's premiere independent filmmakers; his films look unflinchingly at the kind of social issues that send Hollywood producers running for shelter. Shot on location in Mexico and the Southwest, Alambrista! offers a view of America as seen by an illegal Mexican immigrant. Robert Ramirez (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. Other farmworkers 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. Village Voice critic J. Hoberman 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."