Sal Lucero lives with his mom, works as a busboy, and hangs out with his friends in the Mexican American working-class suburb of Los Angeles where he's always lived. Struggling against economic pressures, it's not a holiday he longs for, but “a permanent vacation from complacency.” So, with humor and integrity, he chides his friends for moments of stupidity, admires his mother for her ambition, avoids going to church with her, and aspires to be a writer. His ideas, written on note cards pinned to a bulletin board, veer from the philosophical to family history and form the backbone of this intimate, closely observed film. For Thom Andersen, Progress extends the tradition explored in The Exiles. Filmmaker Garza describes it as “as much a document of the underrepresented, as it is an introspective study of character.”