Recent figures from the U.S. Census Bureau state that of the 16.6 million college students enrolled in colleges across country in 2003, 10 percent were Hispanic. Of those 1.6 million Hispanic students, at least one is a student like Pancho, very poor but determined; excited about going to college but unsure of its expectations.
Pancho is the lead character in the independent film Pancho Goes to College about a young Chicano who attends college, where he is faced with new challenges, new friends and a new kind of life. The humorous and down-to-earth story is the debut film of writer, director and producer Rubén Reyes. Pancho Goes to College is his first film, and it took him three years to complete it. He also financed the project himself.
The film is making the rounds at independent festivals in Mexico and the United States. It has received two, first-place awards at the East LA Chicano Film Festival and was an official selection at the first Cine Chicano Festival in Mexico City. The film has already been shown at the East L.A. Community College and is scheduled to be screened at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Screenings are also planned at Arizona State University in Phoenix and the University of Michigan, as well as other universities and colleges across the U.S. While the movie, which has been described as “a Chicano Animal House with heart,” is garnering much attention, a mainstream distributor has not yet picked it up.
“This story has never been told on film, not with Chicanos as the main theme in a university,” says Reyes. “Stand and Deliver and a handful of other films focus on Hispanic students in high school, but there’s never been one about the college campus.
“And while there have been many Hollywood-produced films with college as a theme (Animal House, Accepted, Old School), none of them deal with people of color,” says Reyes. “Only Spike Lee’s School Daze brought up the issue of race…and these facts, coupled with what I thought were interesting and colorful anecdotes of my own college experience, motivated me to produce my own film.”
Reyes, a 1988 graduate of the University of Arizona, where he received his bachelor of arts degree in radio-television production, says the film is not autobiographical, but it includes many truths and events centered on his life: The main character, Pancho, for example, is a migrant farm worker, as Reyes was.
