The Double Life of Ernesto Gomez-Gomez

I am so glad I had the opportunity to see THE DOUBLE LIFE OF ERNESTO GOMEZ GOMEZ on PBS several years back. I had little knowledge of those who took place in the rebel movements to liberate Puerto Rico from U.S. control. This documentary film showcased a family closely connected and involved in these movements. The film focuses on the daughter of Guillermo and Dylcia Pagan. He was adopted by a Mexican couple following the aftermath of his mother's and father's involvement in the explosion of a major business office in the United. His father was in exile and his mother was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Their young son was given the name "Ernesto" and grew up believing his was a young Mexican boy, not the Puerto Rican son of revolutionaries. It wasn't until his 10th birthday that his adoptive parents told him the truth, and that he had the possibility of seeing his mother after all these years if he was willing to migrate to California and enroll in school there.

This powerful and sensitive film examines the deconstruction of a young man's identity as he attempts to bridge the gap between his two sets of his parents, two very different countries and cultures and his own identity as a young, Latino man struggling to come to terms with the reason his parents chose such risky and inevitably dismal work in the hopes of liberating their motherland from U.S. occupation.