June Issue Comes out 6/30!
In A Weekend, ICE Raids Made Star Wars Become an Allusion to Real Life
By Pablo Escobar
Editor: Reese Richards
One of the first things we are taught in grade school English class is the different types of figurative language. One such type is allusion, where one piece of writing references another well-known person, place, or thing. This is a very powerful tool: for example, if I were to say that the Beatles had the Midas Touch when it came to making albums, most people would immediately understand the reference. I am a well-versed Star Wars fan. I love every movie and I was raised by the Disney XD TV show Star Wars: Rebels. It is for this reason that when the Emmy-nominated Star Wars show, Andor released its second season on Disney+ after a two year hiatus, my father and I (a dynamic duo of armchair television critics/Star Wars fans) were very excited to return to it. The show was—and still is, after watching most of the new season—arguably the best piece of Star Wars content to release since Rogue One, a movie from almost a decade ago, and is successful for a multitude of reasons. The show offers a vivid portrayal of life in the Galactic Empire between episode III and episode IV of Star Wars, a point in the Star Wars timeline that had not been explored very much in live-action content. Its storytelling is elegant and nuanced, a welcome rarity in the broader Star Wars fandom. The development of the organized Rebellion against the Galactic Empire that we see in episode IV of Star Wars is thoroughly explained; unlike in some other parts of Star Wars lore where it has been oversimplified. However, the most crucial element of Andor, the factor that elevates it to a legitimately great show, is the realistic portrayal of Star Wars politics and the Rebellion’s efforts, which feel both relevant and comparable to real historical events. It delves into the dangerous and morally complex actions both the oppressive regime and the Rebellion must undertake. It is within this dirty reality that Andor stands out as a meaningful puzzle piece in the larger Star Wars saga, serving as an allusion to real-world struggles for power and resistance.
My father and I had gotten through the first half of the new season of Andor, and were ready to start the second half. This season of the show was released in triplets, where each triplet of episodes would represent a year of time passing. Usually, we wouldn’t watch an entire triplet in one night, but this night would be different.
This triplet focused on the Ghormans, people who the Galactic Empire had been tarnishing for years to justify their plans to take over the planet. The Empire portrayed the Ghormans as arrogant, wealthy elites who believed they were superior to others in the galaxy. This smear campaign would eventually spark a rebellion from the Ghor, which only worsened their reputation in the Galaxy.
Following increased military intervention that further angered the Ghormans, a mass peaceful protest occurred in the city center, centered around a statue in remembrance of a previous Ghorman tragedy where the empire attacked innocent Ghorman people. The Ghor sang patriotic songs, declaring “the galaxy is watching” as their subtle act of defiance. However, the empire was prepared. They were ready to potray this gathering as a violent riot. When a mysterious imperial sniper took a shot at an imperial riot policeman, the empire launched a vicious massacre of the defenseless Ghormans. The galaxy’s reaction added another layer to the tragedy, as the Empire successfully framed the massacre as a Ghorman attack; casting the true victims as aggressors. The elites were forced to believe this lie due to fright that they or their planet would be next.
My father and I were very moved by these episodes, it was captivating and tragic in a grimey way. I remember being profoundly touched and inspired by the story of these oppressed people and the tyranny of the empire in this story. After watching, I picked up my phone and was immediately flooded with footage of mass protests against aggressive ICE deportation officers in my very own city. I saw the government that was supposed to serve its people send the National Guard into our streets. I watched as members of my community being depicted as vicious rioters for resisting the militarization of their neighborhoods. That is when a haunting sense of awareness hit me: the tragic story I had just seen in a galaxy far, far away had become a parallel of my world.
We sat with this realization overnight. It was daunting. Being Latino descendants of immigrants going back decades, we felt a deep fear that the supposed science fiction we had just watched was not far off from reality. News outlets like Fox News and republican politicians labeled these protests as “L.A. Riots” while our own president was making efforts to mobilize our country against our city that many people call home. It was a haunting resemblance. The truth is even I, an American citizen who was born and raised in Los Angeles county, had grown unsettled by the current presidential administration. I felt unsafe for being myself, as if at any moment, the military force of my own country could rip me apart from my family. I am not saying that Donald Trump is Emperor Palpatine and his ICE agents and National Guard invading cities are like stormtroopers. But the fact that our nation’s reality draws any parallels to a Star Wars scenario that is supposed to portray discrimination in an oppressive and evil system is deeply unsettling.
The United States of America is supposed to be the Land of the Free, a place where justice through the law is for all, not an evil empire where people are oppressed for the gain of its own government. Those two entities should be so far apart that there are zero similarities between the regimes. The sad truth is that with each passing day, the United States government, through its policies in its own beautiful and diverse cities of which its economy and culture depend upon, is becoming more and more reminiscent of the Star Wars Empire. The moment after I finished watching those three episodes of one of my favorite shows, I could not imagine living through a situation like the one I had just watched. But within 48 hours, what once was considered fiction now seemed like a mirror to the world emerging around me.
References
Bobadilla, Eladio. “Chavez, the UFW and the ‘Wetback’ Problem.” Duke Human Rights Center at the Franklin Humanities Institute, 13 June 2014, humanrights.fhi.duke.edu/chavez-ufw-and-wetback-problem.
Mills, Nicolaus. “Cesar Chavez and Immigration Reform.” Dissent Magazine, 28 June 2013, dissentmagazine.org/blog/cesar-chavez-and-immigration-reform.