Gentefied, Reviewed: Season 2, Ep. 6 "Sangiving"

Rolando Rubalcava, PhD Candidate, English

The intersections of Latinx households are like cookbooks with multiple authors, constantly in flux, and after so many years, it’s only readable to the authors themselves. The first time I watched Gentefied on Netflix, it took less than an instant to see the parallels between the Morales family and the Rubalcavas. There’s the patriarchal figure, Casimiro “Pop” Morales, the array of siblings and the directions of life choices, the varied degrees of Spanish spoken in the household, all taking place in the heart of Los Angeles, street vendors and community art galore. While the premise of the show addresses gentrification in LA, a real problem that has dislocated actual families and have pushed out real small businesses, what stands out the most is how well is captures the love, pain, and anxieties that exist within Mexican family households. It nails what that atmosphere is like, filled with as much tension as there is support for each other.

The episode Sangiving focuses on the Morales family having Thanksgiving dinner. Several dark clouds loom over the table, including an impending court date for Pop’s immigration trial, whether or not Chris will move to Paris for culinary school, and strife between Eric and Lidia. The dinner reaches its climax when Chris reveals he won’t be going to Paris, leading to past grievances coming to surface, and seeing a fully cooked turkey flying towards the family portrait. Thanksgiving dinners where secrets are revealed and feuds come to boil is not a new model for television; what Gentefied brings to it is a kind of self-reflection of a staple in Mexican lore, family loyalty, and how something so sacred can be problematic. The revelation soon unravels family history involving

the death of one of Pop’s sons and the return of another son who was self-estranged. Serving as further commentary on Latinx family dynamics, the episode highlights the end result of refusing to discuss family tragedies. I know this all too well, learning way later in life about the riff between my father and his father, which lead to his migrating to the States and starting a family here. Gentefied makes a strong case for answering who benefits when it comes to keeping family secrets: no one.

The end of the episode is a little strange. As the family gathers outside to eat after much needed reconciliation, Nayelli, one of Pop’s granddaughters, shows everyone a TikTok she made from snippets of videos she took throughout the day. It’s a little hard to believe that a TikTok video can bring a family together, but, thinking about Tolstoy’s quote, if that’s what makes this family a little less unhappy, we should be glad they found it.