NITYA arrives in California shortly after losing her husband, to work at El Mirage, her distant cousin MOHAN’s highway motel. An opportunity for her to escape the pressures of remarriage and start anew. Her working for Mohan blurs the lines of where their familial relationship ends and her responsibilities as an employee begin. As she settles into her new home and job, she begins to grow suspicious that Mohan is hiding something from her and searches for answers that make her reconsider everything she thought she knew about her cousin.
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Indian Americans own about half of all motels in the United States. Even more remarkable, most of these motel owners come from the same region in India and -although they are not related - seventy percent of them share the surname Patel. Most of these motel owners arrived in the United States with few resources, and, broadly speaking they are self-employed, self sufficient immigrants who have become successful. They live the American Dream.
However, framing this group as embodying the American Dream has profound implications. It perpetuates this idea of American exceptionalism - that this nation creates opportunities for newcomers unattainable elsewhere - and also downplays the inequalities of race, gender, culture, and globalization immigrants continue to face. Despite their dominance in the motel industry, Indian American moteliers are concentrated in lower- and mid-budget markets.
Pawan Dhingra, Life Behind the Lobby; Indian-American Motel Owners and the American Dream
CREDITS
Director: Jhanvi Motla
Producers: Sonali Sundararaj and Aliza Khan
Writer: Jhanvi Motla
Cinematography: Alan Torres
Art Director: Joel Ruiz
Editor: Jacob Erlich