With 'Yellow Rose,' Diane Paragas Tells a Modern-Day Western About Immigration
The film, out Oct. 9, follows a Filipina teen who pursues her love for country music after discovering her family is undocumented.
Illustration by Lindsey Lim
Diane Paragas has been tending to “Yellow Rose” for nearly two decades. Now, the film is in full bloom.
“Yellow Rose” follows a Filipina Texas teen named Rose Garcia, played by Eva Noblezada. Garcia dreams of performing as a country music singer-songwriter — a hope that guides her when her mother, played by Princess Punzalan, is taken away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Upon the realization that her family is undocumented, Garcia becomes a runaway in the only country she has ever called home.
“A modern-day Western, except instead of a horse and gun, [Garcia] has a bus pass and a guitar.”
The film, which Sony will release in theaters Oct. 9, was shot on 1970s anamorphic lenses, giving it a nostalgic, lived-in feeling. Speaking to Mercado Vicente, Paragas described “Yellow Rose” as a “modern-day Western, except instead of a horse and gun, [Garcia] has a bus pass and a guitar.”
“The idea is like a lone cowboy, this figure that wanders from place to place and is free but running away from something at the same time,” Paragas said. “That’s what the old cowboy movies were about, and [Garcia] is that kind of character. Yet they have certain agency about them that no matter what happens, they keep going — and she keeps going.”
Like Garcia, Paragas grew up in Texas and found solace in music; she co-wrote the music for “Yellow Rose.” She first began writing the screenplay more than 15 years ago, after conceiving of one of the film’s most fundamental — and painful — scenes.
Illustration by Paula Lanzador
“Yellow Rose’s” MacGuffin, to use Alfred Hitchcock’s term, is of Rose running with friend Elliot Blatnik, played by Liam Booth, in a field as her mother is being locked up. In that moment, Rose is seemingly free, wild as the grass surrounding her. But given her status — “I’m illegal,” she cries to Blatnik, viewers come to learn that the opposite is true.
“Your inciting incident is like an arrow. The tension has to be pulled back so far, when you release that string, you take the audience on this journey that will go all the way.”
“What I found so beautifully visual and poignant was that they’re both going into a prison,” Paragas said of Garcia and her mother in the scene. “One is in a confined space and one is in a no man’s land of homelessness and being a migrant. For that scene to work, the field has to be beautiful and tragic at the same time. The detention center had to feel cold, ugly and oppressive.
“That was the jumping off point: These two worlds were going to diverge,” she continued. “I remember someone told me, ‘Your inciting incident is like an arrow. The tension has to be pulled back so far, when you release that string, you take the audience on this journey that will go all the way.”
Image Courtesy of Gaby Wilson
As a director, writer and a producer of “Yellow Rose,” Paragas made a number of intentional decisions that speak volumes — one being that she chose not to subtitle the film.
“The whole theme of the film is about belonging and the moment you subtitle a person with brown skin, the audience says, ‘Other,’” she explained.
“The decision not to show the ICE agents’ faces was purposeful: It takes away their humanity in the same way they attempt to rob Garcia of hers.”
Paragas also hid the faces of the ICE agents — with the exception of one – and Garcia’s white uncle, who does not support Garcia staying in the house he shares with her aunt, played by Lea Salonga.
The decision not to show the ICE agents’ faces was purposeful: It takes away their humanity in the same way they attempt to rob Garcia and her mother of hers.
“These men in black suits, you're not looking at their faces. You see their guns, you see their vests, you feel their dominance,” Paragas said. “You don't see people and they don’t see you either. It's part of this institution of racism and the problems of ICE that I wanted to highlight and the faces I do show are the faces of empathy.
Illustration by Leroid David
“I think it’s low-hanging fruit to cover rednecks,” she continued. “We’ve seen that every single day in very high places. We don’t need to glorify that anymore.”
“Yellow Rose” arrives during a global pandemic that has brought with it widespread anti-Asian sentiment. The film also comes on the eve of a U.S. presidential election and reckoning of this country’s shameful treatment of people of color, including the choice to separate families seeking asylum at the border.
“I think it’s low-hanging fruit to cover rednecks… We’ve seen that every single day in very high places. We don’t need to glorify that anymore.”
In telling Garcia’s unique and specific story, “Yellow Rose” humanizes her in a way that is sorely lacking in the media’s immigrant stories. Garcia is an unexpected character who bears the burden of being an undocumented immigrant in America. Despite this surface-level label, the character — and Noblezada’s portrayal of her — resonates on a deeper level.
“[‘Parasite’ writer and director] Bong Joon-ho said in his acceptance speech that the more specific you are, the more universal the story,” Paragas said. “We’re not cookie cutters, none of us. [Garcia] has this seemingly crazy dream to be a country singer. It's not that crazy.
“Garcia is an unexpected character who bears the burden of being an undocumented immigrant in America.”
“She’s not perfect. She has a temper, she acts tough, she's melodramatic, but that’s what makes her a real kid,” Paragas continued. “She becomes a young woman. All of those little details add to the reality of her. I know so much of that is Eva bringing nuance to the character and her voice. She is a star and I'm so excited for people to see her performance.
Watch the “Yellow Rose” trailer here
“Yellow Rose” is one of the first Filipino-led films to be released by a major studio. Now playing in theaters across the United States.
(Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment)