Born in East L.A.

"Born in East L.A." (1987) is Cheech Marin's comedy, available to watch online on iFILM, about a man deported from his own hometown.

Rudy is a third-generation Mexican-American who has never lived anywhere but L.A. Swept up in an immigration raid at a factory with no wallet and no ID on him, he gets shipped across the border to Tijuana. The catch: he doesn't speak a word of Spanish and has no way to prove where he was born. Getting home turns into one long, absurd scramble.

Marin — one half of the Cheech & Chong duo — directed the film himself and grew it out of his own hit parody of Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." Under all the slapstick sits a sharp joke about how easily a person can be erased from his own country. Stream "Born in East L.A." (1987) online on iFILM.