Tecata is slang for female heroin users.
Presented with an opportunity to escape her stagnant Southwest town, a young genizaro girl must decide if she will take the opportunity to leave or stay and continue struggling to care for her family as her mother sinks further into the grips of heroin addiction.
With this film, the director wanted to confront a word that has haunted him since childhood, a word so powerful it could immediately fill me with shame, embarrassment, anger and helplessness. In the setting of Tecata, there are cycles of poverty, violence and depression that lead to addiction; children are often parentalized- in charge of caring for younger siblings, cousins, neighbors and even their own parents and grandparents.
The focus of this film are the Genzaros, often referred to as coyotes, the product of kidnapped native servants and their Spanish owners.
Living in generational poverty is much like living in a cage, or being behind a fence, trapped, after being there for generations upon generations, there is comfort and safety in staying there, as the dangers of the outside world can seem daunting.
