Screening: "The Unwanted"

World premiere of a new restoration! Part of the 2026 UCLA Festival of Preservation led by the UCLA Film and Television Archive.

Introduction by producer-director José Luis Ruiz and John H. Mitchell Television Curator Mark Quigley.

“They come in search of the American Dream, only to find they have become the unwanted,” begins this groundbreaking television documentary on the troubles faced by Latino immigrants in the United States. Amid calls for broader governmental reform of the immigration process, the film focuses on human roles in the everyday drama, casting immigrants’ plight as powerless political pawns in a game that exploits undocumented migrants’ labor while criminalizing them at the same time. As Pablo, Gabriel and Yolanda Lopez and the Garcia family seek to improve their livelihood in a new country, away from economic troubles at home, they face repeated profiling, raids and deportation by border patrol and immigration enforcement officers, creating a revolving door of frustration for all involved.

Producer-director José Luis Ruiz produced programs for KABC, KNBC and KCET throughout the 1970s, establishing a Latino presence in film and television, and was later executive director of the National Latino Communications Center (NLCC) and a founding board member of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC). Writer Frank del Olmo was the first Latino listed on the masthead of the Los Angeles Times, where he worked as a reporter for decades covering issues of illegal immigration and the Latino community, earning a Pulitzer Prize in 1984.

The Unwanted won an award for Current Affairs Special at the 1975 Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards after its primetime airing on KNBC Channel 4. Praised at the time by the Los Angeles Times for the choice to “minimize statistics, to humanize stereotypes,” the documentary and the discussion around who gets the privilege to be American is as relevant as ever 50 years later, as immigration policy remains hotly debated and deportations continue. This revolving door has yet to stop spinning.—Brian Belak

DCP. KNBC. Producer: José Luis Ruiz. Director: José Luis Ruiz. Writer: Frank del Olmo. Cinematographer: Larry Mitchell. With: Barry Newman.

Co-presented by the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.

Restoration funding provided by the John H. Mitchell Television Preservation Endowment. Restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive from multiple 16mm reversal prints, a 16mm work print and a 35/32mm track negative. Laboratory services by Prasad Corp. and Endpoint Audio Labs. Special thanks to José Luis Ruiz.