New cartoon series seeks to bring laughs to raging immigration debate

NEW YORK -- Let's get one thing straight: Donald Trump is not a consultant to "Bordertown."

To be sure, this new Fox animated comedy targets issues such as immigration, the drug war and the embattled American Dream. But it's been in development since 2007, long before the furor sparked by Trump upon his entry last June into the presidential race.

The series' premiere at 8:30 p.m. Sunday deals with a toughest-in-the-nation anti-immigration bill passed by Mexifornia, the U.S. desert community where "Bordertown" is set.

The second episode, airing Jan. 10, is about the construction of a border wall meant to protect Mexifornia from undesirables from down Mexico way.

"It's about time we did something about immigration! The Southwest belongs to retired art teachers and meth-lab entrepreneurs," roars Bud Buckwald, a dunderheaded Border Patrol guard who fears his American dream is slipping away in an America where ethnic minorities are projected to become the majority within a few years.

After all, next door to Bud and his family reside the Gonzalezes, whose genial patriarch, Ernesto, has a thriving landscape business after less than a decade settled in the U.S.

According to creator Mark Hentemann, "Bordertown" began as a modern-day update of Archie Bunker, the apoplectic working man from the pioneering 1970s sitcom "All in the Family." Like Archie, Bud is "a white guy who feels he's losing his place in the world. He's contrasted with an immigrant who's building a life for himself in the United States."

Growing up in Cleveland, Hentemann was inculcated with a version of the immigration story by his father.

"Every time he had a glass of wine, he would tell my siblings and me how his dad came over from Germany in the '20s with nothing, seeking a better life, working three jobs," Hentemann recalled. "It was his way to communicate the values he wanted us to embrace, and not take for granted what we have.

"Every family has their immigration story somewhere back through the decades," he said. "That's what compelled me to write about this. This show seemed to be an opportunity to do a smart cultural satire."

Even as the broader themes felt second nature to him, Hentemann did not wish to perpetuate stereotypes, so he brought in a team that included Latino writers.

Among them: Lalo Alcaraz, creator of the Latino comic strip, "La Cucaracha," who brings to the show informed details (such as Latino men's huge belt buckles and the practice of Christmas lights strewn year-round outside Latino homes). He regards the show's characters not as stereotypes but as archetypes.

"My own dad was a gardener, and I gardened with him on Saturdays," Alcaraz said. "My mother cleaned houses for middle-class white people in San Diego. I'm from that background."