Alegrías y lágrimas (Happiness and Tears)

"People have come to me and told me stories they have never, never told to anyone, not even to their own mother . . ."

In all the whirl of the play presentations… it’s hard to stop still and take stock. But afterward—then the profoundness of what you’re doing hits you. How meaningful it was to have immigrants come up to me after seeing “Alegrias” and say, “I’m from El Salvador. I want to tell you my story, so you can put it in the play.” El Salvador and Puerto Rico will now be represented, as well as Chile.

One of the dancers had mentioned including a story about a child who crossed the border alone. The evening the play was presented, a woman approached me and told me about her two younger sisters, who crossed the border between Mexico and the U.S. when they were just around 6 and 8 years of age. They were imprisoned; their mother did not know what had become of them... Fortunately they finally joined their family here in Chicago.

Of course there will be two young girls in the play, representing the two sisters, as well.

I wonder if I relate so to their stories because of my own immigrant background. Actually all we Americans are children of immigrants… In my case, my German great grandparents fled poverty with just a set of bound leather books full of beautifully illustrated folk tales, which I lovingly paged through over and over as a child—even though I didn’t understand German! My Irish great grandparents fled the famine, and my Russian Jewish great grandparents fled the pogroms…  All left behind their beloved home countries due to hunger or persecution. Why does that seem so difficult for some anti-immigrant people to understand now? They’re angry about lack of papers? Did my Irish forebears have the proper documentation to come to the U.S. when they fled the famine in coffin ships?

I’m so happy that I made my choice as playwright to integrate music and dance from each country in the telling of the story. The last time I watched the play on June 27, I realized how much strength our innate culture—music, songs, dance, and stories—give us when we face difficult times. Our native art is our backbone that keeps us true on our course.

Now we are on to the work of expanding the number of performances to ten next year—each will be preceded by a delicious varied buffet of Latin American foods. The performance itself will be followed by a keynote address on the humanities aspect of the play. Then the audience will be divided into small groups led by a moderator to allow participants to talk, perhaps for the first time, about their experiences and what they mean.

I have seen this happen so often after “Alegrias” is presented; people have come to me and told me stories they have never, never told to anyone, not even to their own mother, they insisted. And once they have told the stories to me, they have gone on to tell their stories to their children… What more beautiful and meaningful legacy can there be?