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Evelyn Cruz undeniably, the years I spent with Teatro Raíces continue to influence my work today as a playwright. Many of the themes addressed in our theater were driven by an examination of class inequality, racism, and sexism from a primarily Marxist perspective. This sobering perspective was counterbalanced by the spiritual element of collectively writing and performing scripts with an all-woman theater group. I met the women of Teatro Raíces when I was twenty-one years old and a single mother of two children. I was introduced by my boyfriend, Saul, who later became my husband. The fact that we had no actual theater arts training was of secondary importance, for in our collective mind’s-heart the real work was the political content that could raise awareness of an issue and then spur the audience to action. More important, it provided an immediate way to give back to the communities that we loved. The creation of these types of theater, be they agitprop, street theater, or guerrilla theater, continues to open up the world for its participants by making the arts accessible to everyone. All we needed was our strong work ethic and the desire to speak out against injustice. We performed with minimal props, and everyone contributed costume pieces. We had no lighting designers, stage managers, or official director.  129 130 Recuerdos / Memoirs We typed our own scripts on typewriters without dramaturges and performed anywhere we were invited, from universities to rallies to someone’s private backyard. Although we didn’t know it at the time, we were creating works that followed in the traditions of other theater artists, such as Augusto Boal and his work with Theatre of the Oppressed and Luis Valdez’s Teatro Campesino. True to our form, we had enough slice-of-life experiences within the makeup of the group to enhance the dramatic storytelling. For example, at one of our writing sessions Feliz proposed including a scene about a woman who was so hungry she had to hunt down rats in the fields to feed to her children. In my mind that sounded too unbelievable, even disgusting. I raised an objection to that contribution. I remember saying “Nobody will ever believe that.” Feliz answered that it was true and that it had happened. As a child, her mother had been fed a rat by a neighbor who hunted them for her family. I remember no one spoke for a long time. I asked then, and I still ask now, how does anyone survive that? At the time Feliz responded, quite matter-of-factly, that the neighbor had made the decision to cross the border illegally when she had no other means of feeding her children. Needless to say, we included the scene. No amount of statistics or droning lectures can carry quite the same impact of live performance. That essential human element, in the form of a breathing theatrical piece of art, is best realized in these transformative spiritual moments. It is truly when we can connect with others. Although Feliz’s story is rooted in a migrant farm worker’s experience, it is not far from my own experience growing up in the Bronx and being raised by a single mother of eight children. Although my mother was constantly working, it was always a struggle for her to provide for us. I recall coming home from school one day in the third grade and being surprised that my mother was actually at home and cooking ! She was frying plantain bananas in our tiny, sparse, but brilliantly clean kitchen. I remember how disconcerting it felt to come home to my mother and the delicious smell of sofrito simmering and platanos frying. I watched as my mother, deep in thought, carefully speared the golden platanos and flipped them upside down to brown the other side. Afterward she would lift each piece and tap the oil from it onto the inside of the frying pan, and then lay the platano on a napkin-lined plate for draining. Although I was in heaven there was something uneasy about the whole scene. I remember thinking how beautiful my mother looked that day. Mamí had this beautiful long, black, thick, curly hair that hung in one long braid down her back and below her waist. “Mamí, what are you doing here?” She let me hug her and I buried my head in her waist. I took comfort in the smell of her perfume. She didn...

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