DAVID SEPULVEDA PHOTO
The characters in La Casa Rosa onstage in Fair Haven.
Wearing traditional fringed rebezos, a line of women cradled images of loved ones who had disappeared into the fog of northern migration as they defiantly pumped their fists in the air demanding justicia — justice.
Cast and support team group photo.
The women were part of Matlalcueyetl, a theater troupe of 23 women, nonprofessional actors, who have traveled from the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico, to perform in La Casa Rosa (The Pink House), a play about the hardships and aspirations of indigenous Mexican communities as they cope with the effects of migration and its socioeconomic consequences. Based on true stories, the play’s themes are drawn from the migrant families living in the town of San Francisco Tetlanohcan in east-central Mexico, affording those living in the United States a different perspective on immigration issues.
Embroidery and stitchery are crafts that generate income.
The play, free to the public, was performed in Spanish with projected English supertitles at Bregamos Community Theater last Saturday night, with many in the local immigrant community attending. Also included in the program was a display of hand-decorated, embroidered textiles and herbal potions some of the actors had created. An after-party featured the live music of Los Chavos de Fuego, a group of popular Mexican musicians that have been rehearsing at Bregamos for nearly four years.
Sisters Juana and Rosa disagree about the future.
In the play, sisters Juana and Rosa are emblematic of the opposing tensions within families and communities, as some try to preserve traditional ways and ancestral lands while others yield to the pull of modernity. Juana is a matriarch and natural leader who rallies the women of her town to fight the ravages of migration, as fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles, and daughters leave town for economic opportunity in the North — if they are lucky enough to make it past the black hole of a merciless desert and the exploitation of coyotes, human traffickers, and kidnappers hoping for ransom. Some migrants are never heard from again. Others who make it across the border are forced to live in the shadows, stigmatized as “illegals,” marginalized, and exploited.
Juana’s daughter announces plans to leave for the North.
Juana herself feels the pain of a daughter who leaves Mexico to pursue her dream of seeing the world, having no use for the old ways. In the play’s pivotal scene, the women whom Juana has organized feel her loss as she leaves to find her daughter in the United States; they hold a press conference with La Prensa, the major Mexican newspaper. What follows is an airing of grievances and demands for justice from the institutions, governments, and laws the women feel have contributed to the conditions that force migration and destroy families, towns, and the local economy. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which knocked down trade barriers, has made the export of Mexican corn untenable. Meanwhile, the Mexican markets have been damaged by the flood of subsidized corn and agri-products from the North, as well as rising demand for corn internationally to make ethanol.
Cafami banner.
La Casa Rosa was written in 2009 by Daniel Carlton and the theater group Soame Citlalime. The play is one of several plays the current troupe has performed as part of CAFAMI — el Centro de Atención a la Familia Migrante Indígena — a migrant family support center and transnational grassroots organization of community members and local women founded in 2007 to address systemic migration issues. Their core mission is that of “freedom, self-determination, justice and equality for women and their families.”
Rafael Ramos welcomes theater goers to Bregamos.
Merging theater and activism, the cast of La Casa Rosa has been touring college and university campuses in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York under the auspices of CAFAMI, performing at academic institutions and community organizations for several years. Their work has been supported by New Haven Sister Cities, the New Haven-Tetlanohcan project whose mission “is to educate about how local economic and political realities can be framed as global justice issues.” The City of New Haven Department of Arts, Culture, and Tourism has also lent support.
Rafael Ramos, Bregamos founder and director, said he was thrilled to welcome the program, noting that the policy of Bregamos is to have an open door for organizations serving the community.
Cast detail.
The message of the protesting women to the press and the outside world is unequivocal: “No human is illegal.” Among their demands is a call for the state to take responsibility for the disappeared and for the Mexican government to put an end to undocumented migration. Seeking resolution of a long unresolved issue, they call upon the United States to be clear about its border policy by either opening the borders or closing them: “The days in which the U.S. pretends to close the border while accepting those that were able to survive the test of the desert must end.”
The women call for a boycott of U.S. construction unions as they seek to create solidarity and parity in protections for migrant workers. They also petition for a support center, an institution for education, activism, service, and scholarship that will be used to address the injustices attendant to migration. Their cry for immigration reform yields a prescient line that seems to have been written in answer to the anti-immigration rhetoric that has prevailed in our current presidential campaign: “We are not criminals and we do not deserve to be treated like criminals.”
Ruth M. Hernandez invites questions from the audience.
Ruth Hernandez is the U.S. coordinator for the play tour, a Sister Cities board member, and a doctoral candidate in sociology at UConn. She noted that that the work of the Matlalcueyetl theater group and its sponsors is part of a global feminist movement, but the play’s message “is also a personal one. My parents came undocumented and I was undocumented. When you see these women on the stage, it’s very powerful.”
Part of the audience.
After the play, Hernandez took questions from the audience. Asked how she felt about presidential candidate Donald Trump, Hernandez said that his comments are “incredibly disheartening. What he’s feeding to the public are negative stereotypes. The problem with what he is saying is not necessarily with the way he’s saying it, but that it has consequences for our community.”
SBS Film crew records Q and A.
A documentary film crew from SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) of Australia, which specializes in current international affairs and multicultural issues, has followed the theatrical tour for the last two weeks for its Dateline (no affiliation to NBC) program that will be broadcast in about eight weeks, according to video journalist Aaron Thomas.
Donations to help support the work of CAFAMI may be sent to New Haven Sister Cities, Inc., P.O. Box, 774 New Haven, CT 06503 (CAFAMI in the memo line).
