Multicultural voices and texts Seminar

1. “RECLAIMING HIDDEN VOICES”:
CONTEMPORARY PLAYS BY WOMEN OF COLOR.
Prof. Cynthia Tanoni
Facultad de Filosofia y Letras UNT

3. THE PURPOSE OF THE PLAYS IN THIS
ANTHOLOGY:
 “to take the audience out of its
complacency into psychological and
emotional areas that would eventually
trigger a reaction, a dialogue and a course
of action” ( 1990:43)

4. KATHY PERKINS AND ROBERTA UNO

5. POSITION OF WOMEN OF COLOR IN THE
ACADEME:
 “I remember being struck by the many ways I could
be defined as “not fitting”, and therefore, not
encouraged and more often than not, not admitted.
I was so easily “defined out” rather than “defined
in” in the academic environment”
 (Caroline Sotello Turner (2002) “Women of Color
Living Multiple Marginality”)

6. STEREOTYPES:
 “All Asians were exotic, and because of
Vietnam and WWII, enemies and not trustful.
Native Americans, Mexicans and Latinos
were all lazy and dirty and thus, obstacles to
America’s progress, and they needed to be
exterminated so that John Wayne would ride
off into the sunset triumphally” (Roberta Uno,
1996: 3-4)

7. NEW WORLD THEATER PROJECT - 1989

8. NEW WORLD THEATER IN ROBERTA UNO’S
WORDS:
 “New World Theater is my stubborn “in
your face” resistance to accept what my
American society was refusing to grant
us, our presence, our rights, our places.
Something really wonderful is going to
happen, and that is the “browning” of
America” (1996: 6)

9. PURPOSE:
 “To give impulse to what is known today as
New Literatures, positioning women of
color in a new place from which to defy the
xenophobic notion that Asian Americans
and other people of color are perpetual
foreigners in their own country, that they
are the exotic to be admired or despised,
but always the other from which to remain
aloof” (1996:6)

12. BLOOD SPEAKS (1992)
ELVIRA AND HORTENSIA COLORADO

13. HEROES AND SAINTS
CHERRIE MORAGA

14. Heroes and Saints by Cherrie Moraga
Ana Perez (journalist): “Hello, I’m Ana Perez and this is
another edition of our Channel five News special “Hispanic
California”. Today, I’m speaking to you from the town of Mc
Laughlin, a cancer cluster area [..]. The town has seen the
sudden death of numerous children as well as a big
incident of birth defects […]
This is the house of Dolores Valle. Her daughter Cerezita is
one of the most tragic cases […] “Cerezita?” (speaking to
Dolores) “that’s an unusual name. Es una fruta, que no?”
Dolores (mother) : That’ s what they call her, coz she look
like that..a red little round cherry face…I think maybe all the
blood that was supposed to go to the rest of the body got
squeezed up into her head […]
(Act II, Scene I)

15. Cerezita: “The sheep drink the same water we do. Today, the
water is orange- yellow color. The mothers dip their heads into the
rusty buckets and drink and drink while their babies deform inside
them. Innocent, they sleep inside the same poison water and are
born broken, like me” (Act I, Scene III)
Dolores: “I started working in the packing houses and the same
was happening. The poison they put on the almonds, it would
make you sick. The women would run out of the place coz they
had to throw up. Sure I didn’t wannu go back in there, pero after a
while you start to accept it, you gottu have a job” (Act I, Scene IV)
Amparo: “They lie to us, Lola. They thought we was so stupid to
know the difference. They throw some dust over a dump, put
some casas de carton on top of it y dicen que it’s the American
Dream. Pues, this dream has turned to pesadilla” (Act I, scene V)

16. R.A.W: RAUNCHY ASIAN WOMEN
DIANA SON

17. Slide 5: (in a bar: Asian American woman talking to and
American man) “And he asks me”
“Where are you from?”
And I say:
From a place where I was neither black or white
Where I checked the box marked “other”
[…]
I am a woman. W.O.M.A.N
Coz he wants to hear:
I am from a fishing village off the Yangtze River
Where my mother was a shaman who taught me
shiatsu
Where my father made musical instruments
Where I invented Tai Chi
[…]

18. But, I am a woman… W.O.M.A.N
I will not give you a massage
I will not scrub you back
I will not cook exotic meals […]
I will not be your Soon Yi
I will not kill myself to save your son
I will not light your cigarette afterwards
I will not be your china doll
I will not be a virgin
I will not call you papasan
I will not worship you
I will not be your fetish”
(page 239)

19. COME DOWN BURNING
KIA COTHRON
INTERTRIBAL
TERRY GOMEZ

20. FLYIN’ WEST
PEARL CLEAGE

21. MY ANCESTOR’S HOUSE
BINA SHARIF

22. THE HAVE-LITTLE
MIGDALIA CRUZ

23.  I wrote this play with the only intention of paying
tribute, preserving the memories and recalling the
voices of my best friend raped and murdered at age 8
while we were playing in our neighborhood in the
Bronx. It is also dedicated to another beloved friend
who got pregnant at 13 and died of an overdose at
15. The protagonist, Lillian, is me. Or rather,
everything that was taken from me and that which I
yearn for still. The world of poverty that surrounds
Lillian is my world and with the act of writing and
performing my play, I expect others would eventually
recognize and appreciate the magic of how human
my play is. So that they would be able to finally
mourn their own children lost in the hands of poverty.
 ( Migdalia Cruz, 1996: 106-107)

24. APPENDIX: EXCERPTS FROM THE PLAYS
Flying West by Pearl Cleage
 Sophie: “Two things I’m sure of. I don’t want no
white folks telling me what to do all day and man
telling me what to do at night” (Act I, Scene I)
 Sophie: “I want this town to be a place where a
colored woman can be free to live her life like a
human being. I want this town to be a place where
a colored man can work hard for himself as we
used to work for the white folks. I want a town
where a colored child can go to anybody’s door and
be treated like he belong there” ( Act I, scene V)

25. Blood Speaks by Elvira and Hortensia Colorado
“Atrocities”
Elvira: They (Spaniards) entered the towns and ripped open the bellies of children…
Hortensia: …and of pregnant women, tearing them to pieces.
Pura Fe: They placed bets on who could rip open a belly…
Hortensia: …cut off a head…
Elvira: and find the entrails at first try…
Hortensia: the Spaniards created a human butcher shop.
Elvira: a delicacy of which were feet and hands […] rather than cut the chains, they would
sever the heads of pregnant slaves…
(page 84)
“America the Beautiful”
Soni: “I cut the fruit. The blood in my hands. The blood on the fruit. The blood on the earth.
Who am I? my mother is Spanish from Spain…no! Wait! I am Mayan. I am Aztec. I am
proud Mexican – American” ( page 88)
Elvira: “Do not forget to tell your children that they may tell their children, of their children, of
their children, with proper respect. Tell them how it was..How it will be. How we will rise
again…how to gain strength and how our culture will fulfill its great destiny on our beloved
Mother Earth” (they all hold up right palm up, covered in blood)

26. REFERENCES
 Giles, F. S. (1997) “The Motion of Her Story: the plays of Pearl Cleage” in African American
Review, Vol.31, N° Contemporary Theater Issues: Indiana State University Press.
Retrieved from www.jstor.org. Accessed : 28/04/2014
 Height, D. ( 2005) Open Wide the Freedom Gates: A Memoir. NY: Public Affairs Press.
 Lester, N (1990) “An Interview with Ntozake Shonge” in Studies in American Drama.pp. 43-
66: Present S Press.
 Mazer, S. ( 1999) “Contemporary Plays by Women of Color” in TDR, Vol, 43, N° 3,
Puppets, Masks and Performing Objects, pp. 205 – 208, The MIT Press. Retrieved from
www.jstor.org. Accessed 28/04/2014.
 Morrison, T. (1987) Beloved. NY: Vintage
 Philip, M. N. (1988) She Tries her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks. UK: Ragweed Press.
 Sotello Viernes Turner, C. (2002) “Woman of Color in the Academe: Living with Multiple
Marginality” in The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 73, N° 1, pp 74-93. Ohio State
University Press. Retrieved from www.jstor.org. Accessed: 28/04/2014
 Williams, J. (1998) “Contemporary Plays by Women of Color by Kathy Perkins and Roberta
Uno” in Theater Journal, Vol. 50; N° 1. Theater, Diaspora and the Politics of Home. Pp 138
– 139. The John Hopkins University Press. Retrieved from www.jstor.org. Accessed:
28/04/2014

27. THANK YOU!!!