From the Margins to the Mainstream: Latino/a Theater in the U.S.

Abstract

The author discusses Latina/o theatre as it evolved from social protest theatre of the 1960s to professional theatre companies and theatre artists working throughout the country. Whereas there were few scholarly articles, no books about Latina/o theatre and no plays in print (in English) in 1970, today there is a wealth of material about the theatre of the three major Latina/o groups, Chicana/os, Cuban-Americans and (mainland) Puerto Ricans. Each of these groups has a distinct relationship to the United States, as expressed in their plays. This article is available in Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature: http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol32/iss2/13 From the Margins to the Mainstream: Latino/a Theater in the U.S. Jorge Huerta University of California, San Diego In reviewing all that has happened in Latina/o theater in the last thirty-plus years, it is clear that we have come a long way. However, we have all heard the old adage, “You can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been.” As a theater historian I am interested in our history as Latina/o theater artists; as a theater director, I am concerned with the aesthetic evolution of our cultural work and workers. But you cannot analyze or write about Latina/o theater without also sounding like a sociologist, a political scientist, an ethnographer, etc., because these are all vital discourses in the understanding of our cultures as Latinas and Latinos. I propose here an overview of the theaters of the three major Latina/o groups, the Chicanas/os, Cuban-Americans and Puerto Ricans, focusing on their theatrical evolutions. For my purpose, I define Chicana/o, Latina/o, Puerto Rican, Cuban-American, etc., both for readers who do not come from any of these communities and for those who do. All notions of cultural and national identity are fluid and constantly evolving. There is a preference among all of these groups, at least among the more progressive ones, to use the broad term Latina/Latino rather than Hispanic; I refer to these groups collectively as Latina/os. A person who was born and raised in a country south of the border, in general, would be considered Latin American but will also have a more spe1 Huerta: From the Margins to the Mainstream: Latino/a Theater in the U.S. Published by New Prairie Press 464 ST&TCL, Volume 32, No. 2 (Summer, 2008) cific country of origin, such as Mexico or Argentina. A Latin American educated in her or his own country, who emigrates to this country has not experienced the marginalization that a Latina/o child who begins the educational process in this country has endured. There is a class distinction here as well, but in terms of identity, a sense of self, the children of immigrants will have a much different experience than their parents, who came with a national identity. Further, I would argue that all of the plays that have been written by Latinas/os deal in one way or another with issues of identity. Latinas and Latinos know that a Chicana is not the same as a Puerto Riquena, but is different from her hermana dominicana. However, although Latina/os know they are not all the same, they are usually lumped into the same group, depending on the geography. In Florida, they’re Cuban, in the Southwest, they are Mexican, and in New York, they’re Puerto Rican. Earl Shorris, in his impressionistic overview of the people he terms “Latinos,” indicates: there are no Latinos, only diverse peoples struggling to remain who they are while becoming someone else. Each of them has a history, which may be forgotten, muddled, is represented, but not erased. Every people has its own Eden, and there are no parallel tracks. (12-13) In this brief declaration, Shorris defines U.S. Latina/o playwrights and describes the people about whom the playwrights concern themselves. Yet, each group has its own history and culture, its own distinct relationship with the U.S. and its own relationship to the country of origin, a place they call “home.” The notion of “home” differs from group to group and within each group. For the Chicana/Mexicano, the southwestern United States was home. Perhaps this is why they do not write plays about returning to live in Mexico. In contrast, the Cuban exile cannot readily go home, while the Puerto Ricans can go back and forth at will between the island and their (mostly) urban, mainland centers of population. Members of all three groups face certain scrutiny and even discrimination if and when they return to the homeland. The plays Latina/o playwrights have written affirm those tensions as the characters in their plays negotiate concepts of home. 2 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 32, Iss. 2 [2008], Art. 13 http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol32/iss2/13 DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1687