Outside Theater: Alliances That Shape Mexico 9780816535453, 0816535450

Citation preview

Outside T heater

s tuart a. day

outside theater Alliances That Shape Mexico

TUCSON

The University of Arizona Press www.uapress.arizona.edu © 2017 by The Arizona Board of Regents All rights reserved. Published 2017 Printed in the United States of America 22 21 20 19 18 17   6 5 4 3 2 1 ISBN-13: 978-0-8165-3545-3 (cloth) Cover design by Nicole Hayward Publication of this book is made possible in part by the proceeds of a permanent endowment created with the assistance of a Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal agency. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Day, Stuart A. (Stuart Alexander), author. Title: Outside theater : alliances that shape Mexico / Stuart A. Day. Description: Tucson : The University of Arizona Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016042865 | ISBN 9780816535453 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Theater and society—Mexico. Classification: LCC PN2311 .D39 2017 | DDC 792.0972—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016042865 This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction. Outside Theater

vii 3

1 Allies in 1822: Humoring the Limits of Colonial Mexico

32

2 Performing the Porfiriato: Federico Gamboa and Allied Negotiation

54

3 Zoot Suit Allies and the “Arizona Law”

78

4 Moderating the “Ignorant Masses” and the Emergence of Internet Allies

106

5 Documentary Allies: Sabina Berman and Victor Hugo Rascón Banda

130



Conclusion. “A Veces el Pato Nada”: Educational Allies and Tools for Change

Notes Works Cited Index

158 173 203 215

Acknowledgments To Emma Dunham Day and Maddie Harlow Day, my backseat drivers

M

I’ve worked on, this book reflects my belief that art impacts—and helps us to understand—our world. It’s a luxury to be surrounded by art in all of its forms, and, in the case of this book, to work with so many people who have helped me to better express this view. From an initial conversation with Vicky Unruh, who asked what I meant when I said I was studying alliances (I wasn’t really sure at the time) to hallway conversations and classroom discussions, I’m grateful for vibrant intellectual exchange. The anonymous reviewers provided outstanding feedback, and I am deeply appreciative of their time, expertise, and dedication. Billy Acree, Jackie Bixler, and Juan Carlos González Espitia, my compadre, have been there for me for a couple of decades, and I’m truly grateful for their friendship and help, including with this manuscript. My parents and brother are the same way— always there for me, no matter what. Marta Caminero-Santangelo is probably one of four people to read this manuscript from cover to cover (I hope this number will double over the years). I would never have finished this project without her. Equally important are the people who helped me with key details of my manuscript, from excellent translations and editing (Katya Soll) to dedication by the professionals at the University of Arizona Press: Kristen Buckles, ore than any project

viii acknowledgments

amazing acquisitions work both for this project and for the forthcoming Modern Mexican Culture: Critical Foundations; Amanda Krause, editorial and production work; Nicole Hayward, cover design; Ruth Melville, copy editing; Robert Swanson, indexing; Nora Evans-Reitz, marketing. I appreciate this cradle-tograve support, which was always offered with a smile. Other people allowed me to get work done by keeping me organized and on track, especially the staff in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Office of the Provost (special thanks to Aileen Ball and Julie Popiel). I’m truly grateful.

Outside T heater

Introduction

Outside Theater So I’m teaching them acting through improv. Well, in the middle of rehearsal, I think our second rehearsal, comes the two leaders of the Latino gang. They were doing life. These guys had killed a couple of guys since they were in prison, really tough guys. And they sit down and we’re thinking OK, who are they here to kill? And I’m watching out the corner of my eye and Raphael, the leader, he’s getting upset. After about 10 minutes, he jumps up and he says: Ese, could I speak to you a minute? And I said, sure. He says, that guy you’re working with, that guy that F-ing guy, yo ese, he’s not feeling his character. —J a m a l J o s e p h, NP R i n t e r v i e w

A

a veritable jester from colonial times, is brought to life on a Mexico City stage to interrogate the use of religious imagery in present-day political campaigns. In 1905, an ally of the perennially elected dictator Porfirio Díaz writes and subsequently stages a surprisingly revolutionary drama. The Chicano play Zoot Suit is finally produced in Mexico City after decades of resistance—and decades after it was a smash hit in Los Angeles. A Mexican writer/performer/scholar stages the difficult dialogue of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Students in U.S. universities use classroom time to act out plays written for the Latin American/Latina/o stage or to participate in empowering performances in the state of Chiapas, home to the Zapatista movement and to organizations like the indigenous-led Fortaleza de la Mujer Maya. A group of students at the elite Universidad Iberoamericana start a political movement (#yosoy132) that is a productive combination of old school protest movements and virtual activism. Some of the above take place in designated theater spaces and some do not, but in all cases these scenes, and many more to be presented in this introduction and the chapters that follow, border rogue priest,

4 introduc tion

formal theater in explicit ways. This concept, which I call “outside theater,” can be understood, preliminarily, through definitions of the Spanish word lindar: “to adjoin, to be contiguous, to be bounded by, to be on the border of, to be on the verge of.” In order to exemplify the nuances of this concept, each scene I analyze evidences productive social connections that—always with the help of crucial artistic alliances—belie the perception that art is somehow secondary to, or disconnected from, the public sphere of influence and the struggles of everyday life. Taken together, multiple examples show that outside theater, through its allies, can and does bolster civil society and, in this way, a country’s fragile democracy. The idea of the public sphere where people effect change is a moving target, as questions of transnationality and diaspora influence its theorization. Still, it continues to function nationally as a space where to varying degrees one can observe “the validity of public opinion and citizen empowerment vis-à-vis the state” (Fraser 1). In theater, the idea of a “dramatic sphere of influence,” conceptualized as concentric circles that emanate from the stage, helps to make visible the power of art in general, and theater in particular, to promote civic engagement. As Jamal Joseph reminds us in the epigraph above, the most secure facility, metaphorical or otherwise, cannot keep art and its accompanying transformative potential from permeating its walls (in Joseph’s case the facility is Leavenworth, the Kansas prison that was also home to the Mexican playwright Ricardo Flores Magón). Art has a crucial grounding in illusion and the ability to embody the imaginary and imagined future. For this very reason it has influenced many a revolution and revolutionized many a seemingly small act. When considering the power of theater, and, yes, at times lamenting its astounding potential for impotence, we often ignore or fail to uncover the collaborators or conspirators, the allies—both fictional characters and real-life players—who facilitate along with spectators and readers a unique understanding of the world, questioning our ways of being and showing our actions to be eminently historical and often alterable, as well as in many cases signaling emerging societal trends. In his groundbreaking work on spectatorship, Jacques Rancière preempts and even welcomes criticism that his work is “words, yet more words, and nothing but words” (22). He asserts that “[t]o dismiss the fantasies of the word made flesh and the spectator rendered active, to know that words are merely words and spectacles merely spectacles, can help us arrive at a better understanding of how words and images, stories and performances, can change something of the world we live in” (23). Taking a cue from Rancière,

Outside The ater  5

who in The Emancipated Spectator rejects the idea of the passive, ignorant, duped spectator (of plays, of spectacles, etc.) in need of instruction to become active, I intend in this book to highlight both written words and performances that exemplify effective strategies, past and present, to reveal and promote civic engagement, to provoke disruptions, or to highlight fissures—and opportunities—in oppressive social structures. I focus specifically on uncommon collaborations, collaborations that bring together traditionally disparate people, groups, or art forms in unique ways. I look to works that include but also trespass traditional positions in the hierarchies of separation we create and often inhabit (e.g., the link between the ivory tower in Mexico or the United States and, say, a performance piece in a working-class neighborhood of Mexico City). Through the study of one to two primary models per chapter, as well as examples in the introduction and conclusion, I present Mexican plays from 1905 to 2015—plus the 2010 Mexico City performance of Zoot Suit by the Chicano playwright Luis Valdez—that by way of characters, actors, authors, or producers offer the most concrete, varied examples of artistic allies, real people, or exemplary characters who create strategic links (humorous, artistic, cultural, political, historical) that serve to enrich lives. They offer models to emulate or eschew, and speak to the multiple ways theater and performance mirror society and also at times, to quote Rancière again, “change something of the world we live in” (23). I recognize the naïveté or the suspension of disbelief that even restrained confidence in art requires, yet to give up on its power in society is to imagine a world bereft of a human dimension that, while often itself exclusionary (as many institutions that promote art can be), adds a dimension to society that is otherwise largely invisible. At a minimum, art, even at its most ephemeral, even when produced by artists who have long given up, at least publicly, the dream of promoting social change, adds stories to our frame of reference that would not otherwise enter into consciousness. As Néstor García Canclini argues in Art Beyond Itself, “Literature and art give more resonance to voices that come from diverse places in society, listening to those voices in ways that others don’t, turning them into something that political, sociological, and religious discourses can’t” (26). At its most potent, art can be dangerously transformative at both the micro and macro levels—thus the endless stories of the censorship of books and other forms of expression, stories that in different ways tell of the fear that artistic representations engender in leaders from myriad political structures. García Canclini offers an example that speaks to the threat of creative endeavors, endeavors that ultimately help us to understand the past, the present, and

6 introduc tion

potential futures. The example comes via a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, “The Wall and the Books,” about a Chinese emperor. Borges, writes García Canclini, wondered about the coincidence that “the man who ordered the building of the

almost infinite Chinese Wall” was the same one who “decreed the burning of all

the books that had been written before his time.” Borges argued that the two decisions were not a mystery at all for historians: Emperor Shih Huang Ti, who

brought the six kingdoms under his control and “put an end to the feudal system,” built the wall as a defense and “burned the books because his opponents were invoking them to praise the emperors who had preceded him.” (25)

Burning stories about the past, in this case from a variety of genres (poetry, history, philosophy), like building the Great Wall, was to provide protection from invaders—and subversive ideas. What is to be made, then, of the sense among so many that art, in this case theater and performance, is generally ineffectual when it comes to improving society, to the point where even to address the issue in writing can seem not only passé but downright credulous? In part this relates to the specific sociopolitical context: in Mexico it can be difficult to perceive progress when detours are to be found at every turn, especially as a result of the supply and demand of the drug trade, including the U.S.-backed policy to pursue kingpins despite the resulting violence created by smaller crime cells. To make matters worse, in many cases teatreros (actors, directors, writers, etc.), in Mexico as elsewhere, feel that they are simply not reaching their intended audiences, even when they leave the confines of a theater to present their art in uncommon settings to people whose opinions they might change. Indeed, it is safe to conjecture that many present-day audiences at, say, an independent or university theater, or even at the many commercial theaters that have strong artistic commitments, might already share the ideas of the performance in which they participate. Yet Hans Haacke (as part of a conversation with Pierre Bourdieu) buttresses the claim that theater effects change in multiple ways that are not always obvious, noting that audiences may find themselves reinforced in their opinions, recognizing that they are not alone in thinking what they think. It is pleasurable to come across things that

help us better articulate vague notions we have and to give them a more pre-

cise form. Therefore, preaching to the converted, as one says, is not a total waste

of time. A good deal of advertising and all political candidates do it, for good

Outside The ater  7

reason. Opposed to the sympathizers are, of course, the people who disagree. Some of them disagree to the point of trying to suppress my works—there have

been several spectacular examples. The attempts to censor demonstrate, if nothing

else, that the censors think an exhibition of my works could have consequences. Between these two extremes exists a sizable audience that is curious and without fixed opinions. It is in this group that one finds people who are prepared to reexamine the provisional positions they hold. (qtd. in García Canclini 8)

Haacke goes on to explain that these “undecided” spectators, like consumers and voters, are often the target of marketing firms, an idea that reinforces the importance of potentially malleable audiences that might join the core. What can be inferred from Haacke’s comments is that, at least as metacommentary on civic engagement, performances that reach the proverbial choir can be effective: if civic engagement means to address individual and public concerns by influencing the government and other entities, preaching to—and perhaps motivating—the “choir” is not only laudatory but may be the best way to promote change. Some Mexican artists, like Sabina Berman with her television program Shalalá, have reached unprecedented audiences beyond the already converted, making space for voices (of transvestites, mothers of disappeared children, marginalized politicians, etc.) that we might not otherwise hear. Given how unusual it is for playwrights like Berman to experience this type of visibility on television, however, theater and performance remain critical, and particularly potent, weapons in the face of information barriers created by media moguls and powerful politicians, especially given the risk to reporters that presenting counterhegemonic ideas can bring. In recent years, for example, censorship of print and television journalists, though nothing new, has become particularly acute, with drug lords and the government involved in the suppression of ideas and often the murder of reporters and others who work to empower citizens and, in doing so, strengthen civil society. A deep-seated fear of reporting on violence, impunity, and corruption, plus the resulting lack of widespread, reliable information available to the public, makes it easier for politicians to guide national narratives, since the so-called media duopoly (made up of  Televisa and TV Azteca) has immense power to influence public opinion. This is nothing new in Mexico except for one catch: the worldwide power of cellphone cameras and the Internet. When Mexico’s president Enrique Peña Nieto was running for office, his campaign was caught off guard by the power of people on social media to circumvent traditional

8 introduc tion

modes of (easily controlled) communication, something especially pertinent given the long-term, not-so-subtle Televisa initiative to get him elected. Richard Fausset writes: During a visit to Mexico City’s Ibero-American University in May [2012], the can-

didate was heckled mercilessly by students, and when his supporters claimed the hecklers had been planted, 131 students went on YouTube to prove their identity.

To say “Yo Soy 132”—“I am 132”—was to announce one’s solidarity with the

131 students. It became a way of saying, “I, too, am real. And so are my concerns.”

The initial video created by members of the movement—a brief voice-over of a newscaster at the event indicating that the students were well-trained acarreados (bussed-in protestors) and about eleven moving minutes of students speaking their names, showing their IDs, and reading their ID numbers—marked a watershed moment for (re)energizing students from a variety of public and private universities (“131 Alumnos”). The demonstration that led to the movement was a political performance to match that of the presidential candidate, and a video during which students from a variety of disciplines chanted slogans like “Atenco no se olvida” (Atenco won’t be forgotten), “Se ve, se siente, Enrique delincuente” (We see, we feel, Enrique is a criminal), and “La Ibero no te quiere” (Ibero doesn’t want you), became an online phenomenon (Villaverde). Many of the people who became 132s, joining the initial group of students by performing their own versions of resistance, were directly involved in theater. This individual participation morphed into groups like Teatro #yosoy132 UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico), which states on its Facebook page: “This space is for all the theater artists in the struggle. / What are you waiting for? / Art is our most powerful weapon” (see notes for original Spanish quotations).1 Other independent Mexican performance groups supported the movement, such as Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol, which included in a Berlin performance three sheets of paper, held by separate characters, which read “Ich Bin 132.” 2 The group #yosoy132 itself—in all its varied forms, and despite criticism that the group is without a uniform political platform—has continued to be active and represents, as did the political movements of 1968, a broader movement. Emiliano Treré explains: #YoSoy132 is part of a cycle of contention [. . .] that has shaken the world since

2011, from the Arab Spring to the Brazilian revolts. Like many of these uprisings,

Outside The ater  9

#YoSoy132 was mainly comprised of a young, urban, and networked middle class that successfully merged online and offline actions in order to fight against the

worn mechanisms of contemporary neoliberal democracies. Its original trait has

been situating the dangerous interconnections between media and politics as the central obstacle to the production of an informed and conscious citizenry. [It also represents] an occasion for young Mexican artists to apply their skills to the pro-

duction of graffiti, posters, and performances; many of these artistic productions also signal the power of civic media to travel beyond the technical limitations of the online realm and infiltrate other territories, as the creation of the HASHTAG magazine and other forms of art indicate.

Two of the key demands of the #yosoy132 movement are freedom of expression and the democratic dissemination of information, an idea that ties in with García Canclini’s above-mentioned view that, literally and metaphorically, art provides access to voices that other modes of expression cannot. This idea complements Raymond Williams’s concept of structures of feeling, which has been reworked in affect studies and remains useful for discussing the ability of theater and other art forms not only to be (potentially) inclusive of marginal voices but also to present emerging and often competing ideas that have not necessarily been articulated in other ways—previews, if you will, of possibilities to form creative, effective alliances to promote social good, especially through civic engagement. The enhanced access to myriad voices that García Canclini attributes to art, like Williams’s structures of feeling that emerge as harbingers in certain plays and performances, can easily be dismissed as ephemeral or worse by people with a range of beliefs—especially if their beliefs are tied to a specific political party and not to furthering civil society in general. And it is, of course, important to remember that performances are fleeting. But often their effects are not, and it is equally important to trace explicit connections between the theatrical stage and the other parts of the world we inhabit: the spaces that are beyond—or outside—theater. For this reason I underscore how the allies in the pages that follow are somehow connected to, but push, the walls of the theater—they contribute to a reality effect not in the Brechtian sense, which would refer to a realistic stage set, but in terms of an effect on the reality of spectators in a variety of venues, not to mention an impact on the performers themselves. Indeed, one of the many ways theater is transformative is through the evolution of the actors/ performers themselves as they constitute each other’s audiences. An illustration

10 introduc tion

of this idea is found in Gad Guterman’s reading of the play Los Illegals. In “Theatre of Inclusion: Michael Garcés’s Los Illegals and the Activation of Rights,” Guterman explains: [The play] reveals other ways in which theatre and performance intervene in

the (un)making of legal/illegal categories. Performance itself becomes a means to assert rights. Sonja Kuftinec allows that, beyond the collaborative nature of

theatre-making, the very act of public performance can prove empowering for

those under the limelight. Some of the actors in Cornerstone’s Los Illegals (the

cast consisted of 10 professional actors and 20 local laborers) indeed found the performance an occasion to defy disenfranchisement and abuse. “How many peo-

ple dream of standing up to bosses who take advantage of us but never do it?” asks María Refugio Jacinto (Yolanda). The play offers just that opportunity, if

only as a rehearsal for possible action. Cornerstone artist Lorena Moreno pro-

poses a related perspective, explaining that theatre can change an audience by first changing a participant’s consciousness. She believes that creating theatre provides

day laborers like herself “un aliento” (courage) to persevere. These shifts in con-

sciousness precipitated by performance, however slight, must necessarily alter the

performers’ self-perceptions as well as their relationships to others. A play about immigrant rights not only “become[s] buffer and balm” against harsh realities, as

a critic at the National Labor College convention observes. It also surfaces as a means to alter those realities. (8)

The performance need not include nonprofessional actors to achieve this effect, an effect that offers a slightly different view of changes the stage can bring about: actors are at times transformed along with spectators as opposed to “simply” and supposedly transforming them. Of course, we have all attended performances (on formal stages or elsewhere) that were anything but transformative. Still, most actors and spectators can speak of a time when, during or after a performance of one type or another, we had a dramatic shift in perspective, a personal, micro version of the epistemological breaks that Foucault develops in much of his writing. These ruptures allow for new ways of knowing, which, though not as dramatic or sweeping as historical ruptures à la Foucault, can be crucial as part of larger movements. Jill Dolan, following J. L. Austin, among others, describes a less radical—but no doubt more common—occurrence, which she terms utopian performatives: “small but profound moments in which performance calls the attention of the audience in a way that lifts everyone

Outside The ater  1 1

slightly above the present, into a hopeful feeling of what the world might be like if every moment of our lives were as emotionally voluminous, generous, aesthetically striking, and intersubjectively intense” (5). This intersubjectivity, of course, includes the actors on stage. Though not the focus of this book, the idea of the actor as spectator (and vice versa), which many have theorized, offers profound possibilities of overcoming our anxiety with the impact and reception of theater and performance. Dolan makes a convincing case for a space of potential epiphanies on the part of spectators and clarifies that, despite the use of “utopia” in the title of her book (Utopia in Performance), her “intent is not to provide a recipe or even a road map; creating or finding utopia in performance is of necessity idiosyncratic, spontaneous, and unpredictable.” She continues: “I know there are playwrights and performers whose work I’ll travel long distances to see, but even so, I can’t assure myself that any given experience at the theater will bring me one of those exquisite moments in which I feel charged, challenged, and reassured” (5). Marvin Carlson, aligning Dolan’s work with that of Erika Fischer-Lichte, places the two authors in complementary opposition to a more prevalent vein of performance studies in the United States, which has on the whole so far been oriented distinctly, and it must be admitted, very pro-

ductively toward pragmatic concerns and the use of performance to achieve certain specific social, cultural, personal, and rhetorical goals. In the formation of modern

American performance theory, aesthetics in general and theatre in particular have often been sidelined or outright rejected as areas of particular interest. (10)

I am profoundly concerned with the interactions of spectators and actors, and the work of Dolan, Fischer-Lichte, and many others inspires my interest in the hard-to-pin-down but nonetheless easy-to-recognize-in-the-moment communal connections among audiences and performers. Without a doubt, these moments inspire personal and collective transformations. At the same time, I have a strong affinity for road maps, pragmatic examples of the mechanics of civic engagement and, indeed, for performances that take place in, or that keep in view, the conventions of theater. As mentioned above, the idea of mapping the impact of theater and performance can be furthered in part by paying attention to the components of the Spanish verb lindar, which comes close to capturing the idea theater so often promotes: the crossing, or almost crossing, of boundaries, of sociopolitical

1 2 introduc tion

norms. Lindar implies proximity and restraint, affinity and apprehension, and hints at multiple other meanings related to pushing boundaries. This bordering is a main element of “outside theater,” where we often feel we are on the (blurred) edge of the stage, witnessing, or even participating in, something that flows beyond the stage and leads to dialogue—and civic participation—beyond the scripts and plotted scenes. Central to this idea is something I have experienced firsthand over the years: in outside theater there are (often overlooked) alliances, human/fictional connections that bridge life and art. These are people or groups who translate the tools of the (theatrical) trade to a different stage, outside the confines of the theater, or who play the part of (sometimes devious) fictional or real life Celestinas, matchmakers who unite seemingly disparate entities to promote social awareness—and sometimes social action—by working the borders between life and art. In the pages that follow, when I use an example from the formal theater, I focus on the political ties, or alliances, on and beyond the stage; when I focus on, say, a political protest, as I do in this introduction in order to provide a particularly concrete example of the tools of the trade on another stage, I trace the ties to the formal stage and link the activity to artistic allies such as theater practitioners. While there are many explicit links between the theatrical and the political stages, tracing the not immediately obvious connections underscores the ties that bind the world around us to the specific artistic endeavors that make us human; and focusing on alliances— among artists, activists, students, politicians, etc.—offers a window onto strategies for fruitful, deliberate, concrete cooperation. Alliances between national governments play a role in some of the following chapters, for example in my analyses of Luis Mario Moncada’s 9 días de guerra en Facebook and Luis Valdez’s play Zoot Suit, where nation-state alliances (Israel and Mexico in the first case; Mexico and the United States in the second) are important to the plot—and to our understanding of strategies for collaboration. Still, my focus is on people and groups whose power comes not from military might but from the conviction that, as the Chilean protest song, adopted worldwide but especially in Latin America, goes, “el pueblo unido jamás será vencido” (the people, united, will never be divided). With one or two exceptions, the multiple examples I use in this book center on or are staged in Mexico City, the area I know best, yet are easily applicable to many social contexts—as is most political theater. Indeed, you can ask anyone on any street in almost any country about involvement in innovative political activity and they will tell you about a dramatic past. Maybe they have role-played or acted in high school

Outside The ater  1 3

plays under the direction of an eager director, or been taken to the theater by their parents. Many have had another level of exposure to the world of political performances through their family’s or their own social activism, watching or participating in flash mobs, watching or staging virtual protests on YouTube, or, in some cases, working with social organizations that explicitly or implicitly incorporate civically engaged theater activism into their training sessions, linking the stage to everyday life. The tension provided by tracing these connections between the theatrical stage and other closely related performances, and the allies that bind the two, is crucial to this project: in doing so I affirm the powerful, dynamic impact that theater has in society without becoming (completely) lost either in the theatrics of everyday life or in the immobile (if comfortable) seats of a theater. The allied performances that exemplify outside theater may or may not break the fourth wall, but they always connect explicitly to a reality beyond the stage, often through a person or group of people who serve in one way or another as political allies. They also demand that we remove ourselves from enthralling works of fiction (whether of solely traditional stages or of the political stage) in order to observe others, or even ourselves, as referents in a moment of change. In short, in addition to outside theater designating a connection to the literal or figurative stage, it relies on our own ability as spectators to be outsiders who see the world around us as malleable, even though we still, of course, must (re)enter the scene of life to take up our given (if also malleable) roles. Thus, some performances are “outside” in the sense that their alliances with the world beyond the stage provide evidence of the influence theater has on daily life. Examples of performances that take place outside, literally, can also be particularly useful in understanding connections to theatrical stages. Performances on the streets, at universities, at public meetings, or on Mexico’s enormous main square allow for a better understanding of the concept. A political performance on this square—the Zócalo—by the Mexico City performance artist Jesusa Rodríguez, about whom I wrote a chapter for the book Mexican Public Intellectuals, is an example par excellence of the power of teatreros beyond but intimately connected to the stage. Jesusa, as she is known, was very explicit in drawing the connection between her stagecraft and her work for the presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Indeed, it was in part through interviews with Jesusa that the value of tracing theatrical alliances became clear to me. Jesusa’s political cabaret, in the posh Coyoacán section of Mexico City, was removed from much of the gritty reality of Mexico City but

14 introduc tion

not from the most salient topics of the day, and she made a successful long-term career of skewering the keepers of the (conservative) status quo. Rodríguez told Mark and Blanca Kelty, in 1997, that her work in political cabaret is “not an escape; on the contrary, it is confronting what you have most wanted to elude, what you didn’t want to look at, what you didn’t want to notice. And cabaret theater makes you say, ‘This is what you are living’ ” (“Interview” 124).3 However, the 2006 presidential election, whose official winner was Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Action Party, led her to conclude that some of her work must take place on a larger stage: “When the electoral fraud occurred, it was completely clear that those [of us] who dedicate ourselves to culture had to dedicate our work, or at least part of our work, to the civil resistance” (Personal interview). In other words, after years of political commitment characterized by sharp and effective criticism in the relative safety of her cabaret pieces, which doubtless had an impact on/helped solidify middle- and upper-class, progressive opinions, she decided to take to the streets—literally—and work as a set designer for the presidential campaign. By becoming a more explicit political ally, a member of the civil resistance, which protested against the electoral fraud, she stepped—or leaped—into another arena. An anecdote about Augusto Boal brought to my attention by the Costa Rican scholar Gina Sandi-Díaz helps explain the potential implications of a move from performance to more direct political activism. Jan Cohen-Cruz relates that while [p]erforming for peasants in rural Brazil, Boal’s middle-class actors ended an agit-prop play by lifting their prop rifles over their heads and calling for revolution. The peasant leader invited them all to eat together and then take up arms

against the local landowner. Boal was ashamed; he and his actors were not prepared to fight but were telling other people to do so. (14)

As would Boal, Jesusa has shown that she is willing to engage beyond the usual venues, in political performances where words and images are powerful, peaceful proxies for the rifles of revolution. Jesusa insists that her direct political activities are not theater, and while she recognizes the link between the cabaret space and the national stage, she also emphasizes the radical change that her work with López Obrador implied: More than an extension, I would say that it’s an absolute change to go beyond the cabaret—political farce created in an enclosed stage—and to take this work to its

Outside The ater  1 5

true setting, which is the street and the plaza. Then we can really say that it passes

from one plane to another—completely different—where theater has direct political consequences, something that, as much as one tries, is not going to happen in

the enclosed space of the cabaret. It’s like talking about the map and talking about the land; we have now moved to the land. (Personal interview)

For Jesusa the move from the map provides a grounding that is an intellectual necessity—anything else would make her feel like an intellectual fraud. When she speaks of taking her work to its “true” setting, she points to origins that can be traced to both Europe and pre-Columbian Mexico but that share a common trait: performances that could take place anywhere from a palace to a makeshift stage in a tent to a dusty street corner. The years Jesusa spent in her cabaret space were part of a loosely linked, multifaceted progressive movement that has brought positive change to Mexico. In the same way that a teacher’s impact is subtle and takes time to ferment (we often identify influential teachers and mentors long after we have lost contact with them), plays and political sketches make us think, particularly when they exaggerate and reflect our ways of being in a manner that allows us to laugh but also to reevaluate our actions. There is something different, however, about the artist who stays in her performance space and one who—through the airwaves, or on street corners, or at mass demonstrations—questions more directly the power structures that define her social context. Along these lines Henry Giroux writes that the best work in [. . .] cultural politics challenges the culture of political avoidance

while demonstrating how intellectuals might live up to the historical responsibility they bear in bridging the relationship between theoretical rigor and social rele-

vance, social criticism and practical politics, individual scholarship and pedagogy, as part of a broader commitment to defending democratic societies. (14)

The type of work Jesusa performed as a stage designer for a political campaign (among her many forays into the world of political engagement) makes her an excellent example—much more explicit than many cases to follow, which is why I include it here—of an ally who crosses the edge of the stage to use her knowledge of the theater world in a new venue, a venue directly engaged with the democratic process in Mexico. Dwight Conquergood writes that “de Certeau’s aphorism ‘what the map cuts up, the story cuts across’ [. . .] points to transgressive travel between two different domains of knowledge: one official,

16 introduc tion

objective, and abstract—‘the map’; the other one practical, embodied, and popular—‘the story’ ” ( 311). When Jesusa affirms that she and her business/life/ performance partner Liliana Felipe have left the confines of the map, moving closer to embodied experiences, she points to a way of engaging Mexico and Mexicans that has led to sharp criticism. Indeed, Jesusa has been categorized by numerous and colorful adjectives by those who do not agree with her political stance, her social commitment. These adjectives have, in the end, one meaning: loca, the feminine form of “crazy,” a sure sign that her work successfully pushes the boundaries of societal norms. Outside theater also refers to the activities of writers and performers that signal them as outsiders, creators or characters who often find themselves, to one degree or another, on the edge of acceptable discourse, pushing the limits of social norms—even if in doing so they become more visible, not less so. But it is important to signal that outside theater is decidedly not a space that is itself transformed, not a space (conceptual or physical) that will become more and more removed from the theater as it morphs into something new. It is not on its way to something new, but allows for new ideas that can be spread broadly. Think of intermissions in small, urban theaters where patrons spill into the lobby or onto the sidewalk between acts. Fiction and night air (or the smell of coffee and cigarettes) mingle, two realities mix, with the magic of the theater lingering as conversations begin. Thus, the products of this real and metaphorical space just beyond the walls of the theater might be innovative, but as a conceptual space it is steady. The conversations that take place there often appear mundane, yet conversations, as many an aphorism reminds us, are often the seeds of social change. Think also of the street performances or political protests we happen upon, in big cities and small. More often than not there is a connection to a specific theater (a theater within view, a familiar face ghosted from a recent play, props that seem to have come directly from backstage, or clothing and ways of moving and engaging passersby in ways that shout “theater!”). Outside theater implies this intimate connection to the theater, to the space of the theater; it also often borders on performance studies, though through it I seek to highlight the lines that unite and strengthen the ties between formal and informal stages—not the opposite. This is crucial because it is the tension the stage itself engenders that gives performances a powerful life beyond the stage. The interstices are therefore what interest me: the muddled area between life and art that produces fruitful dialogue and a certain optimism amid the ruins of recent decades, decades marked by domestic and foreign wars that scarred,

Outside The ater  17

and continue to scar, Mexico and the United States but that also reinforce our shared future. People are at the heart of the movement from theater to outside theater and (sometimes) back. Practitioners can be found using stagecraft to plan a political rally and on a stage reciting Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s Primero Sueño, as was the case with Jesusa. Outside theater accounts, to the degree possible, for the people who both verbally and physically disrupt the status quo, making the unheard heard and the invisible visible. Mexican and U.S. academics tend to focus on either the body or the text—both are fertile and necessary endeavors. On the one hand, think of the work of the U.S.-based literary critic Priscilla Meléndez, whose sophisticated textual analyses are remarkably insightful, an indication that despite being labeled “traditional,” literary studies illuminate art and remind us that the solitary role of the reader is as important to our societies as the role of more communal practices; on the other hand, think of the recent work of the Mexico City-based researcher and professor Ileana Diéguez, whose writing on bodies, violence, and performance has helped to explain the impact of bloodshed on the Mexican people. Just as the subject of this book borders both writing and performance, so does my approach. Many of the theoretical ideas underpinning this project are borrowed from writers who see life as performance. The field of performance studies, in part, flows from the concept of theatrum mundi, as in “all the world’s a stage,” though my interest lies specifically in self-conscious or “marked” performances—actions and objects meant to be viewed, meant to send messages (Schechner). Thus a political performance, say a politician’s speech or a heated session of Congress (with verbal and sometimes physical confrontations that can seem as staged as any play), with all their obvious and interesting performance ties, are beyond the scope of this study. The lens of performance studies can be focused on multiple manifestations of culture; outside theater seeks to have the best of both worlds: irreverence on the formal stage that relates to the “street.” Richard Schechner explains the affinities of performance studies: “As a field, performance studies is sympathetic to the avant-garde, the marginal, the offbeat, the minoritarian, the subversive, the twisted, the queer, people of color, and the formerly colonized” (4). Schechner’s words convey the sometimes patronizing attitude we put forward in performance studies, but at the same time they articulate the possibility that performance studies, as a loose conglomeration of aligned academic practices, offers opportunities to cross boundaries and become allies in social struggles. Writing about the theater/performance studies divide in the postscript to the

18 introduc tion

book Theater Historiography: Critical Interventions, Henry Bial asks, “Can we talk about something else?” His question relates to the performance studies wedge, to use Diana Taylor’s term, that freed academic and performance practitioners from the clutches of traditional theater practice. Bial writes that people “still question the centrality of performance studies to the theory, practice, and pedagogy of theater history. Conversely, though performance studies as an emergent field no longer defines itself by its opposition to theater history, such history is often relegated to the margins of a ‘broad-spectrum’ approach” (280).4 The people I focus on in this book (performance artists, actors, writers, teachers) connect theater and performance in unique ways, and in doing so strengthen ties between the two areas and free academics and others to pursue lines of investigation that cut across both. Of course, my primary interest is not to map the blending of academic fields but to identify the ways that people move to and from theater spaces in order to cross-pollinate ideas for social change—a practice that is often intertwined with performances not generally classified as theater. Many times this involves using the most potent instrument they have (the voice) and making their physical presence known by putting their bodies on the line, like the activist high school students in Tucson, Arizona, who successfully protested the banning of Shakespeare’s The Tempest from their high school curriculum. The marginal voices to which García Canclini refers above, the ones that literature and other forms of art can make audible, are complemented in theater and performance by bodies that communicate and, as is often the case in outside theater, let the uncountable be counted, and not simply through words. Bodies on picket lines, bodies that occupy public spaces, incarcerated bodies, bodies adorned with zoot-suiter “drapes,” bodies baked by the sun, bodies that become Internet avatars, bodies on the traditional stage that defy conventions and promote dangerous alliances, dangerous border crossings. In Mexico City, some of these border crossings (real or perceived) relate to geographical borders—there are areas of the city that people avoid if possible. Yet there was no indication that one of Mexico’s most successful writers, Luis Mario Moncada, whose play and performance piece I address in chapter 4, felt as though he were headed into dangerous territory on the day we went to a play at a new theater space in a neighborhood with a reputation for being seedy and violent. Indeed, he pointed out that he had lived in the neighborhood and signaled familiar haunts near the theater space, Carretera 45. Notwithstanding the many obstacles that confront teatreros, including crime and corruption, not only is theater as vibrant as ever before but new incursions into parts of the city offer

Outside The ater  19

a revived means to reach out to people who do not always see actors on stage. The teatro de barrio (neighborhood theater) Carretera 45, in the aptly named Colonia Obrera, or worker’s neighborhood, attracts the usual theatergoing public but also generates interest in the neighborhood and has served as a forum to introduce, for instance, homeless youth to theater, erasing to a degree the boundaries between art and community. The artistic director of Carretera 45, successful teatrero Antonio Zúñiga, explains the recent decision to use the tools he has learned through the theater to reach out to neighborhood residents: “[B]ecause of the area where the Centro Cultural Carretera 45 is located, I try to have a relationship with the transvestites, and male and female sex workers, with the goal of managing, for the beginning of next year, to do a show that brings together their reality and theatrical fiction” (qtd. in Paul, “Compañía”).5 Zúñiga, like so many others, including the members of his theater group, has moved to Mexico’s power center in order make his way in the national theater scene. He and his collaborators could be considered outsiders; they came from Ciudad Juárez over a decade ago with a simple goal: “to reach the ‘virgin’ spectator, to create new publics and involve the local community in different artistic and theatrical activities, explains Zúñiga” (Paul, “Comienzan”).6 Concurrent with this gravitation toward the power center of the country, in his own work Zúñiga has decentered the theater world in much the same way others before him did (e.g., Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda, also a successful playwright from northern Mexico): one of Zúñiga’s plays, for example, was recently staged close to the city center but worlds apart from main theater venues. It was a revolutionary reformulation of Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, called Mendoza, staged at a small theater in the dark streets behind the Zócalo. The space, called A poco no . . . , is in the heart of Mexico City but produced (in this case) a play about a northern general in the Mexican Revolution written by a playwright from Chihuahua—and based on Macbeth. Still, despite the increase in neighborhood theaters and other forms of decentralization, it is easy to conclude that high ticket prices and lack of access make it impossible for a play to have an impact on more than a fraction of the population, albeit a potentially powerful one (think of the politicians who attend political cabaret in Mexico City to see themselves parodied). Many of the examples in this book can be seen as elitist in that they take place in and cater to the center. But many students who attend plays at the UNAM, to give one example, do so at a public institution in a country where student discounts for performances, not to mention discounts for senior citizens and teachers, are

20 introduc tion

standard. Groups like Zúñiga’s even produce theater in subway stations. And the most central, prominent Mexico City authors like Sabina Berman regularly decenter our ideas. From her travels to Juárez to research and film Backyard/ Traspatio (Mexico’s selection for the 2009 Oscars and the subject of chapter 5) to her gender-bending plays, Berman’s work is always off-center and always uncovers ironic discontinuities even as it creates them. Several years ago at Miami University of Ohio, Berman and I commented that it was rather ironic to find Rodolfo Usigli’s archives at a U.S. university, since one of the main themes of his signature play, El gesticulador, is the intended purchase of revolutionary documents by an unscrupulous Harvard professor. But Berman was not surprised. After all, Usigli’s theater is rife with irony, which is in turn a central part of the craft. Indeed, as an outsider studying Mexican theater, it sometimes seems like I am trapped on a set as a character who suffers the effects, not of the “situational” irony exemplified by the location of Usigli’s archives, but of dramatic irony, sometimes called tragic irony, where the audience has more information than the characters, who lack knowledge of their fate as they careen toward whatever tragic outcome might await them. Yet it is worth affirming that outsiders’ perspectives can make incongruences more visible, for example, and thus contribute meaningfully to ongoing conversations about Mexican theater. The power of Mexican theater crosses borders and affects our understanding not only of Mexico but also of the United States, and of course there are times when Mexicans do not know as much about the theater scene as those of us who, as outsiders, take regular trips and see one or two plays a day—guided not only by the multitude of online sources that have largely replaced magazines like Tiempo libre but also, for example, by Timothy Compton’s yearly Mexican theater write-up in the Latin American Theatre Review. Outsiders are also, of course, always already a key component of outside theater, for better and for worse. Also for better and worse, in outside theater we find fictional and real-life agitators—outside agitators, or people who are labeled as such, generally by the conservative media and governments keen on reducing autochthonous authority and diffusing subversive power. By turning the phrase “outside agitators” on its head, and extending its definition, the possibility of tracing subversive activity that might offer insight into social change in Mexico and beyond becomes viable. Many so-called outside agitators serve as critical allies who link two or more groups but step out of their roles to undermine the status quo—and to fight for their right to engage socially. Think

Outside The ater  21

of alliances in Luis Valdez’s play Zoot Suit, which takes place during World War II. The play underscores the diplomacy required to attack Mexican youth in the street of Los Angeles without offending (too much) our war allies in Mexico, the alliances between Okies and Pachucos, and many other issues. A more productive focus, however, is on Alice, the outside agitator based on the story of a controversial flesh-and-blood social activist whose activities were closely monitored by the U.S. government. When this play is staged in Mexico City, as I will explain below and in chapter 3, old and new alliances become visible. This positive visibility—that is, making visible progressive alliances, even ones that are rife with issues of power—is often at odds, as we’ll see in the following chapters, with a Foucauldian version of the Panopticon: characters (and often real-life teatreros) in many instances operate under the watchful eye of businesses, governments, or narcotraffickers. Low- and high-tech surveillance often accompanies private and public attempts to monitor citizens, a topic that is woven through various sections of this study. Mexico, and especially Mexico City, is no exception when it comes to monitoring activity. Daniel Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times writes, “The cameras, officials said, are designed to automatically spot anomalies on the streets of the D.F., as this city is called for short. Cameras would alert staff at the C4I4, for instance, if a car was going the wrong way down a major avenue, or if a group of people was detected suddenly moving or running at once.”  The C4I4 is a massive surveillance center fed by 13,000 cameras, in a system based on those in London and New York (Hernandez), and the results are indeed impressive—and unbelievable in a city with so many millions of inhabitants that is seemingly so chaotic. Soon after a group of young people from a poor section of Mexico City were abducted in the Zona Rosa at the bar Heaven, a series of photographs traced the vans ostensibly used in the abductions from intersection to intersection, providing useful clues but also a reminder that Big Brother is watching in Mexico, too. This raises the following question: Are there other forms of social intervention that involve investments in people and not cameras? The obvious answer is yes, as seen in the case of Medellín, Colombia, which I address in my conclusion. Investment in art and libraries—as in Medellín—does make a difference, and in Mexico there is no dearth of art and citizen-friendly infrastructure that makes a notable difference. Of the many examples I have documented, one will suffice: At first, a bright red and yellow metal workout station beneath a formerly depressed underpass, with traffic and fumes surrounding the exercise oasis, seems absurd. But then

22 introduc tion

you see signs of regeneration without gentrification, in this case in the form of poor and working-class youth, mostly men, using the equipment, exercising and joking around. The unmonitored placement of the equipment is effective, especially when combined with an emphasis on giving residents what they want: urban opportunities for outdoor recreation that are open to all. There are no video cameras in sight, though of course there could be (the uncertainty is the power of the Panopticon). And just as the state watches, it desires to be watched. Diana Taylor writes in Theatre of Crisis about the double-edged sword of spectacles: Theatre and theatricality have traditionally supported the ideologies of those in

power, not because they are inherently conservative but rather because the pow-

erful have generally been able to control most public displays, including theatre. Economic and social factors, indirectly and directly, determine authority—the

production of texts and performances: who has the time and status to write for the public, who publishes or performs the texts, which dramatists are deemed

relevant and important, who is canonized as a “master,” who attends the performances or reads the texts, and so forth. Clearly, as Edward Said repeatedly

stresses in The World, the Text, and the Critic (11), “culture is a system of exclusions.” However, the instability of the theatrical phenomenon also helps oppositional practitioners in their use of antihegemonic spectacle. [. . .] So too the oppressed can take up public spectacle to rally support, sympathy, and legitimacy for their

position, as attested by the weekly vigils of the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo during Argentina’s “Dirty War.” (5, emphasis in original)

Public counterhegemonic performances are often effective in Mexico, though the public’s patience with demonstrations that close off sections of the city wears thin. Even the massive demonstrations after the 2006 presidential elections, when López Obrador staged a parallel presidency and attracted hundreds of thousands of protestors to the Zócalo, it was unclear the degree to which people were empowered to effect change. Perhaps they were empowered not solely by López Obrador’s broad movement but also by multiple, smallscale efforts to engage citizens. It is noteworthy that Mexico’s most successful teatreros can be found both in the center and on the periphery, and that they form multiple micro- and macroalliances to buttress civil society. The title of this book, Outside Theater: Alliances That Shape Mexico, represents an optimistic goal: to make visible these alliances, alliances that meld fact and

Outside The ater  23

fiction in order to highlight the (mostly) positive forces emanating from one corner of the art world, and to offer concrete strategies from a variety of performances that promote individual and collective empowerment that can, in turn, promote a robust civil society. Thus each chapter explores the topic of artistic alliances from different angles that form the basis of an artistic repertoire for civic engagement. Chapter 1, “Allies in 1822: Humoring the Limits of Colonial Mexico,” offers the perfect example of an admittedly imperfect historical ally who proves equally interesting on the contemporary stage as he did in the colonial era. Padre Teresa de Mier comes to life in Flavio González Mello’s play 1822: El año que fuimos imperio, a hit play first staged in 2002 that explores the powerful vestiges of colonialism after ties with Spain were officially, but incompletely, severed. The play brings to the stage a variety of characters including the historical Agustín de Iturbide, Mexico’s emperor in 1822–23, and Fray Servando Teresa de Mier, a priest and complex ally of Mexican Independence (and an ally of the present-day playwright, who resuscitates him to expose and question religious imagery in politics) who questioned an event that justified conquest: the timing and circumstances, if not the veracity, of the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The apparition had a complex relationship with the movement toward Independence. Mier, the play’s main character, performs as a social ally within the church, demonstrating the effectiveness of humor and wit as political weapons in the public sphere. If the historical Mier was an ally of progress, so too is the play’s author: in bringing Mier to life on the contemporary stage, González Mello links himself with a version of the past that serves to remind the audience of the contours of history and of the many roles history plays in present-day Mexico. To open the past in a theater is to uncover fissures that are too often forgotten, and it is precisely the fissures—the holes in the story, so to speak—that remind us that change is possible. In 1822 Mier is shown to be an effective insider/outsider ally—a key position for people who promote change from within Mexico’s institutions. He fights the corruption of ideas and, via the play’s author, allies past and present to enrich our understanding of both. Chapter 2, “Performing the Porfiriato: Federico Gamboa and Allied Negotiation,” discusses another play with a character who shares an inside/outside perspective the way Padre Mier did. Equally interesting is the author, Federico Gamboa, who was a loyal Porfirian ally and managed—as many did—to carve out a space within the dictatorship for his own artistic and social vision, a vision that highlights political conciliation as a worthwhile strategy to gain access to an audience capable of recognizing social disparities and, at times, of acting

24 introduc tion

to mitigate them. The life of Gamboa, an author (best known for his novel Santa), diplomat, professor, and public figure who literally stood by Porfirio Díaz until the end, offers an intriguing view of the negotiation of power that was often performed, in playhouses as well as on the national stage, during the Porfiriato. In this chapter, I investigate, through an examination of Gamboa’s play La venganza de la gleba (The Revenge of the Earth), as well as his diaries and some examples of the Porfiriato’s performances, the question whether the various “masks” donned by the characters in Gamboa’s play—and by Gamboa himself—in the context of Porfirian hegemony are an illustration of the idea that “those obliged by domination to act a mask will eventually find that their faces have grown to fit that mask” (Scott 10), or whether we can locate a more radical potential behind the mask. I suggest that we can read productively back and forth between the characters’ various negotiations and mask wearing in Venganza and Gamboa’s similar negotiations and instances of diplomacy within the political system; this reading strategy reveals the strategic and sometimes coded ways in which allies can operate. I ask two questions: Do the masks acted by the characters in Gamboa’s La venganza de la gleba—or the masks acted by Gamboa himself—fit the faces they cover? That is, do years of domination control thought itself (false consciousness), or does one negotiate knowingly in order to navigate the prevailing power structure? By looking at negotiation and diplomacy on both the theatrical and the national stage, I shed light on a powerful strategy theater offers to the practitioner: the ability to gain the upper hand through dialogue and not violence, even in the most heated, oppressive scenarios. The third chapter, “Zoot Suit Allies and the ‘Arizona Law,’ ” details the 2010 Mexico City production of Luis Valdez’s iconic Chicano play, showing another multilayered example of people and characters who are strategic allies, paying particular attention to the characters Alice Bloomfield and George Shearer, modeled after two of the many key defenders of the youth arrested for a murder at Sleepy Lagoon in wartime Los Angeles. Additionally, on an extradiegetic level, Alma Martinez, the actor who played roles in both major productions of the play and the movie, and Luis Valdez, the author, are two allies whose work I highlight for their impressive transnational cooperation in bringing a Chicano play to Mexico City. In the case of Zoot Suit we see examples of allies for social renewal in both the content and the reception of play. Revisiting the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial and the signing of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, SB1070, as well as the restaging of Zoot Suit in Mexico City, leads me to address the

Outside The ater  25

following questions: How did a twenty-first-century Arizona murder provide a new lens for reading Luis Valdez’s play, and, more importantly, how can this new reading become part of a blueprint for cross-ethnic and cross-border forms of ally-ship that work toward social change? The play warns against the power of the press and fear-driven hysteria, documenting abuse and at the same time providing a model for social activism tied to the performance of ethnicity. It also offers an excellent view of the changes that have occurred in the intellectual communities in Mexico and in the United States, a theme that comes to light through my interviews with Alma Martinez, who speaks of two separate forums, separated by decades, at which members of the Teatro Campesino interacted with Mexican and other Latin American intellectuals—with very different results. As many critics have pointed out, Valdez’s original Zoot Suit contested not only U.S. racism but also the Mexican view (expressed most famously by Octavio Paz) that Mexican American kids were anathema to Mexican values. The 2010 production of the play in Mexico City, directed by Valdez and produced by the Centro Universitario de Teatro, provided a fresh perspective through which Mexico City audiences could sympathize (if not empathize) with U.S. Chicanos at a crucial time when anti-immigrant legislation and racist rhetoric in the United States were particularly targeting those of Mexican origin (whether recent or not so recent). The 2010 staging shows different, emerging Mexico City attitudes toward Mexican migrants residing in the United States that represent a more transnational, symbiotic relationship between Mexicans in Mexico and Mexicans in the United States. “Moderating the ‘Ignorant Masses’ and the Emergence of Internet Allies,” the fourth chapter, treats a highly successful play—Luis Mario Moncada’s 9 días de guerra en Facebook—that underscores the uncanny ability of theater to foment dialogue and to form sociopolitical alliances, despite the chaos that apparently characterizes much of reality—or in this case a virtual extension of reality. In order to understand the possibility of positive dialogue in chaotic scenarios, it is imperative to acknowledge the chaos of the city, which extends to the virtual space of the Internet, and, equally important, to discover the ironically impeccable order that can be discovered underneath or even alongside chaos. While chaos can be counterhegemonic (think of de Certeau’s “Walking in the City” and the subsequent reformulations of his ideas), and the fissures in social control can represent opportunities to promote change, there are also rules—written and unwritten, public and private—that govern virtual spaces. Moncada’s

26 introduc tion

play takes on not only the Israel/Palestine conflict but also the topic of Internet dialogue—and the possibility for marginal voices to be heard despite the harmful noise that bots, trolls, and verbal/visual violence creates. Numerous Mexican intellectuals have bemoaned the chaotic democratization of the Internet—they fight for an inclusive society but find that for them it has, or rather should have, its limits. At its core, 9 días de guerra en Facebook represents the “uncultured masses” (many of whom are highly educated) who, to the chagrin of powerful Mexican intellectuals from across the political spectrum, mold virtual spaces to their needs and use them to foster meaningful conversations. The characters use real and virtual space to make social connections, albeit connections fraught with the vicissitudes of contemporary life, and, more importantly, to humanize socially or politically marginal figures. The play 9 días de guerra en Facebook denaturalizes Internet conversations and along the way humanizes characters in a way that makes it particularly easy to make real-world connections. The way we become anesthetized to war mirrors the way the Internet makes it easy to attack enemies without considering their humanity. In the real world the anesthesia can be seen in any country, and any war. One U.S. example serves to show that the humanization in 9 días de guerra en Facebook has—or should have—far-reaching implications, and that war knows few borders. Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, who massacred innocent Afghan civilians, offers insight into the horrors that dehumanization can produce: “Over his combat tours he came to hate ‘everyone who isn’t American,’ he wrote, and he became suspicious of local residents who might be supportive of those fighting Americans. ‘I became callous to them even being human; they were all enemy. Guilt and fear are with you day and night. Over time your experiences solidify your prejudice,’ he wrote” (Associated Press). This downward spiral—military personnel become dehumanized cogs in the machine, and in turn dehumanize the “enemy”—is the most disturbing topic of this book. For this reason, however, it offers the most viable opportunity to harness the power of the arts and other fields that at their best emphasize our commonalities, offering “peoples’ histories,” as Howard Zinn did with his widely read history of the United States. Moncada’s play faces head-on the challenge of peaceful, humanizing dialogue and—knowingly or not—addresses a topic that was emerging at the time and continues to challenge those who promote social change: the power of the Internet to encourage activist allies. Moncada employs allegiances to Israel or Palestine as a case study of Internet censorship, the civic opportunities presented by chaotic disruptions in dialogue, and ultimately the

Outside The ater  27

possibility that much-maligned social media is the strongest possible ally for social movements. Chapter 5, “Documentary Allies: Sabina Berman and Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda,” treats, first, Mexico’s foremost living playwright (and producer, TV personality, novelist) and the characters she stages, characters who bridge social divides as allies for social change who combine their verbal prowess with tools of power (guns, testosterone, narcotrafficking, neoliberal politics) in order to realign conversations in Mexico, conversations that often center on power and morality. While Berman is known for her laugh-out-loud humor, it is the (re) production of gendered violence that stands out when her work is viewed as a whole. Like the mustache in her famous vignette “El bigote” (The Moustache), which can be traded by two characters depending on their desire to exhibit masculine or feminine traits, violence in her play El Narco negocia con Dios (not to mention many other pieces she has penned) and her film Backyard/Traspatio is transferable and resides not solely in the hands of those who are evil. With a nuanced approach to good and evil, Berman denounces violence through her work but, at the same time, manages to leave space for verbal and physical debates on, for example, the complicity of average citizens in Mexico’s extended social crisis. And if we allow for a definition of humor that includes biting irony and crushing parody, we can understand better both Berman’s work and tools for survival in situations where “screw or be screwed” is the motto of the day. In the film Backyard/Traspatio the role of fictional allies is strong: characters who take a stand in one way or another to improve the situation in Juárez, as well as real-life allies, including the author herself, and human rights workers on the Mexico-U.S. border. It also allows for a discussion of what it means (for Berman, who is from Mexico City, for international human rights workers from around the globe) to travel to Ciudad Juárez, the Mexican city that borders El Paso, Texas, in order to assist victims of violence against women. The idea of privilege, also seen in the character Alice in Zoot Suit, is useful to interrogate the often-blurred connections among artists/activists/victims. If it is true that incursions into crimes in Ciudad Juárez by “outside agitators” of all types are stymied by hierarchies of power, as are all of the relationships in the chapters that follow, it is also true that to stand by and do nothing is the greater denial of the voices of the oppressed. Of the many examples of allies in Berman’s work, perhaps the most powerful is the real-life Ester Chávez, a human rights worker who became an ally and public (sphere) intellectual through work to prevent violence in Ciudad Juárez, and who became a central character in Backyard/Traspatio.

28 introduc tion

The second section of chapter 5 serves as a bridge to the book’s conclusion through an analysis of the allies in Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda’s La mujer que cayó del cielo, a play about a Rarámuri (Tarahumara) woman, Rita, who by all accounts walked from northern Mexico to the United States, where she was incarcerated in the Larned, Kansas, mental hospital for over a decade: the authorities did not properly identify her origin and medicated her into the category of mentally insane. There are many angles from which to analyze the play, for example by looking at the relationship between language (the play employs three) and otherness. Yet the allies in the play—a bilingual (English-Spanish) student who is able to communicate some with Rita, who is the main character, and an Arizona professor who is brought via telephone to interpret Rarámuri— offer insight into the complexities of projects that affect the lives of subaltern people. Indeed, the play is an ideal case study in privilege, university-related activism, and, sadly, the ever-present possibility that the justice we pursue may or may not better the lives of the people we see ourselves as helping. The concluding chapter, “ ‘A Veces el Pato Nada’: Educational Allies and Tools for Change,” addresses the possibility of (civic) abundance in Mexico by highlighting the tools for change represented in the pages of this book, which include negotiation, satirical reframing, alignment with power structures, and online activism. I do this after proposing one more alliance—that of U.S. university professors, (imperfect) allies who engage Latin American and Latino theater in the classroom and beyond. Similar to Tucson’s high school teachers, U.S. university academics employ a range of classroom and extracurricular tools as they bring Latin American and Latino theater to life. From close readings of dramatic texts, some canonical and some hot off the stage (e-mailed from authors or directors to well-connected professors in the United States or purchased through Amazon), to staging scenes of plays as part of daily coursework or supporting full-scale productions, at their best professors do what few others can do: they bring specific, distant contexts to life, sometimes putting bodies on stage to resuscitate experiences that would otherwise be out of reach, both geographically and historically. In the first section of the chapter I study universities in the United States where professors help their students to become spect-actors, to use Boal’s term, taking part in a process instead of playing the static role of passerby. Concrete examples illustrate the kinds of activities that take place, in part, outside the traditional venues of theater and to consider the role of professors and students at public and private elite universities in the shaping of allies. At Cornell

Outside The ater  29

University, Debra A. Castillo founded the group Teatrotaller, which, as the name indicates, workshops plays and takes them to the university stage as fullscale, student productions. Castillo’s group has also made a specific effort to engage the Latino community in upstate New York. Beatriz Rizk, at Miami Dade, works with Teatro Avante to bring full-scale productions to Miami residents. While the audiences for college plays, which sometimes but not always find spectators beyond the ivory tower, are important, if ephemeral, these examples are also crucial to highlight the above-mentioned transformative power of theater for those involved in staging a play. Through the embodiment of roles that would otherwise be left to the imagination, students are transformed—at the very least temporarily—into someone else and into a new version of themselves. Even scholarship students at a place like Cornell are privileged, and the idea that they might be changed through theater—much like farmworkers who played roles in the actos of the Teatro Campesino—is a reminder that “outside agitators” who take stock of their position in the social structure can be allies for social justice. In the second section of this concluding chapter, I work to bring together strategies that illustrate key aspects of the vast repertoire of tools for social change exemplified and employed in Mexican theater and performance. One can ask: How does one compete with billions of illicit narcotics dollars and arms that flow from the United States to Mexico and the insidious corruption and violence at all levels that this money brings with it? But things can and do change, sometimes enough to make us take note. Sometimes things go our way, so to speak. This is an idea communicated brilliantly by the Mexican playwright Alejandro Ricaño, in his play Más pequeños que el Guggenheim, through an abridged version of the popular refrain, “A veces el pato nada y a veces ni agua bebe” (Sometimes the duck swims and sometimes it doesn’t even drink water), which speaks to the possibility of abundance amid scarcity—or, more pertinent to my study, of potential progress in the face of a sustained crisis. The play has been a tremendous hit for Ricaño, a young playwright from Xalapa, a university town and theater hub east of Mexico City in the state of Veracruz. Unlike the unsuccessful characters in the (meta)play, who cannot bring their own play to fruition, Ricaño has enjoyed significant success in Mexico and abroad for plays like Más pequeños que el Guggenheim, Timboctou, and Idiotas contemplando la nieve. “A veces el pato nada” is both a commentary on the truncated lives of the characters, as Jacqueline Bixler asserts, as well as a reminder that there are myriad options for voicing ideas (the characters use the refrain to comment on

30 introduc tion

various and sundry topics). The phrase also points to the need for surrogates, to use Joseph Roach’s term, to complete it—it always already demands dialogue and participation in creation—as evidenced by the different ways characters interpret the refrain. This optimism—“a veces el pato nada”—can easily be erased with the second part of the saying, but leaving it truncated allows for an optimism that Bixler sees in Ricaño’s art and that underpins the performances in this book, as dark as some of them are. Perhaps this is because from the early twentieth century to well into this century, the art world in Mexico has played a unique role in promoting concrete social change and acting as a harbinger for change to come. Thus in addition to offering specific strategies for allied engagement, the conclusion to this book serves as a reminder that in almost any situation positive change is possible. A story in the New York Times in fall 2013 featured Mexico as a destination for migrants (some returning to Mexico but many arriving for the first time), painting a picture of a sort of Promised Land in Mexico City, a place where entrepreneurs can start a new life. The author, Damien Cave, writes: Mexican migration to the United States has reached an equilibrium, with about

as many Mexicans moving north from 2005 to 2010 as those returning south. The number of Americans legally living and working in Mexico grew to more

than 70,000 in 2012 from 60,000 in 2009, a number that does not include many

students and retirees, those on tourist visas or the roughly 350,000 American children who have arrived since 2005 with their Mexican parents.

Cave adds, “Europe, dying; Mexico, coming to life. The United States, closed and materialistic; Mexico, open and creative. Perceptions are what drive migration worldwide, and in interviews with dozens of new arrivals to Mexico City— including architects, artists and entrepreneurs—it became clear that the country’s attractiveness extended beyond economics.” In addition to the fact that the numbers are surprising—more people moved to Mexico from the Unites States than vice versa in the period studied—the article was a good indicator that, as in any other society, there is always a Mexican renaissance in progress. It is only the scope of the rebirth that varies. It goes without saying that the article focuses on those with the economic means or the ethnic/geographic background to achieve success in this context. The disparate sides of this story—on the one hand Mexico is a place where dreams come true, on the other hand migrants from Europe, some countries in South America, and the United States often

Outside The ater  31

have an unfair advantage in getting work (similar to the case of the regeneration of Medellín, which I address in the conclusion, where progress and regression must be considered simultaneously)—exemplify the important balance we need to strike. Indeed, it is critical to focus on intertwined avenues of inquiry and action in Mexico or any other country, since it is necessary both to recognize and confront corruption, impunity, inequality, and injustice head-on, and also to look to positive investments of time, money, and research initiatives that already work (or have worked elsewhere) and focus energy in that direction. The idea that we could wake up to find that our U.S.-centric view of the world has been turned on its head, in this case signaled by an immigration shift, reminds us that contexts shift, and that the patterns we base our opinions and even beliefs on can and do evolve.

1 Allies in 1822 Humoring the Limits of Colonial Mexico By act and word he strives to do it; with sincerity, if possible; failing that, with theatricality. —T h o m a s C a r ly l e

T

Mexican Independence were marked by the presence of Spanish forces in Veracruz, a Mexican emperor (Agustín de Iturbide) who had battled brutally on the side of Spain for most of his military career, and the unpleasant sensation among many that the more things change the more they stay the same. Flavio González Mello’s play 1822: El año que fuimos imperio, the smash hit first staged in 2002 and the focus of this chapter, interrogates the space between colony and coloniality—the powerful vestiges of colonialism after ties with Spain were officially but incompletely severed—by bringing to life a host of characters including Iturbide and Fray Servando Teresa de Mier, a priest and complex ally of Mexican Independence who questioned the timing and circumstances, if not the veracity, of an event that served to justify conquest: the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe, who is sometimes referred to in political terms as the Queen of Mexico and Empress of the Americas. The apparition both promoted and hindered Independence and would continue to validate political theatrics through Vicente Fox’s 2000 presidential campaign. Mier, both the play’s main character and the historical figure on which he is based, performs the role of an outsider agitator social ally within the church, demonstrating the effectiveness of humor, not to mention he beginnings of

Allies in 1822  33

stepping back into the past to create a space for reflection, both of which are weapons wielded in the public sphere that can be as worrisome and irritating to the powers that be as any other form of attack. It may seem that wit is an impotent tool in the face of authority, but in Mexico (especially in Mexico, I would say) opponents can be slain with wordplay and clowns can take center stage in politics, as is the case with the comedian and political commentator Víctor Trujillo and his alter ego, Brozo the Creepy Clown (Brozo el Payaso Tenebroso), the anti-Bozo who has appeared on dozens of television programs in Mexico. Indeed, one key, transformational element in Mexican society is the voice of the jester, the voice that is almost but not quite authorized. “ ‘Comedy has always seemed the best way to deliver hard news,’ Mr. Trujillo said. ‘And within the realm of comedy, the best personality is one who is not vulnerable to attack. Brozo is misogynous. He is an alcoholic, a drug addict, irresponsible and dirty. There’s nothing anyone can call him that he has not called himself ’ ” (Thompson). Ginger Thompson highlights Trujillo’s past and hints at the transformative power of art for artists themselves, not solely for audiences: His father was a government economist and his mother a homemaker who quietly indulged her boy’s affinity for make-believe. Acting became his voice. “It was how I expressed myself,” Mr. Trujillo said.

At 21 he got his first break, with a cabaret company that was part of the activist

underground struggling against censorship. “Our productions were mostly impro-

visations,” he said. “And it was all opinionated. That is where my great addiction for information began.”

Behind the complex clown, who has played dubious roles in recent political scandals and who is easy to criticize for the language and images he produces, is a man who has used humor to influence Mexican politics on his national tele­ vision show. To watch this clown eviscerate then presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto and his inability to name three books that had influenced him is to witness the seeming immunity of a court jester, a modern-day clown who harkens back to kingdoms of the past. The segment on Peña Nieto included a reference to then president Felipe Calderón, who, like Vicente Fox before him, would have jumped at the chance to highlight his knowledge of the Bible and perhaps even to refer to the Virgin of Guadalupe; whereas Peña Nieto, either because he had a flash of honesty or because he did not want to appear similar

34  chap ter 1

to his predecessors, clarified that of course he had only read segments of the Good Book, an acceptable if pitiful deviation by a member of the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) from the centuries-long need to establish religious credibility and to link political authority to the power of the church. In the nineteenth century, as Spain became more liberal under its 1812 Constitution, Mexican elites rallied under the banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe in order to unite conservative forces and to form the first Mexican empire. In the second half of the twentieth century, while the PRI haltingly succumbed to the fault lines created in large part by the 1968 massacre of students, the political right once again used explicit religious imagery, especially that of the Virgin of Guadalupe, to unite Mexico under the flag of religion. In both cases the guadalupana image justified the conquest of Mexico, set it on a course that promoted the extension of colonial structures, including the role of the Catholic Church in the political arena, and avoided a seemingly more achievable, progressive path for the nation. 1822: El año que fuimos imperio, without explicit reference to the present—though the link to present-day politics was seemingly impossible for the audience to ignore in the four hundred plus performances of the play and in the film version of the play produced by the National Autonomous University of Mexico—parodies the use of farcical theatrics and religious imagery in politics. Perhaps more importantly, the play underscores the residual effects of colonial Mexico for two hundred years after the famous Grito de Dolores, the cry for Independence uttered in the town of Dolores by a parish priest. One version of the words Miguel Hidalgo used to inspire his followers has continued to prove germane beyond (but inclusive of ) its important religious manifestations: “¡Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!” Playwright González Mello had been mulling over a piece on the first Mexican Empire—the year and a half (1821–23) during which the arrogant Iturbide had European tailors design his regal clothes and newly imported etiquette required that his hand be kissed—since before the election of Vicente Fox in July 2000: “Actually it’s a project that I had started to write several years ago, at the beginning of the nineties, and that I then kept picking back up throughout that decade. The missing element came to me in 2000 when the country’s moment of political change arrived, with the exit of the PRI and the elections that Vicente Fox finally won” (“1822” 76–77).1 In particular, González Mello refers to the “twin” historical processes that led to the governments of Iturbide and Fox, noting that his play is about “the ‘hangover’ after the achievement of Independence. The three years that the show has been running have

Allies in 1822  35

coincided, to a certain degree, with what happened in that other transition process; things haven’t changed as spectacularly as one would hope in the climactic moment” ( 77).2 As he penned the play in the 1990s, González Mello surely took note that members of the PAN (Partido Acción Nacional) used a key symbol of Mexican unity, the Virgin of Guadalupe, as a driving force to promote business-oriented, conservative Catholic government. Though not new to Mexicans (or Chicanos, for that matter, since the farmworker movement, led by César Chávez and supported by Luis Valdez and the Teatro Campesino, used the Virgin of Guadalupe strategically to attract people to the movement and to harness the public relations power of religion), the use of guadalupana imagery was divisive. During the 1999 presidential campaign, the Mexican journalist Sergio Sarmiento described the opinion of Mexicans from a spectrum of political viewpoints on the deployment of Mexico’s Virgin: PAN candidate Vicente Fox arranged things to equally annoy Catholics and non-Catholics, religious people and laypersons, conservatives and liberals, with

his decision to wave a flag with the Virgin of Guadalupe in the campaign event

that he held on 10 September in the city of León. In Mexico there is, of course, a long tradition of political use of the Virgin of Guadalupe’s image. Lacking

other national symbols, the priest Miguel Hidalgo used an image of the Virgin

of Guadalupe to attract the support of Indians and mestizos at the beginning of his uprising against viceregal authority in 1810. Francisco I. Madero himself

also employed the Virgin as a symbol of unity in his democratic crusade against Porfirio Díaz. The big question is if today Mexican society can accept this sacred image as the flag of a political movement.3

When González Mello conjures the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the theatrical stage, in this case specifically as an oversized image behind the congressional podium and through the words of  Teresa de Mier (who sought a more egalitarian, pre-Columbian origin for the apparition of the Virgin), 1822: El año que fuimos imperio enters full force into a complex historical debate. In doing so, González Mello follows in a long line of Mexican playwrights and performance artists who take as their trope the history of Mexico—including many reinterpretations of the Virgin of Guadalupe and other historical figures—and tinge their creations with subtle or not-so-subtle references to the present, a modus operandi that has resonated with Mexican audiences for decades. The

36  chap ter 1

representation/negotiation/critique of key historical watersheds and icons, coupled with powerful theatrical iterations located well beyond the walls of the theater (that is, outside theater), is one of the defining characteristics of Mexico’s most compelling plays and performance pieces of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I will consider brief examples of them as I analyze González Mello’s play and the way he uses humor and theatrical devices to interrogate the boundaries—and the seemingly boundless power—of (colonial) history.4 It may seem odd to talk about the influence of theater in contemporary Mexico, especially in a high-tech, cable TV, social media, information-overload era when art in its traditional formats can seem ancillary at best. How can the present-day status of the stage compare to the crucial role of theater, broadly defined, before the conquest or in early colonial times? Take for example the sociopolitical significance, the centrality, of the festival of Quetzalcóatl that Adam Versényi writes about: This being a ritual performance, its ultimate end was transformational, the convergence of the community in worshipping the god. The theatre’s division between

spectator and actor was nonexistent in pre-Columbian indigenous display. What the subsequent evangelical theatre retained and developed were the spectacular

and transformational aspects of ritual performance, wedding them to Christian theological and political concerns. (11)

This transformational theater (and politics) were carried out sans irony, as one might guess, or at least without the intention of a double-voiced discourse that would undermine the status quo. And this theater was far from tangential in its importance as a tool for imposing, and perhaps at times negotiating, colonial hegemony. Joseph Roach underscores the importance of theatricality to the conquest: “the communication between Spanish conquistadors and the Mesoamericans relied on reciprocal stagings and theatrical devices” (Versényi 146, emphasis added). Yet despite the apparent diminishing effectiveness of theater in contemporary Mexico (many would argue that it is anything but transformational or relied on by society) one can find abundant examples of artists inside and outside theater who use performance to communicate their ideas in much wider arenas than one might expect. It is clear, for example, that the federal government, which subsidizes some theater in Mexico and has over the years officially or semiofficially censored plays, entered the entertainment industry to paint Mexico’s war on drugs in a

Allies in 1822  37

positive, if unbelievable, light through the TV show El equipo precisely because officials saw the power of acting and fiction to mold opinion—even if the show could not attract nearly as many viewers as a soap opera.5 Television is removed from theater, no doubt, but as my analysis of 1822: El año que fuimos imperio and other examples will make clear, creative, artistic boundaries, like the temporal boundaries of history mentioned above, are often blurred much more easily than in academia. The same people who work on the Mexican stage often earn their living on or behind the small and large screens, and the lifespan of a play is no longer and by no means limited to the staging itself and to the few-and-farbetween reviews of performances. Indeed, one could argue that the intellectual “crime” is not missing the live performance—though there is still nothing quite like its elegant ephemerality—but ignoring the extended, complementary life that plays often have through YouTube, Facebook, public television, DVDs, and other digital media. It may be that these iterations will always play the role of a surrogate, to use Roach’s term, albeit with a slight twist. They are stand-ins that are and are not “authentic,” in some ways parallel to the actors in Nahuatl sacrifice as understood by Roach: Like the Iroquois, the Aztecs addressed their doomed victims “with kinship terms” and even mourned their deaths. In The Conquest of America, Todorov draws

attention to the duality of the victim: taken from among outsiders but assimilated by the period of preparation, the surrogate becomes familiar enough to stand in

for his hosts but at the same time remains sufficiently strange to stand apart from them. (148) 6

Sarah Bay-Cheng, in “Theatre History and Digital Historiography,” makes a case for an open view of digital technology, observing that “if we look closely at either Joseph Roach’s surrogation of performance or Taylor’s repertoire, we find resonances of the moving image and, more significantly for historiography, the echoes of the digital as it becomes assumed into daily life” (128). Bay-Cheng does not see digital media itself as a surrogate for live performance, yet her ideas are crucial for understanding the ways Mexican theater lives on—but also beyond—the formal stage and retains an important place in Mexican society, often in digital form and playing the part of court jester, provocateur, watchdog. These are the exact roles the character Padre Mier represents in 1822: El año que fuimos imperio, enacting a microcosm of the most iconoclastic aspects of Mexican theater. Unlike some members of regal courts, however, his status

38  chap ter 1

as pesky, irreverent “court jester” is by all counts unsanctioned and generally unwelcome, offering him less protection for speaking his mind than, say, an authorized jester specifically chosen by a king or emperor. It is through his cunning, humor, a few allies, and his admittedly precarious position in the church that he keeps the “off-with-your-head” commands, the supposed fate of many a jester, at bay. Who, one wonders, would have the gall to supply an “incorrect” response to Iturbide’s affirmation, “I, like George Washington, only aspire to give my country its freedom and retire to a private life”? But of course Padre Mier does, with a deadpan delivery that communicates a truth Iturbide prefers not to hear and that creates humorous complicity—indeed, an alliance—with the audience: “Well, then, you already gave it freedom. What’s stopping you?” (1822 13).7 Padre Mier is indeed quick to call Iturbide’s bluff, to question the depth of his knowledge: We finally meet, Fray Servando! “Padre Mier,” please. I unfrocked myself twenty years ago. iturbide. Allow me to tell you that ever since I read your work I have deeply admired you. mier. You’ve read my books? iturbide. Of course. Anyone who prides himself on being interested in his Patria has to have done so. mier. Indeed! And which ones did you read, General! iturbide. Uh? Well . . . that one, where you talk about . . . freedom, and . . . and that other one, about independence, right? (12) 8 iturbide. mier.

In Fools Are Everywhere, Beatrice K. Otto explains that “[t]he court jester is not as universal a figure on stage as he is in court life, but his presence is widespread, and where he does not feature as a clearly recognizable character in a play, many of his functions are taken over by others” (187). González Mello may very well not have conceived of his character as a jester figure, though his version of  Teresa de Mier clearly shares affinities with other fictional and real court jesters—whether or not their motley attire is of the acting profession (distinctive clothes, distinctive headwear) or the clergy (distinctive clothes, distinctive headwear). As Otto notes, and as the character Padre Mier exemplifies, “The theatrical court jester and his impersonators generally serve the same purpose as the court jester in real life. They amuse and entertain, stand on the sidelines and observe, and act as a control against which to measure the folly of others”

Allies in 1822  39

(187). Especially in the metatheatrical scenes, Padre Mier stands on the borders of theater and real life—observing and at times controlling the folly of others, to follow Otto’s line of thought. To the historical Teresa de Mier, of course, the foolishness of early nineteenth-­ century Creoles was to allow Spain to retain political control of the Virgin of Guadalupe. He made this clear on December 12, 1794, when he argued a different lineage for Mexico’s Virgin. The soon-to-be exiled doctor of theology affirmed— in a sermon on the very day Guadalupe is honored each year, and only two years after he, as a Dominican, had received a permit to preach—that Guadalupe’s image appeared not on the cloak of the mestizo Juan Diego but on that of Saint Thomas the Apostle.9 He was put on trial with the utmost expediency by the New Spanish Inquisition for following in the theological and political footsteps of earlier theologians, with a few twists of his own, and promptly exiled to a patria he never knew: Spain.10 To situate the audience, and to hint at the puppet congress Iturbide set up in order to legitimize his opportunities, the play offers an early intersection of history, wit (seen more clearly in the performance but present in the text), and Padre Mier’s intractable charm: It’s a little formality. You just have to say that you regret having denied the existence of the Virgin of Guadalupe. mier. I never denied her existence! What I denied was the legend of her apparitions to Juan Diego, nothing more. gómez farías. Nothing more! mier. In my sermon I proved that long before the Conquest, the Virgin was already worshipped by the ancient Mexicans, and that the image was not printed on Juan Diego’s ayate, but rather on the cloak of St. Thomas the Apostle, who came to preach in these lands in the first century of our era and was known by the name of Quetzalcóatl. gómez farías. What nonsense! mier. On the contrary! It would have been nonsense to defend that fable about the apparitions, which is so implausible and full of incongruencies, that the Spaniards latched onto it in order to place the existence of Guadalupe in continual doubt. I, on the other hand, want to provide the Guadalupan miracle with a historical basis that will forever silence those who seek to deprive us of the glory of having been singled out by the Mother of God as her special charges. Is that denying her existence? [. . .] ramos arizpe.

40  chap ter 1

It’s a delicate matter, Servando. Congress has just named the Virgin of Guadalupe as Patron and Protectress of the Empire. What would you lose by recognizing her as well? Remember that one of the two verbs of politics is to yield . . . mier. And the other? ramos arizpe. To wait. mier. Well then we’ve already been doing politics here for three hours. Why don’t we leave? (10–11) 11 ramos arizpe.

The historical José Miguel Ramos Arizpe knew what it meant to wait (he, like Mier, had spent time jailed in Spain) and to cede politically: in part because of his participation in Spain’s political future, Ramos Arizpe would be willing to yield just enough power to the states to become known as Mexico’s Father of Federalism.12 Padre Mier’s other question (“Is that denying her existence?”) is, in historical terms, spot on; and for some, taking a stand against the interests of Spain was equivalent to—or made to look equivalent to—negating the existence of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The seriousness of Padre Mier’s words, when considered along with more humorous sections of the piece, provides a picture of the historical Mier; one of his letters related to the debate about the apparition, as described by Santa Arias, can serve to describe his life: “The seriousness of the matter is lightened by typical Servandian humor” (Arias 6).13 Before Mier takes the stage to defend and ostensibly to clarify his position, the audience witnesses a scene that (like others in the play) would no doubt lead to a comparison with today’s congress, where insults are common and fistfights occasionally occur. Hinting at the Mexican tradition of the albur (Mexican pun in which the double entendre is often devious or sexual) seen in other parts of the play, González Mello’s congressional characters demonstrate their “verbal acumen” and the fact that the state of the nation is not always at the top of their priority list. Diputado Torrejas questions Diputado Calvillo’s excuse for absence: Diputado Calvillo’s message is an infamous and vile lie, for this morning, as I passed through Apartado Street, I myself could witness that he was not in fact

sick, but rather drunk, causing a scene and accompanied by three ladies who do not deserve that title. By virtue of which, I propose that Diputado Calvillo be

impeached for having given conclusive exhibitions of his dissipation and lack of modesty, and for having tried to deceive this sovereign Congress.14

Allies in 1822  41

To this Diputado de la Lagaña replies: Fellow citizens! I must forcefully protest Diputado Torrejas’s slanders and I

request in the most forceful way that his insidious proposal not be put to a vote, as it would set the dreadful precedent of allowing to prevail over the privilege of a

representative of the Nation the gossip invented by any common man; and more: by any illegitimate common man, as we are all aware of the bastard origin of your surname, Diputado Torrejas. (16, emphasis in original)15

When order is finally restored (“Let us put to a vote the proposal to not put to a vote the proposal to impeach Diputado Calvillo”; 16),16 Mier explains himself in front of an increasingly incredulous group of politicians: “There has been become known a version stating that that time I would have denied the existence of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Well then . . . I must tell you that . . . (Clears his throat. He looks uncomfortably at the enormous image behind him) . . . that I deny having affirmed such a negation, and in this act affirm my categorical refusal to affirm anything that was denied. That is all” (17).17 It seems that Padre Mier is the consummate politician, adept at preserving—somehow and despite the odds—his complex intellectual honor, a process best honed when words are censored or censured in debates, in writing, in the theater of politics. In her article “De Fray Servando Teresa de Mier a Juan Bautista Muñoz: La disputa guadalupana en vísperas de la independencia,” Santa Arias explains that the guadalupana debate occupied much of the oral and written communication of Mexican and Spanish intellectuals, who saw, as Independence came closer to being a political reality, the critical importance of defending their positions. Arias also reminds the reader of the recent, official outcome of the centuries-long debate and the myriad offshoots of guadalupana imagery: “With the canonization of Juan Diego and recent publications about the guadalupana phenomenon (as a phenomenon that has crossed physical, linguistic, and cultural boundaries), we can see how the elements of the original debate remain the same” (13).18 It follows that part of the reason colonial figures loom large in the present is because so much of Mexico’s cultural present is so deeply haunted, for better and for worse, by the past; and addressing the colonial-era topic of the Virgin of Guadalupe, as González Mello does in his play, guarantees that a work of art will get some attention. Laura G. Gutiérrez writes that “[t]here is no icon that has achieved greater importance in the realm of mexicanidad than that

42  chap ter 1

of the Virgen de Guadalupe, who, in fact, may very well be the stick by which Mexicanness is measured” (21). The reformulation of the Virgin of Guadalupe, perhaps the most common artistic colonial touchstone after Sor Juana, is such a powerful image that, as one can imagine, the (attempted) control of her image is of concern to many. Gutiérrez exemplifies the efforts to censor guadalupana imagery in Performing Mexicanidad by noting, for example, that the director of the Museo de El Carmen, Alfredo Marín Gutiérrez, told the artist

of the piece La comandanta Lupita (Lupita, the Commander), Polo Castellanos, member of the Tepito Arte Acá collective, that his piece could not be exhibited

in the show Promesas guadalupanas (Guadalupana Promises) because it contained

“political overtones.” Simultaneous with the Mexican act of censorship, across the

border, the Centro Cultural Aztlán’s Cultural Arts Gallery in San Antonio, Texas, decided to not exhibit Anna-Marie López’s Virgin during its annual Celebración a la Virgen de Guadalupe (Celebration of the Virgen de Guadalupe) apparently because

it featured a naked (and pregnant) Virgen de Guadalupe with her blue mantle and a snake wrapped around her body. (62–63)

The potency of historical/mythical figures is crucial to forming a basis on which to project social changes either to promote new directions or to solidify the status quo. Diana Taylor reminds us that several of the of the best performance artists [. . .] in Latin America—Jesusa Rodríguez and Astrid Hadad, to name two Mexican performers—have chosen to play with and reexamine some of the most “Latin American” of icons. They work

to subvert the stereotypical images that have regulated the formulation of gender identity for Mexican women, from the sainted mother (the Virgin of Guadalupe

or Coatlicue, the Mexica “mother” of all Mexicans) to the macho woman with high heels and spurs. (Archive 220)

In Mexican performances, the unrelenting returns of icons like Sor Juana and Guadalupe are perhaps rivaled only by the appearance of political leaders: in Mexico City there is always a present or former leader—or a thinly veiled version of one—on stage as well as one of the founding women, such as Coatlicue, Sor Juana, Frida Kahlo, or the Virgin of Guadalupe. These (feminist) touchstones seem well worn to some, yet they signal the residual colonialism that

Allies in 1822  43

underpins the present. Taylor, writing about comments she elicited after a New York performance by the Brazilian performance artist Denise Stoklos, finds a tendency to find performances either too European, as if “Latin Americans do not belong to the West,” or, alternatively, “too Latin American” (221). To revisit colonialism—to recognize coloniality—for these and many other artists, including González Mello, is to take the most staged icons and to address the overlay of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and colonial Mexico as they challenge stereotypes, expose political appropriations, and highlight the mythical power of the past. One important distinction separates the work of artists like Rodríguez and Hadad from González Mello: the latter follows a long tradition (with innumerable exceptions, including both female and male artists) of male authors who stage Mexican men in power, showing their fatal flaws or repeating social patterns that date to colonial times and before (either for the sake of historical accuracy or as a representation of their present-day sentiments). In real life, from colonial times to the present, as in González Mello’s play, the Virgin of Guadalupe has been debated mostly by men and reinterpreted mostly by women. As is the case with other well-known figures who appear on stage, many reimaginings of Guadalupe share two traits: the accessibility that this familiar figure brings, and the sense that there is unfinished business that will benefit from an allegiance with the past. These colonial remains speak to the promises of post-Independence and post-Revolution society, a theme seen in canonical Mexican plays of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that offer Mexico and beyond dozens of historical characters who in one way or another speak to unrequited (political) passion. A very few examples include La venganza de la gleba (1905), by Federico Gamboa, which, as described in chapter 2 of this book, presents the plight of the dark-skinned campesino; Rodolfo Usigli’s El gesticulador (1938), a play that underscores post-Revolutionary duplicity and corruption but could also—easily—apply to post-Independence; El eterno femenino (1975), by Rosario Castellanos, a farce that questions the societal confines for women centuries after Sor Juana retired to her cell and gave up her library; Sabina Berman’s Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda (1993), which includes a Villa who, along with his contemporary sidekick Adrián, is rendered socially impotent by his machismo; or the many Sor Juana performances on stage and beyond that point out the dealings of hombres necios (silly men) in a variety of present-day contexts that at times are indistinguishable from colonial Mexico. Thus it is no surprise that the perennial political use of Guadalupe, combined with the propensity of Mexican playwrights to bring the most recognizable

4 4  chap ter 1

figures from history to the stage, makes pertinent an alternative version of the Guadalupe legend. The real-life Padre Mier’s colonial-era repositioning of Guadalupe continues to be politically salient, although while there is little doubt that his bold revisions of the past served Mexico during the quest for independence, post-Independence Mexico paid little heed to its indigenous past. This theme is subtly foreshadowed in 1822: El año que fuimos imperio as characters routinely reinforce economic and ethnic categories that point to anything but equality—some of the unfinished business that underpins coloniality. As Enrique Krauze puts it, “Needless to say, when independence became fact in 1821, the new nation did not reinstate the Mexican Empire. But the country took its name from the original tribal name of the Aztecs, and for the emblem on its flag it used the mythical symbol of the foundation of the city of Mexico-­ Tenochtitlan: an eagle perched on a nopal cactus holding a writhing serpent in its beak” (28–29). Indeed, for many Mexicans, independence was a “fact” in name (and image) only. The above-cited symbols adorned Mexico but did not change the country’s colonial power structure, as Aníbal Quijano argues: The national homogenization of the population could only have been achieved

through a radical and global process of the democratization of society and the state. That democratization would have implied, and should imply before any-

thing else, the process of decolonizing social, political, and cultural relations that

maintain and reproduce racial social classification. The structure of power was and even continues to be organized on and around the colonial axis. (568)

In 1822: El año que fuimos imperio we see both the rupture and the continuity of post-Independence Mexico, which is aided (and abetted) by the historically inappropriate humor of the secularized priest Mier. González Mello’s rendition of Mier and other historical characters, which is enhanced by tremendous acting and by multiple references to theatricality (sainetes, comedias, etc.) that underscore the efficacy of humor and underpin the playful, provides a metatheatrical thread that unites the play and serves to highlight key instances of coloniality.19 One of the many successes of 1822 is the dramatic duplication of the complex Mier character—he is humorous without being a caricature. It is a respectful parody that still provides for a critique of the historical Mier, a possibility Linda Hutcheon clarifies, noting that “parodic art comes in a very wide variety of tones and moods—from respectful to playful to scathingly critical—and because its ironies can so obviously cut both ways, [. . . it is] a form of repetition

Allies in 1822  45

with ironic critical distance, marking difference rather than similarity” (xii). Hutcheon also underscores the “tension between the potentially conservative effect of repetition and the potentially revolutionary impact of difference” (xii), an apt description of the forces at play in 1822. In conjuring up a parody of Mier, the double-edged voice of irony referred to by Hutcheon catches the famous historical persona in his history, and what is essentially an elogio has its negative side: coloniality by definition is made up of the same players, the same social components, and in this case not even the names (e.g., Iturbide, Santa Anna, Guadalupe Victoria) have changed. And Mier is implicated, as we will soon see. Yet the audience is likely to let him off the hook; the jester plays the same role with the audience that he does with Iturbide and other characters so that neither group will skewer him. Yet the relationship with the audience is tighter: the jester figure often becomes an ally for audiences, communicating the frustrations Mexicans of all political leanings feel toward the government. The quick, biting wit necessary for survival is present from the very beginning of the play, when Padre Mier covers up his attempted escape from the infamous prison/castle in the Mexican city of Veracruz, San Juan de Ulúa, one of the places where the real-life Mier spent time as a prisoner. After explaining to the character Dávila, governor of this remnant of the Spanish Crown in Veracruz, that he was simply trying to “repair” the bars of his cell (with a nail) because the cell is crumbling, a not-so-subtle reference to the sole remaining bastion of Spanish power in Mexico, he offers an oral curriculum vitae, presented with the verbal acumen seen previously, as a defense: Señor Gobernador, do not grant more credit to the gossip of this toilet cleaner than to the word of don Servando Teresa de Mier, Noriega, Guerra y Fernán-González, doctor in sacred theology from the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico; senior secretary and domestic prelate to his Holiness the Pope; noble gentleman of a wellknown house and lineage descending from the first conquistadors and son of one who was Governor of the Nuevo Reino de León. dávil a. Let’s see your titles. mier. I turned them over to my judges, along with my work and the rest of my belongings. It should all be documented in the judicial decrees. dávil a. (Looks through the papers on his desk and pulls out a sheet, which he reviews) Here the only thing that it says is that one must be extremely careful with you, because at the slightest lapse you will be plotting . . . mier.

46  chap ter 1

(Reads from the top) “Crimes of lese majeste . . . apostasy . . . writing inciting sedition . . . Masonic practices . . . unauthorized concession of indulgences . . . piracy . . .” Ah, here it is! “Escape and attempted escape from various civil and ecclesiastical prisons, with a total of fourteen reoccurrences . . .” (Wets his pen in the inkwell and amends the document) And with this one, that makes fifteen . . . (2–3)20 The list of offenses Dávila reads is long, though surprisingly it omits many of the accusations leveled against the historical Mier over the years, not to mention the bulk of his myriad adventures. Still, one could argue that he ended up on the right side of Mexican history. Winning a best actor award for playing Mier, the actor Héctor Ortega referred to the historical Mier and to his own role in the production: I think that we still haven’t sufficiently revived Fray Servando; there’s only one street around here with his name [. . .]. He is enthusiast for freedom; this is a

character that I wanted to play and I found this marvel of a play, written by Flavio González Mello. [. . .] We ran for three years and the character excited me because

this is the birth of the Republic in total opposition to Iturbide’s empire, in order to build a nation that didn’t have as its basis colonialism and especially authoritarianism. (qtd. in Cano and Quijano) 21

Seeing the play in the 2000s, of course, audiences might view Ortega’s idea of the birth of the Republic through a different lens: on the one hand, Mexico shook off the visible chains of the Spanish Crown in 1821; on the other, the idea that Mexico will escape/has escaped colonialism and authoritarianism is undermined at every turn in the play. As Padre Mier corrects Iturbide, who has just tried to make it clear that he, Iturbide, is Mexico’s only hope by referring to an erroneous Aztec past: “who, who would have sufficient merit to inherit the throne of Moctezuma, the last Aztec emperor?” In sharp lines that show González Mello’s parodic prowess, Mier supplies, as the jester, true but unwanted answers: You mean to say Cuauhtémoc . . . iturbide. Huh? . . . Yes, excuse me: Cuauhtémoc . . . Who could occupy such a serious position? . . . Guerrero, despite his lack of education, I mier.

Allies in 1822  47

am sure would be an excellent ruler; but I think that none of us can see a mulato seated on the throne of Mexico, or can we? . . . Bravo is an irreproachable patriot, but we know that the crown would be too big for him; and moreover, with his various infirmities I don’t think that he would last long . . . Who, then? If the King of Spain snubs us, Congress will have an extremely difficult task to resolve. But even so, don Valentín, don Miguel, padre Mier, it would be advisable not to delay discussing the matter any longer, because it is rumored that at this very moment, those to whom we offered the scepter are forging an expedition to reconquer us with the Holy Alliance. And nothing would help their plans more than to find the Empire without a crowned leader. It is necessary for the Mexican vessel to have someone to steer it through the coming storms. mier. You forgot to mention the most important candidate of all, General. iturbide. (With false modesty) Who, padre? mier. Don Guadalupe Victoria. (13)22 Padre Mier is right in the first instance (Cuauhtémoc, not Montezuma) as well as in the second, though there would be some delay before Guadalupe Victoria, who escaped to the jungle after being imprisoned by Iturbide, and whose pseudonym proclaimed his goal and his allegiance to—and desire to achieve victory in the name of—Mexico’s Virgin of Guadalupe, would become Mexico’s first president. Before the royal ready to hear only the words he desires, none but the jester can question authority (this in contrast to Iturbide’s comedic but cowardly entourage, which includes Colonel Pío Marcha; Goyo, the court painter; and a French tailor). Inserted into the above-cited dialogue is also race, an intended entre nous on the part of Iturbide that, despite their differences, Padre Mier does not refute. Indeed, Padre Mier’s own references to the Mexican people leave little room for new social structures. In “protecting” the léperos, the uneducated masses, from the manipulative machinations of Iturbide and his supporters, Mier shows both his despair at witnessing the farcical “representation” of the masses and his inability to envision a political structure much beyond that offered by colonial Mexico. That is, the fierce proponent of independence who sees hope in Mexico’s indigenous history is forced to propose that the decision on Mexico’s next “ruler” be made by state leaders and in secret:

48  chap ter 1

What follows is to turn over the proposal to the state legislatures, so that each one can take a stance and in this way the final decision can truly express the feelings of the whole Nation, and not that of a handful of puppets that it’s difficult for us to call “el pueblo.”

mier.

(Through the audience’s entrance various LÉPEROS enter, knocking over the usher who tries to contain them, and they occupy the upper level of the theater crying, “Long live Agustín the First.”  The diputados stand up to better see the show. For a moment everything is confusion) mier.

Señor Presidente! I ask that you have the stands cleared.

(The léperos respond with a boo) Without more men than I have I can’t do anything, Your Grace! Then I insist that the session be suspended until the Congress has been moved to a venue where it can convene in secret. gómez farías. I don’t see why we would have to go about hiding ourselves. I, at least, do not have anything to conceal from the Nation. Do you, padre? mier. I insist that we do not air the discussion in front of the rude masses, which are so easily manipulated. usher. mier.

(The léperos respond by booing him again) Señor Presidente! That was already a lot for a motion, right? This one wants to make speeches. mier. I remind you that I had the floor when this whole farce began. gómez farías. The matter has been sufficiently discussed! Put it to a vote! secretary. (despairing) I beg the distinguished Diputados to have the courtesy of speaking a little more slowly, you’re not giving me time to write down everything you’re saying! gómez farías.

(A murmur takes hold of the hall: iturbide has just entered through the audience’s entrance, accompanied by a parade and a squad of soldiers . The léperos provide a chorus of “Long live Agustín the First!”s again. iturbide mounts the stand.) (19–20)23 The words “puppets,” “show,” and “farce” follow other instances in which Padre Mier signals the farcical nature of politics, in a scene that could perhaps remind

Allies in 1822  49

Mexicans of some of the more colorful stagings in Mexico’s present-day congress (e.g., fistfights). While the play itself has some farcical elements—for example, the arrival of Iturbide at the port of Veracruz dressed as a woman, or Mier’s ability to trick a soldier by pointing at the soldier’s foot and then escaping—it is Mier’s affirmation that a farce is being played out in Mexican politics that hits home with the readers or spectators. At one point Mier refuses to attend Iturbide’s coronation, saying, “The Church forbids me from attending comedias” (27).24 And in a conversation with Guadalupe Victoria, the character Padre Mier quotes the real-life Mier: “Among men they only need farces because everything is a comedia. Let us be realists, General . . .” ( 39).25 This conversation is telling as an example of histrionic politicians but also because it shows that Padre Mier is willing to employ his own theatrics, as he did in real life. In her study of farce in Latin American theater, Priscilla Meléndez walks a fine line when she asserts that “one of Spanish American farce’s most complex aspects and its central force lies in its attempt to transgress the traditional perception that it is an antiaesthetic, anti-intellectual, anticritical, stripped of sociopolitical agendas, unrealistic, unpretentious, solely humorous and playful genre, while simultaneously questioning the opposite attempt to stress farce’s more serious and ‘meaningful’ purposes” (28). As mentioned above, 1822 is historical theater and farce—but not solely one or the other. Yet the metafarces, like the foolhardy congressional sessions, allow the author to present the best of both worlds: from farce (and from the historical Mier), González Mello borrows playful passion; through historical theater,26 he taps into the Mexican tradition of serious, generally straightforward political criticism through the lens of the past. Timothy G. Compton captures this combination (farcical metatheatre, if we consider the present-day Mexican congress to be a space that brackets off a play-within-a-play, and historical theater): Despite the disheartening self-serving politics of almost all of Mexico’s early politicians and caciques portrayed in 1822, it also showed the antidote in the person

of Fray Servando Teresa de Mier, who spoke bluntly of abuses, punctured bal-

loons of self adulation, and put love of country and fellow men above love of self. Far from being a history lesson, although the basics of Mexican history were clearly accurate, 1822 had obvious repercussions for modern Mexico which were not lost on audience members sitting near me, as I heard them mutter “Salinas

de Gortari” several times. [. . .] My favorite scenes were the hilarious portrayals of sessions of Congress. Actors took seats in the audience during these scenes

50  chap ter 1

so their flamboyant outbursts, their impassioned ironic speeches, their petty and

self-serving proposals, and their off-the-record comments erupted like fireworks right next to spectators. (“Mexico” 106) .

The metatheatrical elements of the play serve to entertain, and it is fun to be in on the joke, pleasing to watch along with the characters in the palcos (box seats) as they watch a variety of scenes, to be an audience member who “gets” the play-within-a-play—but they also serve to underscore the theatricality (in the devious sense) of Iturbide’s intrigues. Compton explains the set design, which allowed for the most obvious example of metatheatre: Since the play required nine different settings, ranging from interiors of palaces, castles, theatres and houses, to city streets and the deep jungle of Veracruz, most

of the set work designed by Mónica Raya consisted of exquisite two-dimensional

backdrops which could be raised and lowered instantly. During the second act, politicians watched parts of the historical drama unfold from replicas of box seats from the Teatro Santa Anna from Mexico City’s 19th century. (106)

The various metatheatrical scenes in act 2, one of which involves a conspiracy to overthrow Iturbide in favor of Santa Anna, provide the above-mentioned distancing and—as Compton mentions—frame action that takes place elsewhere. A case in point concerns a scene in which Mier, Ramos Arizpe, and an indigenous guide take to the jungle to search for Guadalupe Victoria, an expedition that also provides insight into colonial structures. The expedition scenes are some of the most comical and troubling; as the search party heads into the jungle they also enter a past that is very much present, a foreign locale that is very much local: “MIER and R AMOS ARIZPE walk with difficulty through the vegetation; an Indian GUIDE clears the way for them with his machete; behind, a pair of INDIANS , torches in hand, follow carrying provisions. They all stop to rest, exhausted. R AMOS ARIZPE passes the time killing mosquitos and scratching the welts that cover his body” ( 32).27 The potential political savior (and Mexico’s reallife first president), whose pseudonym was carefully chosen to represent Mexican Independence, is eventually found by Mier and the other members of the search party. While the historical Guadalupe Victoria did indeed spend time hiding in the jungles of Veracruz, the parodic key in 1822: El año que fuimos imperio is that Mier and company retrain him to speak Spanish; that is, they attempt to rid

Allies in 1822  51

him of the rough trappings of years lived with beasts and “Indians.”  The first clue that the search party is making progress is a footprint. To Ramos Arizpe’s question “And how do you know it belongs to a Spaniard?” the guide responds: “Because the foot is in the shape of a shoe” ( 33).28 It turns out that Guadalupe Victoria has not been eaten by “la bestia,” as Ramos Arizpe conjectured, yet his grunting (not to mention his words in Nahuatl) are of grave concern. They listen to the beastly “other” as his words are translated by guides and as he terrifies his first meta-audience (Mier, Ramos Arizpe), his second meta-audience (Iturbide and others in the palcos of the theater, who clap slowly), and those of us who have purchased a ticket to see the play. Concluding this frenetic scene is in an epileptic seizure—duplicating the real-life illness of Guadalupe Victoria. He does not die, of course; in fact it takes just about seven theatrical minutes for the character to go from Nahuatl-speaking cave dweller/beast to Spanish-speaking Independence leader of “indios” and “campesinos,” separated from them in some cases by language, in some cases by lineage (despite his relatively humble origins), and in some cases by both. Mier helps with the transition: Ndependensodeat, ndependensodeat! mier. “Independence” . . . victoria. Illnosurrender tothisonofabit! Ndependensodeat! mier. “Independence . . . or death?” victoria. Ebravedonmurder! mier. . . . “The brave . . .” victoria. Ebravedonmurder! mier. . . . “The brave don’t murder” . . . victoria. Thepatriaisfirs! mier. . . . “The patria is first” . . . victoria. Iamexico! Iamexico! Iamexico! ( 36)29 victoria.

In the video version of the play the character does not speak the words “I am Mexico” (Iaméxico), at least not intelligibly, though other references to the United States point to a future colonial conundrum, for example Mier’s stance against states’ rights: “Sell! Sell Texas, and if you can, all the rest too! You have to take advantage of the fact that the states have not separated from us yet. With this federalism nonsense, there’s not much time left. Sell! Quickly! Auction it all off!” (49).30 This is a world far removed from “the beasts and the monkeys” (las fieras y los monos) of the jungle ( 38), far removed from Nahuatl and tinged

52  chap ter 1

with English: it is the new modus operandi (similar to the old modus operandi) that Mier encourages Guadalupe Victoria to accept by signing Santa Anna’s Plan de Tres Puntos: What do you think? I think it is a splendid plan. victoria. (to mier) And you? mier. (observing the document) Yes, well . . . it would be advisable to give it a good proofreading . . . “Sovereignty” is not spelled with a “z,” Brigadier. And “America” doesn’t have an “h.” santa anna. Really? victoria. But . . . do you think I should sign? mier. . . . Without a doubt. And the sooner the better. victoria. (pointing to santa anna) But he was a realist too. mier. General . . . I think that the worthy end that we pursue justifies forgetting those past differences. victoria. That’s fine. Everything will be for . . . for . . . what’s it called, this . . . what we are trying to save . . . ? mier. Our hides, don Lupe. (42)31 victoria.

ramos arizpe.

As words (and structures) are restored to Victoria Guadalupe’s memory, so too are the colonial baggage they carry. Orden and Patria (not to mention raza [raza], a word not spoken in the play) serve to reify the past. For Mier this is the lesser of two evils, and in a society on the brink of war, the conservative European male path often wins out. Yet he again plays the outside agitator and jester (briefly) to Guadalupe Victoria, telling him in no uncertain terms, “Well your name is as ridiculous as your victory, and as fake as the legends of your Guadalupe” (52).32 As Mier puts it, “Now the inhabitants of these lands are called ‘citizens,’ but they put up with the same vices and the same oppression as when they were subjects of the Crown . . . The difference between ‘Mexico’ and ‘New Spain’ is the same as the one between Guadalupe Victoria and José Miguel Fernández . . .” (51).33 José Miguel Fernández was Guadalupe Victoria’s original name, and through parodic repetition, a nod to Mexican traditions (farce, historical theater), and a metatheatrical staging that reminds the audience of different levels of theatricality, González Mello signals the (almost) inevitable result of political transitions in Mexico and elsewhere (and the only option for those who want to promote change): theatricality.

Allies in 1822  53

For colonial structures that remain unchanged, for residual porfirismo, for stalled revolutionary changes, and for political transitions, it may be that the only antidote is not the acts of politicians but of artists, the self-conscious theatricality that exposes naturalizing theatrics. And of course a bit of biting drama is always in order, as seen in Mier’s self-administered last rites: “To the Mexicans I leave an independent and republican patria, although it’s infested with parasites and on the verge of falling apart, so that they can sort themselves out with it as best they can [. . .] (He jumps and disappears into the grave that he was digging. Slow blackout) ” (53–54).34 By “humoring the limits” of colonial times and by reviving Teresa de Mier’s dark, biting humor—the humor of an outside agitator/ally who has access to insiders—González Mello highlights colonial structures that endure in Mexico. By linking humor and politics, he also highlights key ideas that exemplify “outside theater”: (1) the connection to (Mexican) documentary theater, which by definition combines fiction and history to expose the above-mentioned naturalizing theatrics of the powers that be; (2) the role authors and actors play as societal allies who expose hypocrisy though their art; and ( 3) the idea that humor, which is generally confined to the worlds of theater, advertising, private gatherings, television, and so on, can have a direct impact on politics—as opposed to being solely fodder for comedic material. Teresa de Mier, in real life and as a character, was able to communicate messages with the humorous “grace” of a jester and, at times, to influence history. In present-day Mexico, Brozo the clown exemplifies the tools of the performance trade on another stage: along with artists of many different stripes he challenges the status quo, and his protection is the face of a clown. To repeat what Trujillo says about his alter ego Brozo, who is a product of  Trujillo’s performance background taken to the political stage, “Comedy has always seemed the best way to deliver hard news.”

2 Performing the Porfiriato Federico Gamboa and Allied Negotiation If the expression “Speak truth to power” still has a utopian ring to it, [. . .] this is surely because it is so rarely practiced. The dissembling of the weak in the face of power is hardly an occasion for surprise. It is ubiquitous. So ubiquitous, in fact, that it makes an appearance in many situations in which the sort of power being exercised stretches the ordinary meaning of power beyond recognition. —J a m e s C . S c ot t, D o m i n at i o n a n d t h e A r t s o f R e s i s ta n c e

A

under questionable circumstances with the support of conservative forces in Mexico and abroad. Pro-business and other major newspapers publish editorials in the United States that hail the newly elected leader as a friend of progress, while in Mexico the political left questions his legitimacy. Foreign ideals (and dollars) rule the political stage in a new but familiar context where words, and sovereignty, are once again lost in translation (Castañeda 20). The distribution of land is more and more unequal every year, leaving campesinos—and their supporters in the metropolis and beyond—to consider raising arms as the only viable way to ameliorate centuries of oppression. An intellectual, a somewhat reluctant ally, laments in his diary the discomfort of working for the “system”; his measured fury is made public with great care lest his livelihood and loyalties be compromised: “It is the old tacit agreement. For our living we count entirely on the government, and every government—from the viceroyalty to the present day—counts on the fact that we count on them” (Federico Gamboa qtd. in Krauze 588). The title of this chapter helps to contextualize the preceding paragraph, placing it not in the here and now—where it might fit comfortably, despite the fact president comes to power

performing the porfiriato 55

that present-day intellectuals in Mexico have relatively more avenues of autonomy than their Porfirian predecessors—but on the cusp of a previous century, headed into the twentieth. In the turn-of-the-century diary entry quoted above, Federico Gamboa (1864–1939) bemoans the power of patronage over his destiny at a time when politics in Mexico were dictated by Porfirio Díaz (1830–1915), who ruled Mexico with scant interruption for over three decades and, in 1911, left for Europe from the port city of Veracruz—a destiny sealed by the arrival of the Mexican Revolution. Yet despite the criticism of the Porfiriato that Gamboa often penned in his diary, José Emilio Pacheco signals the issue that makes Gamboa such an interesting figure in Mexican intellectual history, at once a critic of the status quo, residing just at the border of allied, outside agitation in his literary endeavors, and at the same time a Porfirian insider: “Gamboa is not, nor can he be, a radical critic; he is a Porfirian to the degree that when the regime disappears he suspends his work as a novelist. [. . .] He needs the at once paternal and demonic shadow of don Porfirio” (28–29).1 While Gamboa is best known for his novel Santa, an extended study of his life as author, diplomat, professor, and public figure (in the public sphere of influence) who literally stood by Porfirio Díaz until the end offers an intriguing view of the negotiation of power that was performed, in playhouses as well as on the national stage, during the Porfiriato. As a loyal Porfirian ally, Gamboa managed, as many did, to carve out a space for his own artistic and social vision—a vision that highlights political conciliation as a worthwhile strategy for gaining access to an audience capable of recognizing social disparities and, at times, of acting to mitigate them. Through a study of Gamboa’s writing and life, as well as the performances of the time (as learned from newspapers, political cartoons, and other historical accounts), it becomes clear that negotiation and acting, in and beyond the theater, rather than the unadulterated domination by which political regimes are often characterized, were foundations of Porfirian hegemony. For Díaz, power could be blunt and brutal, of course, but also as malleable and acquiescent as the political situation demanded. In his oft-­referenced Domination and the Arts of Resistance, James C. Scott offers one possible outcome in the face of domination: “those obliged by domination to act a mask will eventually find that their faces have grown to fit that mask” (10). Another possible outcome, more auspicious in terms of revolutionary change, is seen in Scott’s analysis of the character Mrs. Poyser in George Eliot’s Adam Bede: “[Eliot’s] claim is that the necessity of ‘acting a mask’ in the presence of power produces, almost by the strain engendered by its inauthenticity, a countervailing

56  chap ter 2

pressure that cannot be contained indefinitely” (9). Do the masks acted by the characters in Gamboa’s play La venganza de la gleba (The Revenge of the Earth, written in 1904, staged in 1905, and published in 1907)—or the masks acted by Gamboa himself—fit the faces they cover? That is, do years of domination control thought itself, or does one negotiate knowingly in order to navigate the prevailing power structure? To answer these questions it is useful to address La venganza de la gleba and the diaries of Gamboa, the consummate, complex man of letters in turn-of-the-century Mexico, as well as some instances of the performances of the Porfiriato. Thus there are two layers to this chapter: negotiation on the part of characters in Venganza and Gamboa’s own negotiation of the political system. My purpose is to consider negotiation and diplomacy on both the theatrical and the national stage in the hope of shedding light on a powerful tool theater offers to the practitioner/ally: the ability to gain the upper hand through dialogue instead of violence. Foreign ideas (economic liberalism, naturalism, positivism, social Darwinism, among others) flowed into Mexico under Díaz’s watch. Economic ties with the United States and its robber barons opened the gate to foreign capital, while in Mexico’s capital city cultural connections to Europe were often facilitated by the wealthy, who could send their children to be educated in Europe, or by diplomats like Gamboa, who had the luxury of traveling in an official capacity. Such was the case more than a decade before the first staging of Venganza in Mexico City’s Teatro Renacimiento. In his diary, Gamboa recounts that he found himself in Paris at two in the afternoon on October 4, 1893. Knowing that his prospective host would not recognize his name, the Mexican public servant and writer left a note that expressed a desire to meet with the resident of the house in the Rue de Bruxelles. Later that day Gamboa fulfilled what had been an important literary goal, indeed a dream: he met with “Emilio” Zola, who greeted Gamboa in slippers and, after an extended discussion, commented that it was right of Gamboa not to offer him copies of his books, since, in Zola’s words via Gamboa, “I only read in Castilian, and with great difficulty, the newspaper articles that talk about me” (Diario 42–45).2 This is Gamboa’s side of the story, of course. His exhilaration at meeting Zola had been diminished somewhat by a feeling that although he had been treated properly by the French author, Gamboa himself “needed another, very different Zola, the one I had tenderly engendered for myself in my own mind” (45).3 The influence of Émile Zola, the literary Zola of Gamboa’s imagination, contributed to the biting social commentary in Venganza, a fact that exemplifies the paradox of Gamboa’s life: as a writer who based

performing the porfiriato 57

his work on close observation (plus a dose of romance), he could not ignore the Mexican milieu, nor the hereditary, colonial tradition that binds one to the land, to a master. Given that Gamboa was a steadfast supporter of the Díaz regime, the ending of Venganza seemingly had to ignore both Mexican realism and the literary genius of the writer in the Rue de Bruxelles whose work Gamboa so admired. Perhaps the Díaz regime wins out in this piece, though based on reviews of the play, Gamboa’s sociopolitical commentary might not have been lost on the audience. Indeed, one theater critic writes that “it is a thesis play. Socialist? A bit. Compassionate more than anything” 4 (qtd. in Reyes de la Maza 288).5 Compassion is not the same as action, yet there is room both in the plays and in real life for a politics of simulation that offers the possibility of change. The play is set in 1904, in a location six hours by rail from Mexico City. The hacienda where each of the three acts takes place—and the workers, one might argue—belong to the Pedreguera family. The stage directions describe the deter­ioration of the years, but also the wealth generated by the workers, who are overseen by don Francisco Rayo, the hacienda’s administrator. In more than one scene the dialogue is interrupted by the mayordomo as he calls out weights representing sacks of grain that will be transported via rail, ostensibly to Mexico City. On the hacienda we also find los de abajo, the underdogs, a term used by Gamboa that, with the publication of Mariano Azuela’s novel by the same name a decade later, became tightly tied to the Mexican Revolution.6 The only member of the Pedreguera family who has been on the hacienda in recent years (the rest have spent over half a decade in Paris, in part because of the illness of the family patriarch) is Damián, the “illegitimate” child of the hacendado’s son, Javier de Pedreguera, who has not been to the hacienda for eighteen years. Blanca, also Javier’s biological offspring, arrives with her family from Paris. She is obviously the “legitimate” one and will fall in love with her half brother (no surprise to the spectator or reader of Venganza). The ending of the play will come only after a pausa trágica, a tragic pause, and the death of her grandfather from a—hereditary?—disease, from the sinful dishonor his son has brought on the family, or simply from the shock of knowing that his granddaughter has fallen in love not only with a peón but with her half brother. Venganza has been classified in many ways by many critics, though seldom do studies go beyond the requisite three or four pages that a “minor” work by a successful novelist requires. For some the text has touches of naturalism; for some it is realism; and for others it is simply, and sometimes derogatorily, “romantic” or “sentimental.” 7 In “Zola’s L’Œuvre and Reconquista of Gamboa,”

58  chap ter 2

Robert J. Niess notes that Gamboa’s “work provides only scattered examples of direct appropriation from Zola and the latter’s influence on him was rather general than specific, bearing mainly on his choice of subject-matter, method of treatment and overall social outlook” (577). Though Niess goes on, as many others have, to argue for the influence of Zola in Gamboa’s work—in this case in the novel Reconquista (1937)—what interests me here is not classification (the play clearly represents a variety of literary currents), but rather, as noted above, the Zola imagined by Gamboa, and indeed imagined naturalism, both of which influenced the play at hand and may have led to the “naturalist” title La venganza de la gleba—the revenge of the earth, specifically the cultivated earth. According to José Emilio Pacheco, a Mexican intellectual born the year of Gamboa’s death, gleba (glebe) quickly leads, metonymically, to los siervos de la gleba (the servants of the land), “at least in the vocabulary of the political right in Mexico” (20).8 Definitions of gleba abound, and while most dictionaries initially define the term as “earth cultivated by a plow,” subsequent definitions often include “serf,” “fief,” or “heritage.” One dictionary also defines gleba as a “slave anciently joined to a piece of land and transferred with it to another owner” (“Gleba,” Velásquez), while another confirms that the siervos de la gleba could be sold along with the land they cultivated (“Gleba,” Pequeño). Gleba and siervos de la gleba are so tightly tied under siervo in the Diccionario del español usual en México that siervos de la gleba is listed as the first example. Notwithstanding the political implications of the title, however, Pacheco says that “Gamboa seems to have thought more about the vengeance of Mother Earth than about the revenge of the humiliated and offended.” 9 This seems true, especially given the final scene of the play: without knowing of the blood ties, Blanca proclaims to her ailing grandfather that she is in love with her brother Damián, and as the grandfather dies he declares that the land—la tierra and not la gleba, with its broader implications—has taken its revenge. Yet in light of the relationship of the people (especially the peones) to the land, not to mention the explicit dedication of the play “to the wealthy people of my country” (a los ricos de mi tierra; Teatro 135), it is impossible to ignore the social, if not socialist, content of the work. Blanca’s “shattered romantic interlude” (idilio mutilado) is in hindsight also the shattered illusion that the Mexican elite could continue to own horses and to place bets at the racetracks in Mexico City (a well-known pastime of Mexican elites) while los de abajo were tied to the land that they did not own. Like the dedication of the play itself, the last line of Venganza is inescapably ironic. The administrator of the hacienda, don Francisco, reads a telegram from

performing the porfiriato 59

Javier de Pedreguera, the father of Damián and Blanca, the two siblings in love, justifying his delayed arrival at his father’s deathbed: “Impossible to go today. [. . .] I was triumphant, honoring the family name” (211).10 For Gamboa, at least in this play, there is no honor in exploitation; at the racetrack with the Porfirian elite and his winning horse, Javier represents the wealthy of Gamboa’s country to whom this play is dedicated. Pacheco is right to draw attention to the unavoidable reality of Gamboa’s play: “Gamboa passes through the haciendas like an English novelist would travel through India. [. . .] A novelist from a city that exercises its dominion over the countryside, Gamboa sees in it the old barbarism opposed to urban civilization” (21).11 Gamboa not only puts the country­ side and its workers on stage—half a decade before the Revolution, and well before Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata would sit in the Casa de los Azulejos (now a Sanborn’s restaurant owned by Mexican multibillionaire Carlos Slim), where the Jockey Club and its racing aficionados had enjoyed their wealth and power—but also lets us know what the novelist as tourist in his own country might see, and how he and other Mexicans might perceive the countryside now and in the future.12 Indeed, he is the colonial writer in a “foreign” land. While it would be imprudent to equate Gamboa with the English writer Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), his contemporary, or Mexico’s sociohistori­ cal context with that of the British Empire, Edward Said’s observations on Kipling’s poem “The White Man’s Burden” (1899) are nonetheless pertinent to a study of Gamboa: As he appears in several poems, in novels like Kim, and in too many catchphrases

to be an ironic fiction, Kipling’s White Man, as an idea, a persona, a style of being, seems to have served many Britishers while they were abroad. [. . .] Kipling him-

self could not merely have happened; the same is true of his White Man. Such ideas and their authors emerge out of complex historical and cultural circum-

stances. [. . . R]eality is divided into various collectives: languages, races, types, colors, mentalities, each category being not so much a neutral designation as an evaluative interpretation. Underlying these categories is the rigidly binomial opposition of “ours” and “theirs.” [. . .] This opposition was reinforced not only by anthropology, linguistics, and history but also, of course, by the Darwinian theses on survival and natural selection. (226–27)

From the very description of the dramatis personae in Venganza, the divisions of Mexican reality at the beginning of the twentieth century are clear, though

60  chap ter 2

Gamboa’s text is more self-conscious (yet perhaps no less paternalistic) than the work of authors like Kipling. From the harapos and sombreros de petate (rags and straw hats, hats made from the same material used for humble sleeping rolls) of the workers to the European dress of wealthy Mexicans worn by the Pedreguera family, the 1905 spectator, as well as the contemporary reader, would understand clearly the social divisions at play—and thus the effect of Porfirian hegemony (Gamboa, Teatro 136). It is evident that, based on societal norms, the distance between the campesinos and, for example, the princess-like Blanca Pedreguera is, or should be, maintained. In this case natural selection is anything but natural, though the façade of heredity—biological, not colonial—performed by both the elites and the people who work the land might lead one to think otherwise. This is the discussion, tightly tied to negotiation, that Gamboa brings to the fore in Venganza and that makes the play revolutionary despite reviews to the contrary, Gamboa’s ideas expressed elsewhere, or his “true” feelings, whatever they may have been. The scenes of negotiation in this century-old play, often metatheatrical and self-conscious, are, like the social strata mentioned above, communicated effectively through costumes. However, instead of serving to disguise, these representations function to demonstrate purposefully a stark, hierarchical reality. The administrator of the hacienda, don Francisco, falls in between the Pedreguera family and the campesinos (as does the character from Mexico City, Joaquín, who dropped out of college and works in the hacienda office). Don Francisco visually (and verbally, as will be seen shortly) negotiates class structure: he wears a waistcoat and an unadorned hat—made of felt, not petate. Gamboa also specifies that this character’s jacket and pants are “not for riding horseback” (no de montar; 136). Make no mistake about his origins—the playtext does not—but don Francisco is, from the point of view of the Pedreguera family, one of “them” who understands “us.” In the first act, when the administrator is accused by the young city slicker Joaquín of sounding like the “socialists” (“those who want the underdogs to rise to where the wealthy find themselves now”),13 he clarifies his liminal position: “That’s just nonsense, Joaquín. How would I want that if I’m not with one group or the other, and with what’s left of my life it’s the same to me whether those rise or the others go down? . . . What I was saying was that the masters should care more than they generally do about the people who work for them . . .” (144).14 This quotation is part of a dialogue commonly cited by critics and theater historians to signal the possibly

performing the porfiriato 61

revolutionary tone of Venganza. Don Francisco continues with what is the most potentially radical line of the play, at least according to one possible reading: [T]hose of us who work the land, those of us who water it with our sweat and

with our tears, those of us who with the plow destroy its entrails so that everyone can eat, those of us from the campo and those of you from the cities [. . . W]e are not bandits, we’re guerrillas [. . .], revolutionaries, precisely to defend [the land]

from those from the outside and those from the inside—it’s the same! [. . .] What

does this have to do with the rich, and with religion, and with governments? . . . Even with bad governments, by chance! (143–44)15

In one of the most in-depth and insightful analyses of Venganza, Marcela DelRío notes that don Francisco is one of the characters who serves as an intermediary (read: ally) from whom the play’s “social prophesy” (profecía social) comes ( 31). The above quotation demonstrates the ideological fissure between the campo and the city: one can infer either that the “bad governments” are hypothetical or, as Del-Río affirms, that “[t]he author, as a member of the government of Porfirio Díaz, knew that a completely revolutionary discourse could bring him lamentable consequences” ( 33).16 Yet it is probable that Gamboa was signaling the importance of social change that had nothing to do with radical revolution, but rather with increased social justice, just the right amount to maintain the government of Díaz. Del-Río is clear on this point: “[I]n La venganza de la gleba [. . .] what [Gamboa] is trying to do is not instigate the people through a subversive message so that they rebel, but rather on the contrary, he is promulgating the avoidance of the social chaos that a revolution would entail, since it would lead to [. . .] another dictator because of the ethnic fatalism to which, according to him, Mexicans are subjugated” (41).17 While it seems that Del-Río contradicts the statement quoted above regarding Gamboa’s cautious stance as a member of the Porfiriato, it is clear that these contradictions also lie with Gamboa himself. He is weary both of the Porfiriato but also of what might replace it if there were a revolution. Gamboa negotiates political desires as well as his fear (expressed in the city slicker Joaquín, who expounds on socialism in the play) of an upheaval that would place the country, and his own position in the Porfirian government, at risk. What brought on the accusation that don Francisco is a socialist, in addition to his voicing his opinions regarding the rights of the workers, is the conversation

62  chap ter 2

he has with Marcos, the campesino who is raising Javier de Pedreguera’s son as his own along with his wife, Loreto, who is the mother of the child: Who’s there? marcos. It’s us, don Pancho, may God grant you a good evening! don francisco.

(Removing his hat.) (Removing his hat upon hearing the divine Name.) Good evening, Marcos, who are you speaking with? . . . marcos. With Loreto, patrón, [. . .] did you require [mandaba usté] something? [. . . ] don francisco. [. . .] Have you already heard the news that the masters [amos] arrive tomorrow? . . . That you have to come greet them with those of us who eat their bread? marcos. I won’t be able to be there, señor don Pancho, because of my little animals, with your permission!, they don’t know about this and can’t go a day without food . . . I’ll go into the hills [m’iré al monte], God willing, as always, in the morning, and your grace [mercé] will tell the masters that as you can see I don’t know how to speak . . . don francisco. Why don’t you have the herders drive the cattle, and you can join the rest, since you’re a horseman, for the ride that will go and meet them on the train? . . . Come on! And I’ll let you ride my “Apache,” with its new saddle . . . marcos. If your grace commands it . . . but I don’t know how to speak, don Pancho! . . . and then I have two sick cows [. . .], and I’m the only one who can cure them . . . don francisco. Look, man, don’t be stubborn, it’s not even a matter of talking; and you can cure the cows upon your return . . . Do you want to go or not? . . . loreto. (Quietly to Marcos.) Come on man, go! . . . marcos. (Resolute.) Well, if your grace doesn’t command it, I’d better go with my cows and bulls, don Pancho . . . I don’t know how to speak . . . don francisco. (Turning benevolently toward Joaquín.) I’m telling you, Joaquín, there’s no other option than to kill them or leave them, because they don’t understand even if you shoot at them. [. . .] don francisco.

performing the porfiriato 63

(Pulling Loreto’s shawl.) Well, then, patrón, with permission, and may your grace rest . . . good evening, Joaquín! . . . [. . .]

marcos.

Loreto and Marcos exit. Goodness! Señor don Pancho, what patience you have with these brutes . . . don francisco. (Reacting, within his nature, which is in the end that of a campesino, against the harsh term used by the city man.) No, no, Joaquín, they’re not so brutish, the man has his motives . . . I mean (upon noting Joaquín’s perplexity) he must have his motives, but they’re like that: very introspective, swallowing their desires and their suffering, more than anything if it has to do with the masters . . . what I mean (restraining his own discourse) is that if they fear the masters will not take well what they do or what they think, yes sir, even what they think! that the respect that the earth breeds for her owner [. . .] encompasses even thought . . . (141–42)18 joaquín.

This extensive quotation shows the masks worn both by the campesino and by don Francisco. Marcos cannot express himself in front of the “masters”; “I cannot speak” (no sé hablar), he repeats. He affirms, in effect, that he has no voice, no ability—but more importantly, no authority—to express himself to the Pedreguera family. The linguistic cues of his performance for don Francisco indicate that he also does not have the schooling or the power of Joaquín, though he did not finish his university studies, or don Francisco, who went off to school before returning to the campo: su mercé, your grace, implies, in a slightly different but appropriate connotation, dependence on the volition of another; usté, the formal “you” sans the final “d,” serves as a sign of respect and as a rural social marker; and patrón, a person who mandates the actions of others, points to the total dependence of the campesino on his boss. What don Francisco knows that Joaquín does not, as the reader or spectator understands when Joaquín reacts strangely to his comment that Marcos “has his motives,” is that Marcos does not want to see the father of the son he calls his own—though in the end Javier de Pedreguera never appears on stage. Marcos clearly fears the social situation, though it is also possible that he fears an eruption, the bringing to light of what Scott calls the “hidden transcript”—a “privileged site for

6 4  chap ter 2

nonhegemonic, contrapuntal, dissident, subversive discourse” (25). Marcos fears, perhaps, a revealing of truth generally spoken only among the campesinos when the mask of a subordinate is removed to show that the face and the mask only appear to fit together, that disruption (personal or national) of the status quo is manifest, and that there is a desire for revenge that, according to Scott, can be shared by a community: An individual who is affronted may develop a personal fantasy of revenge and

confrontation, but when the insult is but a variant of affronts suffered systematically by a whole race, class, or strata, then the fantasy can become a collective

cultural product. Whatever form it assumes—offstage parody, dreams of violent

revenge, millennial visions of a world turned upside down—this collective hidden transcript is essential to any dynamic view of power relations. (9)

It is difficult to ascertain the position of don Francisco in the text, for he plays the part of defender of the campesinos (as seen in his discussion with Joaquín and in other sections of the playtext) and also serves to keep the workers in check for their own benefit—at least from his point of view. He is one of them and should act as such according to the stage directions quoted above, where Gamboa affirms that his “nature” is, after all, that of a campesino. We see this in the text from don Francisco’s point of view, though he clarifies the difference in status: “I, born here, right here, on this hacienda, although fortunately at a higher rank [. . .] I know about what you know, and what you do not” (142–43).19 We also see subtle deference to the masters when don Francisco refers to the campesinos who eat the food provided by the masters. This is in sharp contrast to the heated exchange with Joaquín when don Francisco exclaims that the campesinos harvest food so that those in the countryside, as well as those in the city, may eat. The difference is clear: in don Francisco’s conversation with Marcos there is a façade to protect (that is, that the food, as with the hacienda and its inhabitants, is the property of the masters), a façade that is upheld by both the dominant and subordinate entities in a given interaction—they are each other’s allies. According to Scott, this is the public transcript, “a shorthand way of describing the open interaction between subordinates and those who dominate. The public transcript, where it is not positively misleading, is unlikely to tell the whole story about power relations. It is frequently in the interest of both parties to tacitly conspire in misrepresentation” (2).

performing the porfiriato 65

The performance of don Francisco serves to maintain the status quo. Marcos gets what he wants, but the power relationship is reinforced in the line where don Francisco reminds Marcos of his authority, telling him, “You know me.” In part Don Francisco has been kind and understanding; yet undoubtedly he also feels the need to refer to acts of past violence or punishment so that his authority remains intact. In a broader context, don Francisco sustains the balancing act of the hegemonic power structure by releasing steam (giving in while maintaining authority) at exactly the right moments. In this way he helps Marcos escape a difficult situation and also avoids the possibility of an explosion of the hidden transcript. The manner in which Marcos regards don Francisco is potentially multifaceted. As Scott notes: There is little doubt that acts of deference—for example, a bow of greeting or the

use of a superior’s honorific in addressing him—are intended in some sense to convey the outward impression of conformity with standards sustained by superi-

ors. Beyond this we may not safely go. The act may be performed almost automat-

ically as a ritual or habitual act; it may be the result of calculating its advantages; it may be successful dissembling; it may spring from a conscious desire to honor a respected superior. (24)

In the interaction between Marcos and don Francisco we see a certain paternal admiration; the desire on the part of Marcos to achieve his goal, and thus perhaps the additional use of respectful words and gestures; and of course the habitual, natural-appearing removal of the hat. For don Francisco it is in deference to God, whereas for Marcos it is a gesture of respect, real or feigned—or both. As with any power structure, there are ranks that must be obeyed, and don Francisco, despite his authority over the campesinos, shows deference not only to God but also to his patrón, don Andrés de Pedreguera. At the beginning of the second act, the latter speaks with don Francisco in order to ascertain whether or not the child Loreto and Marcos are raising is the offspring of Javier. The other child, the “legitimate” offspring of Loreto and Marcos, died at a young age. Don Andrés suspects the truth that the child is his grandson; his wife, doña Guadalupe Orto de Pedreguera, wants to know the truth in order to make amends and avoid divine retribution; and Marcos, under pressure, finally reveals that the child is indeed a Pedreguera.20 Don Andrés, however, wants a different version of the story, one that will assuage his wife’s concerns. Don

66  chap ter 2

Francisco must once again negotiate by hedging, employing standard tools of the social structure, to slowly achieve the desired result—avoiding a conversation with doña Guadalupe in which he, portrayed as ever so noble by Gamboa, would have to lie. Don Andrés employs his power (“Am I going to have to remind you that I am the master?”),21 but in the face of don Francisco’s linguistic prowess and power of negotiation the latter is finally able to affirm his desire not to speak directly with the wife of the hacendado (162–63). Instead of usté, as when speaking with others, in this section of text don Francisco uses the full word. He clearly knows when and how to negotiate, though he is successful here in part because honor (don Francisco’s desire not to lie) wins out in a play that is becoming more and more centered, by the second act, on an ethos of religion and less on the reality that one might experience in the campo, however idyllically and stereotypically that reality is presented. “The power of the dominant,” Scott writes, “thus ordinarily elicits—in the public transcript—a continuous stream of performances of deference, respect, reverence, admiration, esteem, and even adoration that serve to further convince ruling elites that their claims are in fact validated by the social evidence they see before their very eyes” (93). This reverential deference, always negotiated with care, becomes evident in numerous conversations in the play. Gamboa understood that maintaining the hegemonic power structure requires obedience without limiting opportunities—for advancement and “honor,” in the case of don Francisco, and in the case of Marcos, good will from his patrón—so severely that no progress of personal goals or change is possible, a situation that would lead to revolution. Within Venganza there is room to move, to advance, to achieve at a minimum the respect of the administrator and even the Pedreguera family itself. The question becomes, then, to what extent are the campesinos operating in a colonial structure that they have internalized and that to them appears natural? Does one interpret, for example, Marcos and his actions as, to use the title of one of Scott’s book chapters, “false consciousness or laying it on thick?” Or, to put it another way, are the face and the mask identical? A review published in the newspaper El Imparcial on October 16, 1905, makes reference to the most surprising element of the play: the Mexican pueblo on stage. The reviewer states: La venganza de la gleba shows us how it is possible to bring to the stage our life, our blood, national customs and passions [. . .]. The play’s peons speak like our campesinos, in a type of popular speech in which the Castilian words have

performing the porfiriato 67

archaic touches—colonial echoes—and the phonetic alterations of a pueblo that

for centuries has not heard spoken correctly the language taught to them by the conquerors. (qtd. in Reyes de la Maza 287–88)22

The “us” here is the bourgeois class. It is clear that campesinos would not have been in the theater to see themselves represented on stage, though they were— history tells us—rehearsing revolution in their conversations, defying in small ways the power structure. The “colonial echoes” are clear, too; the question is to what extent gestures and words are so engrained as to not be recognizable to the workers as a performance of self-preservation or advancement. While wary of hegemony, especially the variety that precludes agency on the part of subordinates, Scott indicates that gestures—such as the tip of the hat or the use of pleasantries that hedge or honor a dominant interlocutor—“may, in some cultural contexts, become as habitual as the ordinary conversational prefaces to complaints by subordinates who are not yet so alienated as to declare war.” He goes on to argue, “Any dominant ideology with hegemonic pretensions must, by definition, provide subordinate groups with political weapons that can be of use in the public transcript. [. . . H]istorical evidence clearly shows that subordinate groups have been capable of revolutionary thought that repudiates existing forms of domination” (101). The idea of false consciousness is, at least in part, the illusion produced by perfected performances rehearsed for centuries. In his conversation with Joaquín, don Francisco indicates, to Joaquín’s surprise, that land breeds respect for the master, whose power of rule “encompasses even thought” (comprende hasta el pensamiento; 142). Yet the ritualized signs of respect seen repeatedly in the play are belied by the conversations among the campesinos; it is clear that we are dealing not simply with false consciousness but with self-preservation, prudence in the face of domination. As love and talk of marriage blossom between Blanca and Damián, the “legitimate” and “illegitimate” Pedregueras, respectively, one of their conversations offers insight into the hidden transcript, the words spoken offstage, among the people who work the land: Silly, silly, didn’t I tell you that with my grandpa I get everything I want, everything, everything? [. . .] And you’ll see how he consents to let me marry you! . . . ( Youthful.) And imagine the look on the faces of the people from here the day we marry! . . . the look on Loreto’s face, and that of Marcos! . . . Don’t you like that?

bl anca.

68  chap ter 2

(Somber.) No! I don’t like it, because it seems impossible! . . . my father has explained it too me many times: “the masters think we’re different from them, and they consider us to in every way as worse than animals” [. . .] bl anca. And if we’re different, then why do we love each other? [. . .] damián. (Pensive.) I don’t know . . . maybe it’s because nobody mandates love [. . .]. There are things that nobody controls! . . . things that are free! . . . (193) 23 damián.

While this is not a conversation among subordinates, both Damián’s reference to what his father has repeatedly told him and what is clearly relayed—indeed quoted—based on conversations that are held in the absence of the powerful give insight into a literary hidden transcript. This unveiling of Marcos’s words contradicts his speech and actions in the face of power: namely in his conversation with don Francisco (in the presence of Joaquín) and in a later conversation with Blanca’s mother, when he remains almost voiceless while being interrogated regarding the paternity of Damián. Marcos “knows his place,” as the audience of 1905 might have appreciated. What is also apparent, however, is that while Marcos may be controlled by “colonial echoes,” this control does not necessarily extend to his thoughts, thoughts expressed in the hidden transcript. Regarding the term “hegemony,” Sara Mills notes that instead of a strictly Marxist view of ideology that implied “a simplistic and negative process whereby individuals were duped into using conceptual systems which were not in their own interests,” a view of discourse heavily influenced by Foucault “offered a way of thinking about hegemony—people’s compliance in their own oppression—without assuming that individuals are necessarily simply passive victims of systems of thought” (26–27). Compliance implies choice, of course, and some “choices” bring about drastic consequences for subordinates in a given situation. For Marcos this would surely be the case; we do not get to see the end Damián would have faced if it had not been discovered that he was related by blood to Blanca. Del-Río believes that the play is not about class structure, “because what impedes the union of the siblings who, as they fall in love with each other, do not know what they are, is the blood relationship and not the social difference” (41).24 True, the reason that a campesino cannot marry Blanca happens to be, in this play, the blood ties they share. Yet what would the reason have been were this not the case? Without the reality of the Mexican Revolution Venganza would have been a foundational fiction affirming

performing the porfiriato 69

divisions of class and race, not to mention the incest taboo common in many Latin American texts; because of the Revolution it was, in short, a premonition. Damián, without doubt, encroaches on the class divisions, on the domain of the white man. The importance of colonial (as opposed to genetic) heredity is shown at numerous places in the text; for instance, when Blanca falls from a horse, Damián carries her—but only after getting permission from the main or “big” master (l’amo grande; 195). Yet perhaps the best example is when Blanca and Damián are discussing their relationship. Blanca indicates that she will never run off with Damián (he cannot believe there could be another way), but promises to speak to her grandfather. At this point Blanca’s mother, Beatriz, calls her from the window, and the stage directions make the situation clear: “As soon as the voice of Beatriz is heard, Damián, out of hereditary and centuries-old respect, instinctively removes his hat and moves away from Blanca, who, on the other hand, is unaffected, innocent and pure” (196).25 Beatriz has a “voice,” a voice Blanca can ignore at will. During the play Damián, despite being so forthright as to use the informal “you”—tú—with Blanca, because it seemed “natural” (192), calls her formally by the name “niña Blanca,” niña being a sign of respect as well as marital status. While Blanca is immutable, Damián should remain “mute,” as in the scene described above, which brings to mind the theater term “mutis”— to remove oneself from the scene, to give center stage to another actor, or to remain quiet. He does so, and the myth of inferiority is shown to be pervasive. In Mythologies, Roland Barthes proposes that myth has the task of giving an historical intention a natural justification, and

making contingency appear eternal. [. . .] The function of myth is to empty reality

[. . .]. Myth does not deny things, on the contrary, its function is to talk about them; simply, it purifies them, it makes them innocent, it gives them a natural and eternal justification, it gives them a clarity which is not that of an explanation but that of a statement of fact. (142–43)

The actions and words of Damián and others in Venganza show both mythical iterations and understanding on the part of los de abajo that behaviors are anything but natural; they can be muted, but are also mutable. The face has not grown to fit the mask, in the case of characters like Damián and Marcos. “Natural,” of course, is how reviewers saw the 1905 performance, and naturalism as a theatrical term (also from Zola) fits well with the assessment of

70  chap ter 2

the play. While reviewers who saw Venganza at the time perceived that Mexico had been put on stage, critics since then have rightly emphasized Gamboa’s paternalism in his treatment of characters, mostly the campesinos (Marcos, for example, abuses alcohol to dull the pain of his situation with Loreto). Gamboa clearly wants to “influence” his characters in a way that will, in turn, influence the audience. Carlos Solórzano ties this idea of paternalism to his classification of the play, which once again brings naturalism to the fore: “True, incisive naturalism, without being toned down, could not prosper in literary expression in which the author treats his characters and his public paternalistically” (854).26 This sentiment is also expressed with a slightly different take by Donald L. Shaw, who, writing on Gamboa’s novel Santa, affirms that Gamboa was not a “real” naturalist ( 31) and that “he retained his religious beliefs which, indeed, became stronger towards the end of his life. In other words, although he allowed himself to dive into the murky waters of fin-de-siglo existential negativism, he always kept firm hold of a life-line” ( 30). Following the claims of Shaw and Solórzano, it is clear that Gamboa was negotiating literary currents as well as his own religious beliefs. For some critics this results in watered-down naturalism, though of course this ignores the work of many writers, beginning with that of the nineteenth-century Spanish author Emilia Pardo Bazán, who was influenced (but not overtaken) by Zola, among others. João Sedycias highlights the combination of “Catholic” naturalism à la Pardo Bazán and social criticism: Gamboa’s “brand of naturalistic fiction is unique . . . in that with it the author sought to bridge two very different and distant worlds: the intellectual milieu of European letters and the social and religious ambience of his native Mexico” (99). What is clear is that there is room for redemption with Gamboa, and there is social criticism in his work that belies the seemingly objective tone of “real” naturalism. According to Bertolt Brecht, naturalism leads an audience to see the world as unchangeable, to see sociohistorical situations as natural. “Naturalists,” states Brecht, “show human beings as if they were showing a tree to a passerby. Realists show human beings as one shows a tree to a gardener” (qtd. in Pavis 302). Because Gamboa does not aspire to (or achieve) “clinical detachment,” we have a window onto a more intriguing subject than a faux laboratory experiment: the religious, political, and social debates of the Porfiriato. In the play we see that Gamboa has negotiated literary currents, as well as his own religious and political positions. He has negotiated, in short, Porfirian hegemony and in the process his face grows to fit the mask, a mask of complicity, albeit coupled with compassion.

performing the porfiriato 71

A newspaper review of Venganza points to one of the first calculated moves that Gamboa made, one of his first incursions into the power structure that would at once serve him and also require his services: With regard to the execution of the play, we can assure that it was pleasing, although at times one noted a certain monotony in its delivery . . .

For us the triumph of Mr. Gamboa is a great satisfaction, and we thank the

chronicler from El Imparcial for the affectionate words that he dedicates to him.

We say this because the author of La venganza de la gleba began to brandish

his first literary arms in the pages of Diario del Hogar, around the years 1885 to 1886. (Rev.) 27

In the review quoted above and attributed to Urbina, we see that Gamboa left the Diario del Hogar. He would, from here on, use his literary arms with great care, and this is perhaps where the face begins to grow to fit the mask. The tone of the review is amicable, as was Gamboa’s departure from the paper when the editor, Filomeno Mata, decided to take a more critical stance toward Díaz and gave his staff the option of leaving (García Barragán 47). The possible source of Gamboa’s decision to support Díaz, as María Guadalupe García Barragán indicates, and for which there is ample evidence in Gamboa’s diaries, is his gratitude to Díaz for sending a military escort for his father’s funeral. In 1901, Gamboa writes that the act “sealed, forever, my gratitude toward [Díaz . . .]. At times I have censured, in word and in thought, many acts of the governor [. . .] but I have not stopped loving the man, Porfirio Díaz, nor have I ceased to be grateful” (qtd. in García Barragán 47). García Barragán affirms that the memory of this gesture was Gamboa’s reason for going to work at the newspaper El lunes, though it also seems clear that Gamboa perceived a fruitful future in the Díaz regime (as he would after the advent of the Revolution, when he and many of the incorporated Porfirian intellectuals would back the short-lived presidency of Huerta). Thus began a long career in the Porfiriato, a career that ran parallel to, but was very different from, that of Filomeno Mata. In the end Gamboa would make an unsuccessful bid for the presidency as a Catholic Party candidate, while the editor of the Diario del Hogar would see the headline of his newspaper proclaim “Today General Díaz Will Resign” (“Hoy renunciará el General Díaz”). The story of the opposition newspaper Diario del Hogar indicates the limited (but nonetheless existing) space for criticism in Mexican papers, and policies

72  chap ter 2

and actions related to the press offer one of the most useful examples of the negotiated performance of the Porfiriato. In his biography of Porfirio Díaz, Paul Garner addresses the case of this newspaper’s editor, Mata, in the years following the paper’s 1881 inception and Díaz’s first reelection: Mata became an even more outspoken critic of permanent re-election. [. . .] He not only urged Díaz to resign his candidacy, but published a satirical poem which lampooned Díaz. [. . .] As a consequence, Cosío Villegas estimates that El Diario

del Hogar was subjected to an average of four prosecutions a year between 1885

and 1890, and that Mata himself spent a total of 47 days in prison in 1890 alone. He was imprisoned again in 1891 and 1892 and, even though he resigned as editor

in 1892, the persecutions continued. [. . .] In 1907 Mata once again resumed the editorship [. . .] and, again, his printing equipment was confiscated. (126–27)

Notwithstanding the government’s actions regarding this and other newspapers, actions that varied over the long period of the Díaz regime and the Díaz-influenced government of Manuel González (1880–84), negotiation was consistently part of the official repertoire. John Charles Chasteen describes the modus operandi during the Porfiriato: “Díaz offered just two alternatives: pan o palo, meaning roughly ‘carrot or stick.’ For example, he subsidized the press to keep it friendly, then jailed journalists who spoke out against him” (193). Many papers obliged out of fear, or because they were paid to do so. Enrique Krauze explains that “[d]uring Díaz’s reign, the press was hobbled by the Ley Mordaza. [. . .] A journalist could be imprisoned for a ‘psychological crime’ or even through a report to the police of his ‘intentions.’ [. . .] Significantly, from 1896 on, El Imparcial, subsidized by and representing the government, became the most widely read newspaper in Mexico” (9). El Imparcial is one of many newspapers where one could find, daily, the performance of the Porfiriato, a performance that focused on steady progress—even if that progress was often related to the (front-page) news that a new Porfirio Díaz park has been inaugurated, that Díaz attended a play, or that a new street has been named in the leader’s honor. On July 12, 1904, the headline reads “Re-election of Señor General Díaz,” the paper makes it clear that there is “jubilation” in the entire country, and the first lines of the story buttress the legitimacy of the regime by indicating that the elections were carried out in conformity with the constitutional laws of the country (“Las elecciones”). On September 14, 1906, the front-page headline highlights Díaz’s economic plan (“Capital: The

performing the porfiriato 73

Foundation of Our Progress” [“El Capital”]); on September 17, 1906, the day after national celebrations of independence from Spain—celebrated on the eve of the anniversary, which happens to be Díaz’s birthday—Díaz is once again applauded, the jubilant masses “invade” a prominent park, and fireworks are enjoyed by all (“La Ceremonia”); and on page 1 of the October 17, 1900, edition there is an announcement that advises the reader of the next meeting of the “Circle of Friends of General Díaz,” which had as its goal a discussion of upcoming celebrations (“El Círculo”). Garner explains that, given his understanding of the importance of ritual and his desire to nurture a “cult of personality,” or a performance of legitimacy, “Díaz’s military exploits rapidly became incorporated into the public calendar of patriotic ritual” (129). The Circle of Friends was one of several formal groups that were formed (and promoted in pro-Díaz newspapers) in order to organize specific public celebrations—all centered around Díaz, even if the link was a stretch, and all contributing to his persona of power and to the view of Díaz “as a classical republican nation-builder, a member of the pantheon of liberal heroes who had contributed to the creation of the patria” (129). The mask of the Porfiriato was constantly reaffirmed publicly and available for consumption not only in newspapers like El Imparcial but also in public ceremonies, in statues, and on street names, among other venues. Yet dissent could also be registered, as seen in the example of the Diario del Hogar; and the mask of the Porfiriato was easily (if temporarily) uncovered—often by political cartoonists, who made sure that the heads of state understood that their impunity, hidden behind the legitimizing force of the constitution, was witnessed if not weakened. In a cartoon whose idea of masking and pseudoroyalty would be used by other satirists in the future, Santiago Hernández portrays Manuel González as a king, with a small crown topping the caricature of the president, who smiles deviously. In front of his face is the paper-thin mask of the constitution, though an old man representing the pueblo can recognize, by squinting and tilting his glasses, the colonial past. The caption “Ya te conosco, mascarita” (I already know you, little mask), demonstrates that the viceroyalty has not been forgotten, and that the González administration was nothing more (from the point of view of the cartoon) than an extension of the regal reign of Díaz (in Barajas Durán 295). Shortly after Díaz was reelected in 1884, another cartoon depicts Díaz’s manipulation of Mexican law, as he rips through the constitution, head first, and attacks the independent press (in Barajas Durán 304). The constant—if often suppressed—ability to articulate counterhegemonic opinions during the Porfiriato is surprising, considering the care with

74  chap ter 2

“Ya te conozco mascarita” (I already know you, little mask). Cartoon by Santiago Hernández, from Barajas Durán, El país de “El Llorón de Icamole.”

Figure 1. 

which Díaz groomed his image (it is often said that he used makeup to appear more white) and his portrayal in the historical accounts that dominated post-­ Revolutionary Mexico. It is more common (and equally accurate) to hear of the Díaz who ruled with an iron fist than the Díaz who negotiated, deferred, flattered, compromised, and offered gestures of support and even kindness to ensure loyalty. In order to hold numerous diplomatic positions in the Díaz administration, as opposed to spending time in jail, for example, Gamboa criticized the regime from the inside, always playing the subordinate role when necessary—just like the characters in Venganza. The weak, fearful Díaz of the political cartoon seen above was not, of course, the Díaz that Gamboa witnessed. Gamboa’s interactions with him were, in fact, representative of the public transcript, the carefully crafted performance of a leader. Garner refers to the “enigmatic persona” of Díaz and to Gamboa’s perception of the leader:

“Los náufragos” (Shipwrecked). Cartoon by Figaro, from Barajas Durán, El país de “El Llorón de Icamole.”

Figure 2. 

76  chap ter 2

“Díaz was, according to Gamboa, ‘always serious, always in control, unsmiling, his bearing and physique strong and upright: his features, which never reveal whether he is pleased or displeased, are perfectly enigmatic, and never betray him’ ” ( 76). Gamboa’s diary offers insight into the relationship Gamboa had with Díaz, one that led the author, shortly after Venganza was staged, to find himself questioning Díaz’s use of the familiar, plural conjugation of a verb in a telegram: Gamboa is ultrasensitive to the protocol of the patrón, as are the characters in his play (Mi diario 55). While Gamboa was clearly useful to the Porfiriato as an ally, a diplomat, and genuine devotee—albeit qualified—it is still surprising that Venganza could have made it to the stage. Though this could be seen as a change in the regime, it is important to note that in the same year that a Mexico City audience could have enjoyed Gamboa’s play, more traditional spectacles of power were available at the Teatro Principal. Armando de María y Campos, for example, writes about the custom of staging theatrical pieces to honor the “Héroe de la Paz” (Hero of Peace). He notes insightfully that “political theater was, without a doubt, that which authors wrote to eulogize President Díaz” ( 39). María y Campos offers the example of an evening in 1905 when spectators were treated to a play about Díaz’s military exploits: “The episode is pure fiction, but it gives the author a reason to exalt the [. . .] virtues of the President of the Republic. General Díaz does not appear—no one dared at that time to put him on stage—but he is alluded to” (40). Others were staging the exploits of Díaz, while Gamboa—with the political capital that comes with negotiation, the always available tools of subversion inherent in hegemony—paints the exploitation of Díaz from the inside. To some degree, Gamboa’s face grows to fit the mask, though his diaries, which were published years after the fact, always show that he is aware of his position, of the sacrifices he has made to gain relative political power. Perhaps the best way to explain the compassion that Gamboa shows in Venganza is his return to religion. Despite all of the numerous racist comments in his diaries and in public speeches, Gamboa seems to see a higher calling. He is willing to forgo “pure” naturalism for nature, nature that is shown to be, in Venganza, the creation of God (Del-Río 35). By denaturalizing the colonial echoes on the hacienda of the Pedreguera family, Gamboa affirms that “even” the “indios” are equal, despite the textual undercurrent that works against this argument and that may or may not be self-conscious. Such is the case when Blanca yells, “don’t be an Indian” (que no sea indio!; 163), or when Loreto—who proves to be more assertive in front of the masters than Marcos—indicates

performing the porfiriato  7 7

that Marcos is, in the end, more “white” (that is, good) on the inside than Javier de Pedreguera. Loreto and doña Guadalupe are the two characters in the play who most present a religious interpretation of society. For Loreto, this stance is one of caution and resignation: “remember that we are poor workers, very poor, without anyone who loves us except God! . . . and you will conform [. . .], as we have always conformed” (149).28 Loreto refers here to Marcos’s drinking, and the need to ask God not to abandon them, though later in the same scene Marcos’s words have a revolutionary ring when he proclaims that there is no justice for the dispossessed (155). Doña Guadalupe, on the other hand, presents at various points in the text a strong religious argument in favor of equality (even if her main purpose is to make it to heaven). For her, while social codes sanction behavior, “there is not a bit of conscience in any of the codes of the world” (174).29 She is concerned with righting wrongs (in this case the possibility that her son has not taken responsibility for his actions, though clearly this is linked also to not leaving the family offspring in the campo) and is thankful to God for “miraculously” curing (temporarily) her husband of hemiplegia, which includes partial paralysis (177)—a possible naturalistic reference to syphilis. The negotiation in La venganza de la gleba mirrors in many ways Gamboa’s own negotiation. The play contains a significant message of social change from an insider/outsider, and the writing and production of the text is a significant social act that, with touches of naturalism, also leaves room for Catholicism and the social message the latter conveys through the words of doña Guadalupe. Gamboa was able to use the tools of hegemony to stage a play that criticized the Porfiriato at a time when Díaz’s exploits were honored in ceremony after ceremony, play after play. Gamboa not only held a mirror up to a Mexican audience of 1905 but offered numerous examples that pointed toward the social construction of the status quo that shows the world to be anything but immutable. The mask does, in some ways, fit the face in the case of Gamboa, but he also knows how, and when, to “lay it on thick.” On the first page of the playtext, where Gamboa dedicates his work to the wealthy of his country, there is also an epigraph from Marcel Prévost that summarizes the spirit of the play: “To write a play is an altruistic effort” (135).30 In this sense the author allies himself with the Porfiriato but also with the poor, through his ironic epigraph and the Prévost quotation. In the history of Mexican theater, Gamboa stands out as a complex negotiator who staged the future. He “speaks truth to power”—the very power in which he is explicitly complicit.

3 Zoot Suit Allies and the “Arizona Law” PRESS . Your Honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. What you have before you is a dilemma of our times. The City of Los Angeles is caught in the midst of the biggest, most terrifying crime wave in its history. A crime wave that threatens to engulf the very foundations of our civic well-being. We are not only dealing with the violent death of one José Williams in a drunken barrio brawl. We are dealing with a threat and danger to our children, our families, our homes. —Zo ot S u i t

In an interview with Arizona governor Jan Brewer, Andrew Golman asks: “When you signed Arizona’s immigration law in 2010, you cited concerns about growing border violence. But according to the F.B.I., violent crime dropped in Arizona almost 14 percent the previous year.” Brewer responds, “As the saying goes, there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Fifty thousand people in Mexico have been murdered. Puerto Peñasco, 60 miles south of our border, just had five people and a police officer killed. That is like part of Arizona, and it is spilling over into our state.” —N e w Y o r k T i m e s M a g a z i n e

N

at the Mexico City production of Luis Valdez’s play Zoot Suit, when the character Smiley tells Hank that he is going to move his family to Arizona, the crowd of Mexican spectators “explodes in a unified thunderous response,” writes Alma Martinez, the Facebook voice behind the English and Spanish sites for the National Theater Company’s production of this Chicano play. Martinez, whose extensive, binational allegiance to Zoot Suit is central to this chapter, continues: “The play’s themes are resonating deeply and profoundly with Mexican audiences in light of the mess ight after night

Zoot Suit Allies and the “Arizona L aw ”  79

in Arizona” (May 6, 2010). Even before the passage of Arizona’s controversial anti-immigrant law SB1070 in the spring of 2010—“La Ley Arizona,” as it was often called in Mexico—many people familiar with the plans to stage Zoot Suit in Mexico, as was to be expected, had drawn the connection between present-­ day negative sentiments toward immigrants and those of the 1940s, when Zoot Suit takes place. Yet banter on Facebook focused more on the play as a celebration of Chicano culture, and as a way for Mexico City residents to (finally) understand the Chicano experience. Indeed, one California contributor to the popular Facebook pages wrote that the production of the play at the Teatro Juan Ruiz Alarcón, in the theater complex of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, would be a “history lesson” for Mexicans about their “Carnales in the Norte!” (Apr. 12, 2010, comment posted Apr. 25, 2010). One part of this history lesson is about schizophrenia in wartime, when young Mexican Americans were welcome in the U.S. armed services but were beaten in the streets or jailed for expressing indifference toward mainstream, clean-cut America—or oftentimes simply for being of Mexican descent. It is also about migration: of the many migrants to Los Angeles (and California in general) in the years before the war, two groups—in addition to Japanese immigrants—stand out: Mexicans and so-called Okies, though the latter actually came from a variety of states, including Arizona. Mexican migration to California increased dramatically with the 1910 Mexican Revolution; migration from the other U.S. states was significant in the 1920s, with many people looking for a new life and pursuing a dream—even if that dream was modest. In the 1930s, migration from other U.S. states to California resulted in large part from the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, human movement notably fictionalized in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of  Wrath and portrayed in numerous photographs that document Depression-era poverty and the desperate travel necessary to find a means, however demeaning, to feed one’s family (Gregory 8–9). James N. Gregory writes about the “push” and “pull” factors that drove this migration: If the initial migration to California can be understood as a conventional west-

ward trek by moderately well-off opportunity seekers, what followed during the Depression decade seemed quite different—indeed different enough to attract international attention. The volume was not the critical distinction. At

least 315,000 and perhaps as many as 400,000 Southwesterners [from Okla-

homa, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri] moved west during the 1930s, compared with the 250,000 to 300,000 who had slipped unnoticed into California in the

80  chap ter 3

1920s. What distinguished the later group and brought them to public attention

was their social composition and purpose. Unlike most westward movements of earlier eras, this one seemed to be comprised mostly of poor people and domi-

nated not by the pull of California attractions but by the push of desperate condi-

tions back home. Contemporaries decided that they were witnessing something

unprecedented in the history of white Americans: a large-scale refugee migration, a flight from privation of the sort Americans read about elsewhere but hoped never to see in their own land. (9–10)

Migrants to California from Mexico and the U.S. states mentioned above, plus significant numbers from Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Washington (Gregory 6), found themselves in a new social milieu, culturally rich, for sure, but in many cases materially impoverished—an experience embodied by the character Tommy Roberts in Zoot Suit. Tommy exemplifies the (imperfect) mingling of cultures in wartime L. A. His performance of ethnicity underscores the social constructions that belie fixed categories, something Tommy drives home when he tells Alice Bloomfield, one of many allies in the movement to free Henry and the “38th Street Gang” from jail for the murder of a man at Sleepy Lagoon, Uh, listen, Alice. I don’t want to be treated any different than the rest of the batos, see? And don’t expect me to talk to you like some square Anglo, some pinche gabacho. You just better find out what it means to be Chicano [. . .]. [. . .]

I know what you’re trying to do for us, and that’s reet, see? Shit. Most paddies

would probably like to see us locked up for good. [. . .] I’m in here just because I

hung around with Mexicans . . . or pachucos. Well, just remember this, Alicia . . . I

grew up right alongside most of these batos, and I’m pachuco too. Simón, esa, you better believe it! (68–69)

One could speculate that the inclusion of  Tommy was a gesture toward racial harmony (or box office harmony, a legitimate consideration) on the part of Luis Valdez, which may be the case, though his character—as with most of the characters in the play—is historically based. Tommy Roberts emerges from the real-life Victor Rodman Thompson, a “paddy” who lived among pachucos, crossing ethnic, relatively segregated Los Angeles borders in an act of situational solidarity:

Zoot Suit Allies and the “Arizona L aw ”  81

There’s not a single paddy we can trust. Hey, ese, what about me? henry. You know what I mean. tommy. No, I don’t know what you mean. I’m here with the rest of yous. henry. Yeah, but you’ll be the first one out, cabrón. tommy. Give me a break, maníaco. ¡Yo soy pachuco! henry. Relax, ese. Nobody’s getting personal with you. Don’t I let you take out my carnala? Well, don’t I? tommy. Simón. (40) henry.

tommy.

The bond Henry and Tommy form is solidified through the objectification of Henry’s sister—Tommy accepts the evidence of solidarity that Henry provides, and Henry makes the crucial point that white privilege plays a role as strong as any ethnic performance a person might embody. The ties to internal migration and social blending (think also of the significant influence of African American culture on Mexicans in the United States) are complemented by the cross-­ border histories, past and present, that united Mexicans in the North with their new neighbors, neighbors who themselves may have arrived from afar, as in the case of Okies like Tommy, and who also suffered discrimination at the hands of a fear-driven 1940s society, though not to the extent of foreign or perceived-tobe-foreign residents. Zoot Suit (the play, first staged in 1978; the film, which debuted in 1981; and, for the purposes of this chapter, the Mexico City theatrical production in 2010) counters the prevailing wartime feeling in the United States, backed by “science,” that the pachuco was genetically racially inferior, even subhuman—a sentiment that has no doubt lingered, even if the scientific community no longer subscribes to theories of racial superiority. The 2010 version of the play in Mexico City, directed by Valdez and produced by the Centro Universitario de Teatro, likewise served to humanize the play’s characters at a crucial time when carnales in the North, documented and undocumented, were being persecuted with rhetoric that, as in the 1940s, involved both political and economic interests—and the purposely distorted realities they can promote. As many critics have pointed out, Valdez’s original Zoot Suit contested not only U.S. racism but also the Mexican view (expressed most famously by Octavio Paz) that Mexican American kids were anathema to Mexican values. The Mexico City production of Zoot Suit and the discussions it generated on Facebook and beyond offered insight into present-day feeling in Mexico toward

82  chap ter 3

migrants and migration, allowing for a reconsideration of Mexico City attitudes about compatriots in the United States—attitudes that cross or at least push common boundaries and whose nuances can be drawn out through a discussion of two tragic events: the well-documented Sleepy Lagoon murder and the equally tragic miscarriage of justice that surrounded it, as portrayed in Zoot Suit; and the murder of an Arizona rancher, which galvanized conservative Arizona politicians and their followers at the height of the most recent wave of anti-­ Mexican sentiment in the United States. Briefly revisiting these two events, and the restaging of Zoot Suit in Mexico City, leads to the following questions: How did an Arizona murder lead to a new contextualization of Luis Valdez’s play? And how can this new reading become a (partial) blueprint for historical reenactments and the creation of cross-ethnic and cross-border political allies that speak not to troubling continuity (as with, to a large extent, Civil War reenactments) but to social change? The play warns against the power of the press and fear-driven hysteria, documenting abuse but at the same time providing a model for social activism in the public sphere tied to the performance of ethnicity. The topic of allies, including but moving significantly beyond Mexico’s key role as a wartime ally of the United States, is another keen reminder that outsiders—in the case of the play, Alice Bloomfield and George Shearer, activists who help the young men of 38th Street—often play controversial but crucial roles during times of intense social change. It is no wonder that every time a government wishes to undermine a social cause the repertoire of fear tactics includes references to outside agitators. Often there are none, or the role is overstated in order to malign inside and outside groups that are mobilizing for social change. Conversely, when there actually are “outside agitators,” it can be fruitful to recognize that they play the role of often-beneficial allies (think of references to communist sympathizers that continue to this day). Indeed, despite negative connotations, the ever-present danger of usurping community agency, and myriad other pitfalls, the role of outsiders who agitate, who shake up the status quo, reminds us that fruitful collaboration is possible. It often leads to civic engagement that makes uncomfortable alignments well worth the frustrations they engender. As in the case of the character Padre Mier in chapter 2, actor/producer Alma Martinez in this chapter, and others in the chapters that follow, the role can be even more effective if the “outside” agitators either (actually) come from or become part of a given community. In Mexico, Subcomandante Marcos is, of course, an example par excellence of the latter.

Zoot Suit Allies and the “Arizona L aw ”  83

The insider-outsider position of an ally is also unstable, and the committed work of allies can counteract the government’s use of the outside agitator trope. When Marcos’s identity was uncovered and announced by the Mexican government, for example, it was assumed that Mexicans would turn against him. Instead, as many have pointed out, the reaction to this mestizo who had spent ten years in Chiapas building a grassroots organization that depends on cooperation as much as the dedicated charisma of one man, was the opposite: hundreds of thousands of people donned facemasks and marched in Mexico City’s Zócalo. The role of outside agitator is also by nature conflicted within organizations themselves, which makes it doubly difficult. Alice, the character in Zoot Suit, puts it this way: They’re coming at me from all sides. You’re too sentimental and emotional about

this, Alice. You’re too cold hearted, Alice. You’re collecting money and turning it over to the lawyers, while the families are going hungry. They’re saying you can’t

be trusted because you’re a communist, because you’re a Jew. Okay! If that’s the way they feel about me, then to hell with them! I hate them too. I hate their language, I hate their enchiladas, and I hate their goddamned mariachi music. ( 72)

This scene produces laughter, as one can imagine, after the angry but intimate references to enchiladas and mariachi music, and highlights the topic of cross-cultural or cross-class volunteer work, work that would have been on Valdez’s mind as an organizer himself. He would have seen the same dynamic as he researched the Sleepy Lagoon case for his play, and when he was working the picket lines and witnessing firsthand the scenario that César Chávez describes: At the beginning I was warned not to take volunteers, but I was never afraid

of the students. People warned me, “Look what happened to the Civil Rights Movement.”

“Well,” I said, “sure that could happen to us, and if it does, we’ll find out why.

But to say, ‘No, we’re not going to get them’—never!”

Of course, there were problems. When we started the strike, many volunteers

were in and out. Some of the volunteers were for ending the Vietnam war above

all else, and that shocked the workers because they thought that was unpatriotic. Once, when there was a group more interested in ending the war, I let them have

a session with the farm workers. After a real battle, the volunteers came to me

84  chap ter 3

astounded. “But they support the war!” they said. “How come?” I told them farm workers are ordinary people, not saints. (Levy 197)

From racial tension to disparate goals and experiences, volunteers and those with whom they interact exemplify unique border crossings, and Zoot Suit illustrates both the negative and positive effects of outsider involvement (from genuine participation to community membership), a topic I will treat by focusing on the historical controversy surrounding Alice McGrath’s role in the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, Valdez’s portrayal of McGrath (and George Shibley) in the play, and the central role of Alma Martinez in the cross-border success of Zoot Suit. Martinez acted as both insider and outsider as she worked with Luis Talavera and Luis Valdez, her “two Luises,” to facilitate the staging of Zoot Suit in a new, transformative sociopolitical context shaped in part by Arizona’s SB1070. She used her bicultural experiences—and binational education—to link Chicanos and Mexicans in new and productive ways. In doing so she was an exemplary artistic ally, and had one attribute that sets her apart from Alice McGrath and George Shibley (although they too suffered discrimination and, in the case of Shibley, incarceration): as a Chicana she had a more directly embedded and reciprocal relationship with the community. Martinez’s lawsuit against Pomona College for denial of tenure, a lawsuit supported by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), which advocates for Latinos and that counts actor/activist Eva Longoria as one of its board members, shows that activists can also find themselves in need of community support (the lawsuit was settled out of court). Her commitment to the Chicano cause is seen in myriad forms, including her work producing socially conscious plays for and with students. She writes: “They’re filling the jails, African Americans and Latino kids of color, they’re filling them and I feel a responsibility through what I do to help alleviate that. So it’s real personal and it’s a critical situation. Other colleagues, they do theater for reasons they do it, but taking into consideration we’re 40 percent Latino, for me this is a critical issue we should all be looking at” (Personal interview). The case of Martinez—a successful stage and screen actor with a PhD from Stanford University—is an excellent counterexample when considering the trajectory of the Zoot Suit phenomenon and the role of allies: while the characters she plays in Zoot Suit (first the daughter, then the mother) might be marginalized, her work to bring Valdez’s play to Pomona College, where it was hailed by the college’s president for connections it made with the Latino community, and later

Zoot Suit Allies and the “Arizona L aw ”  85

to Mexico City, is both powerful and effective. By all accounts, Alice McGrath also fought for justice, feeling that she, too, was an integral piece of the whole and that she could very well be the next victim, at least at the time of the zoot suit riots. But in the case of McGrath and George Shibley, which I will discuss shortly, white privilege was a factor in their success. In California and among many in the Latino community, the zoot suit riots may be part of a body of common knowledge, even if the details are blurry to some, but years of teaching has led me to the realization that even the largescale internment of Japanese and Japanese Americans is not part of the broader cultural memory of most twenty-something students in the United States— much less the treatment of Mexican Americans during that period. There are, however, excellent sources for this complex time in U.S. history. One of the most accessible student-friendly websites on the zoot suit riots and the Sleepy Lagoon trial (People v. Zammora) is provided by PBS. A film on the riots was shown as part of the American Experience documentary series, and the complementary website features video interviews, historical documents (including photographs), and a teacher’s guide. The description of the documentary portrays the riots in direct terms: In June 1943, Los Angeles erupted into the worse race riots in the city to date. For ten straight nights, American sailors armed with make-shift weapons cruised Mexican American neighborhoods in search of “zoot-suiters”—hip, young Mexi-

can teens dressed in baggy pants and long-tailed coats. The military men dragged kids—some as young as twelve years old—out of movie theaters and diners, bars

and cafes, tearing the clothes off the young men’s bodies and viciously beating

them. Mexican youths aggressively struck back. The fighting intensified and on the worst night, taxi drivers offered free rides to the riot area. One LA paper even

printed a guide on how to “de-zoot” a zoot-suiter. When the violence ended, scores of Mexicans and servicemen were in hospital beds.

Of the many instances of increasing violence preceding the riots, the August 1942 murder at a reservoir called Sleepy Lagoon, similar to the killing of an Arizona rancher in 2010, was particularly brutal. The untimely murder of Mexican American José Díaz was also the perfect political recipe: a combination of fear, fomented by William Randolph Hearst’s sensational press, misplaced concerns about crime, and a convenient enemy within (except for the crucial detail that Mexico was a U.S. war ally, and that Mexican Americans were, of

86  chap ter 3

course, serving in the military). The PBS website’s description of people and events explains the events after the August 1–2 murder: The governor, Democrat Cuthbert L. Olson, was becoming increasingly concerned about juvenile delinquency. He used the murder of José Díaz as a call to action. The Los Angeles Police Department (L.A.P.D.) rounded up more than

600 youth—mostly Mexican Americans known as “zoot-suiters” for the bal-

looned pants and long coats they wore—and indicted Hank Leyvas and twenty-­ one others for José Díaz’s murder. The subsequent trial dominated headlines in the City of Angels for months. The 38th Street boys were convicted in Los Ange-

les’ tabloid journals—and the jury [which had been allowed to return home each night] agreed. Hank Leyvas was sentenced to life in San Quentin.

Orson Welles, in a letter to the San Quentin Parole Board, wrote: Gentlemen: After a very careful examination of the records and facts of the trial,

I am convinced that the boys in the Sleepy Lagoon case were not given a fair trial, and that their conviction could only have been influenced by anti-Mexican preju-

dice. I am convinced, also, that the causes leading up to this case, as well as its outcome are of great importance to the Mexican minority in this community. That

is to say, the case has importance aside from the boys incriminated—the whole community is undermined. Any attempt at good relations is impaired—as is the

importance of unity in the furtherance of the war effort. To allow an injustice like this to stand is to impede the progress of unity. (qtd. in PBS, “Primary Sources”)

Exoneration came in 1944 for most of the young men from 38th Street, while many of the young women of the Sleepy Lagoon trial—represented most not­ ably in Valdez’s play by the character Della, based on the real-life Dora Baca— remained incarcerated for their full terms. In “Saying ‘Nothin’: Pachucas and the Language of Resistance,” Catherine S. Ramírez looks at forms of Pachuca resistance in wartime L. A. She explains the “silent” allies of the male defendants in the Sleepy Lagoon trial: By saying “nothing” (or “nothin’ ”) rather than “anything,” [Bertha] Aguilar

demonstrated a disregard for (or unawareness of ) the rules of grammar. And by

saying nothing (that is, by refusing to speak), she flouted the authority of the state, as represented by the deputy district attorney and judge. As historian Eduardo

Zoot Suit Allies and the “Arizona L aw ”  87

Obregón Pagán observes, “Most of the girls [forced to testify against their male

companions] refused to implicate the boys and subverted the trial proceedings or

defied the court outright.” Aguilar further disobeyed and hamstrung the prose-

cution by playing the role of good subject and claiming to have forgotten what happened the night she and her friends crashed the Delgadillos’ party. Even after

Shoemaker attempted to “refresh” her memory by citing her August 1942 Grand Jury testimony (taken just days after José Díaz’s death), she insisted that she was

unable to remember what happened. “I don’t remember nothing,” she stated. “When I went to Ventura they told me to forget everything.” Similarly, during

cross-examination, Juanita Gonzáles reported that when she entered “Juvenile,” she was instructed “to forget all this as quickly as possible.”  The two teenage girls

continued to stymie the prosecution by refusing to say anything lest they incrimi-

nate themselves. For instance, when Shoemaker asked Gonzáles on what grounds she refused to testify, she responded, “On the grounds you may charge me for the murder of Joe Diaz, like you done to the boys.” Aguilar offered a more curt reply when asked why she would not answer one of the prosecutor’s questions: “I don’t

know, but I ain’t going to answer it that’s all.” Others refused to cooperate by not speaking clearly (and thus they broke yet another one of Post’s rules of feminine

speech). Eighteen-year-old Dora Baca, for example, claimed to suffer from a sore

throat when both the prosecution and defense complained that she was inaudible on the witness stand. (17–18)

Baca’s testimony shows a much more contemptuous, empowered attitude than the meek character that Valdez presents in Zoot Suit, as Ramírez reminds us in a statement that could be extended beyond the play to criticize the Chicano movement itself: As a number of feminist scholars, including [Rosa Linda] Fregoso, have shown, the female, Mexican-American characters in Zoot Suit fall into two categories:

“the virgin or the whore, the long-suffering mother or the ‘cheap broad.’ ” Della, Hank’s loyal girlfriend, is the virgin; in the 1981 film version of the play, she is

described as “very pretty,” “very young,” and “innocent.” Although her strict father does not approve of her relationship with Hank, she promises to marry him upon

his return from the war. When he ends up in jail rather than in the Navy and she is sent to the Ventura School for Girls, he is her “only hope.” All the while, Hank two-times her, even though he concedes that Della “did a year in Ventura” and “stood up for me when it counted.” (19–20)

88  chap ter 3

The silence of the young women who testified—or refused to do so—is mirrored not in the play itself but by the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, which did not stand up for them when it counted: Having achieved its primary objective, the SLDC disbanded on January 1, 1945. Given the fact that eight Mexican American women (Bertha Aguilar, Dora Barrios, Lorena Encinas, Josefina Gonzáles, Juanita Gonzáles, Frances Silva, Lupe

Ynostroza, and Betty Zeiss) were still locked up in the repressive Ventura School for Girls, the decision to disband might seem presumptuous. Alice visited these

young women, who were held for remaining silent or challenging the prosecuting

attorneys during the Sleepy Lagoon trial, and she sympathized with their plight,

but she noted that no legal mechanisms existed at that time to obtain their release. The fact that the women were still essentially imprisoned for quite some time after the men were released does not dimin­ish the SLDC’s accomplishments, but it is striking, as Catherine Ramírez points out, that Luis Valdez completely over-

looked their continued confinement in his play and film. Ramírez boldly critiques Zoot Suit for ignoring the “women in the zoot suit.” (Armbruster-Sandoval 82)

Notwithstanding the multiple ways Zoot Suit—like any successful play—can be criticized, and despite the blind spots that are evident in many portrayals of women zoot-suiters, Valdez’s play is remarkable for its portrayal of gender and class dynamics, and the crippling racism faced by so many in Los Angeles. Given this context, it would seem that Mexicans on the other side of the border—that is, in Mexico—would have sympathized with their fellow citizens, even the elegantly impertinent zoot-suiters (who many times wore no zoot suits at all) in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities. And some did, yet the prevailing sentiment was an incredulous or even hostile view of the transcultural phenomenon. Perhaps many Mexicans back home shared the sentiments of the father, Enrique, in Zoot Suit, who plays the role of a typical parent, worrying about the erosion of traditional mores. He speaks about the Revolution (“Della, m’ija, when I was in the Mexican Revolution”; 35), loves his children, perhaps his sons a bit more (“Natural, muy natural, and look how he came out. ¡Bien macho! Like his father”; 35), but finds it difficult to reconcile Mexican traditions with the zoot suit culture of his children (“Hijo, don’t go out like that. Por favor. You look like an idiot, pendejo”; 36). As a somewhat caricaturized presence, Enrique represents traditional forces, including the idea that gender is natural and not cultural, as many would think back home. Octavio Paz famously wrote of the zoot-suiter as

Zoot Suit Allies and the “Arizona L aw ”  89

an odious extreme, claiming that “[w]hen he thrusts himself outward, it is not to unite with what surrounds him but rather to defy it” (17). Paz, of course, is taxing to read—his own conservatism overshadows the instances when he takes into account and reflects important social attitudes. It is a matter of opinion (and historical context) whether self-expression, with the goal of challenging, pushing, or defying society is seen as positive or negative, and just as the zoot-suiters in Los Angeles could at times be a disgrace to their families, like all rebellious youth, so too could they embarrass conservative Mexicans back home. Think again of Henry Leyvas, who would have been considered by many to be a delinquent. But also think of L. A. in the 1940s, and it becomes clear that Leyvas did not have much of a chance. “His first arrest,” according to the PBS zoot suit riots project, “came when he and [his brother] were pulled over by the police for car theft. The car belonged to their father, but the Leyvas boys were held in jail for three days until their father could prove he owned the car.” Another time he was in jail, “the police stormed the Leyvas home with drawn weapons and asserted that they had witnessed Henry stealing tires. Upon his release, Leyvas was again arrested with four others, and this time charged with assault and battery, even though the crime occurred two days before his release. Henry was beaten by the police on that occasion.” At the time it would have been hard for people in Mexico to see this context, this side of the issue, as they would in 2010 with the passage of SB1070. Despite the power of present-day media moguls and mostly conservative talk show hosts, information now travels in ways that make it harder for mass media to manipulate public opinion to the degree that was possible in the 1940s. What was invisible to most people in Mexico and the United States must have seemed like tragic theater (not the farce it was) to the young men and women tried or forced to testify in the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial. Writing about the 1978 version of the play, Robert A. Parker explains Valdez’s explicit rejection of Mexico’s Nobel laureate: “[U]nlike Paz—whom he says reflects a 1940’s Mexican view that the pachuco is a pathetic creature trying to live like a gringo and not making it—Valdez himself tilts the [acceptance/ rejection] contradiction to say that ‘the pachuco was not a despicable creature, but a pioneer; he was in the forefront of the Chicano search for identity, with a pride in both his culture and his new country’ ” ( 3). It might be tempting to consider Valdez and others hyperbolic in their portrayals of negative public opinion and outright racism, yet testimony at the real-life Sleepy Lagoon trial describing an Aztec-inspired thirst for blood based on “scientific” research makes it clear that the scientific community buttressed the prevailing ignorance

90  chap ter 3

of powerful people. Indeed, the words in the play are echoed (or vice versa) by this excerpt from actual court documents: The biological basis is the main basis to work from. Although a wild cat and a domestic cat are of the same family, they have certain biological characteris-

tics so different that while one may be domesticated, the other would have to be caged to be kept in captivity; and there is practically as much difference between the races of man as so aptly recognized by Rudyard Kipling when he said when

writing of the Oriental, “East is East and West is West and never the twain shall

meet,” which gives us an insight into the present problem because the Indian, from Alaska to Patagonia, is evidently Oriental in background—at least he shows

many of the Oriental characteristics, especially so in his utter disregard for the value of life. (qtd. in Davis and Diamond 124)

Viewed alongside this testimony, the fictionalized lines in Valdez’s play, seemingly over-the-edge, are shown to be par for the course in the United States— and in Mexico. Faced with the necessity of proving their innocence, the young men confronted an attitude that Valdez and the Teatro Campesino would fictionalize years later, around the time that Edward Said published his groundbreaking work Orientalism (1978) on the same topic. Said’s book underscores the reason an Aztec past would be a point of positive/negative contention. He writes: The point to be emphasized is that this truth about the distinctive differences

between races, civilizations, and languages was (or pretended to be) radical and ineradicable. It went to the bottom of things, it asserted that there was no escape from origins and the types these origins enabled; it set the real boundar-

ies between human beings, on which races, nations, and civilizations were constructed; it forced vision away from common, as well as plural, human realities like

joy, suffering, political organization, forcing attention instead in the downward

and backward direction of immutable origins. A scientist could no more escape

such origins in his research than an Oriental could escape “the Semites” or “the Arabs” or “the Indians” from which his present reality—debased, colonized, back-

ward—excluded him, except for the white researcher’s didactic presentation. (233)

The dehumanizing divisions that plays can so artfully dismantle, precisely by bringing to life the humanity of the characters, can fall into place quickly, and while Said also reminds the reader that the present (nineteenth-century and

Zoot Suit Allies and the “Arizona L aw ”  91

beyond) inferior status of the “Oriental” is sometimes based on a decayed “greatness” or stymied progress, it is clear in the story the press tells in Zoot Suit (and in 1940s L. A.) that the “bloodthirsty Aztecs” never rose to greatness in the eyes of racist L. A.: “You savages weren’t even wearing clothes when the white man pulled you out of the jungle” (80). This sentiment toward Mexican (and Central American) immigrants remains prevalent among some people, and in the aftermath of the Great Recession (late 2007 to 2009, with recovery still out of reach for many) it is not surprising that present-day immigrants, many of whom make a treacherous trek to the United States, once again suffer the consequences. Throughout its history, the line that cuts through the Sonoran Desert, dividing Arizona and Sonora, has been the site of cross-cultural understanding (the communities pre-date separation by border fences, physical and electronic) as well as of violence and death tied to a host of complex factors: U.S. immigration policy, which has purposefully and consistently pushed migrants to the most dangerous crossings; trade agreements; drug trafficking and human trafficking; U.S. vigilante groups like the Minutemen; corrupt polleros, or “guides,” who lead undocumented workers through the desert; and political tensions that reverberate in Mexico and the United States. When an Arizona rancher, Robert Krentz, was murdered at the height of an economic crisis that pounded the Arizona real estate market and rippled through almost all sectors of the economy, the stage was set for the passage of 1070, the senate bill written in part by current anti-­immigrant Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach. Politicians at the time claimed that crime had soared on the border, assertions that—according to the FBI and leaked documents—were simply not true. In an interview with Arizona governor Jan Brewer, worth repeating from the epigraph, Andrew Golman asked: “When you signed Arizona’s immigration law in 2010, you cited concerns about growing border violence. But according to the F.B.I., violent crime dropped in Arizona almost 14 percent the previous year.” Brewer responded, “As the saying goes, there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Fifty thousand people in Mexico have been murdered. Puerto Peñasco, 60 miles south of our border, just had five people and a police officer killed. That is like part of Arizona, and it is spilling over into our state.” The March 2010 murder of Robert Krentz served as a rallying cry for proponents of anti-immigration laws like SB1070. The identity of the murderer or murderers is still not known, but the slaying of this fifty-eight-year-old man and his dog near the border with Mexico—a deplorable act of violence—channeled the fear, overblown by the media and politicians willing to ignore the

92  chap ter 3

facts, that many people in Arizona felt. Krentz was gunned down on March 27 by an unknown assailant originally suspected to be a Mexican drug runner or scout in the country illegally: Russell Pearce, the sponsor of SB 1070, [. . .] said the murder was committed by

“illegal alien drug dealers”—and rode a wave of anxiety to the bill’s successful passage in mid-April.

“Rob was checking out his ranch. The smuggler was smuggling. They came

across each other’s paths with a very good man being killed with no reason whatsoever,” said the sheriff.

But now, almost four months after the murder, the identity of Krentz’s killer

remains a mystery. A leading Tucson, Arizona, newspaper quoted high-level offi-

cials who claimed that the investigation was focused on a “suspect in the United States” and that the killing was not “random.”  The newspaper later retracted a

claim that the focus of the investigation was an American, but stuck by the rest of its story—fueling a belief in the Hispanic community that illegal immigra-

tion had nothing to do with Krentz’s death. The Cochise County sheriff ’s office, which called the newspaper’s story inaccurate, [came] under increasing fire for its slow progress in the investigation and for withholding records from the media. (Sterling)

In the same way that the Krentz’s murder solidified support for SB1070 (not to mention the feeling shared by many Democrats and Republicans that Washington politicians have long ignored the border), the Sleepy Lagoon murder led to and “justified” frenzied attacks on Mexican Americans. The Arizona reporting and posturing were less sensationalist than that of wartime Los Angeles, though the two cases are more similar than one might think. In 1940s L. A., it is clear that a combination of factors led to the zoot suit riots, as Frank Sotomayor explains: Exactly what triggered the vigilante action was never clear. Some trace it to earlier assaults on military personnel, allegedly carried out by Mexican American

gang members who called themselves pachucos. Others said Los Angeles police

precipitated the attacks to divert attention from a fellow officer who was about to go on trial.

Some observers blame inflammatory newspaper reports for making the Mex-

ican American gang members a target. Soon after Japanese Americans had been

ordered to internment camps in 1942, the Los Angeles Examiner began a campaign against pachucos, singling them out as the city’s “juvenile delinquency problem.”

Zoot Suit Allies and the “Arizona L aw ”  93

The context of the war plays into Zoot Suit on multiple levels, and this makes it possible to tease out some of the different types of privilege at play: Alice and George are in some ways the typical white activists who use their positions, however precarious, to fight for justice. And as with the students César Chávez describes above, for those who show up on the picket line with ending the war in Vietnam as a (legitimate but parallel) priority, conversations can be strained—as seen in this dialogue from Zoot Suit: There’s a lot she doesn’t know. I’m no angel. I’ll just bet you’re not. But you have been taken in for suspicion a dozen times, kept in jail for a few days, then released for lack of evidence. And it’s all stayed on your juvenile record. henry. Yeah, well I ain’t no punk, see. alice. I know. You’re an excellent mechanic. And you fix all the guys’ cars. Well, at least you’re not one of the lumpen proletariat. henry. The lumpen what? alice. Skip it. Let’s just say you’re a classic social victim. henry. Bullshit. alice. (Pause. A serious question.) Are you saying you’re guilty? henry. Of what? alice. The Sleepy Lagoon Murder. henry. What if I am? alice. Are you? henry. (Pause, a serious answer.) Chale. I’ve pulled a lot of shit in my time, but I didn’t do that. (50) henry. alice.

The love story Valdez creates between Alice and Henry is based on genuine understanding, on the one hand, and a leap of faith on the other: for Henry, the leap is to believe that Alice, despite her at times patronizing tone and Marxist rhetoric, respects him beyond his “classic” position as a victim; for Alice, the leap of faith is that Henry is really innocent, not because activists do not or should not fight for fair trials regardless of innocence, but because the fictional love story, not to mention Valdez’s need to highlight the corrupt brutality of the L. A. police and others, depends on perfectly imperfect defendants—in the case of the play, defendants represented by white activists. Yolanda Broyles-González asks whether this is “a means of making the Zoot Suit project more ‘palatable’ to whites, be they producers, theater administrators, critics, or audiences” and succinctly sums up the feeling of many: “Luis Valdez’s decision to create white

94  chap ter 3

savior characters that eclipse the role of the Chicana/o community has considerable ideological implications. Most significant, it implies that the Chicana/o community is unwilling or unable to be an agent in history, to act on and in its own behalf ” (203). A complementary way to look at the situation is that Valdez himself did not have the political and artistic agency then that he does now, and while equally complicated, the central role of El Pachuco, while adding to the erasure of women, presents a complex alter ego to Henry Reyna—the former is a central figure in the play, albeit one thematically subordinate to the character Alice. It is not surprising that Luis Valdez held the real-life Alice McGrath in high regard, as can be seen in her 2009 Los Angeles Times obituary: “ ‘She was one of the heroines of the 20th century,’ said Valdez, who remained a friend over the years. ‘In Los Angeles, I can’t think of many people who surpass her influence’ ” (Roosevelt). Their alliance began when Valdez began to work on Zoot Suit, and the fact that the play is so closely tied to the unfolding of events (in this sense it is akin to Mexican documentary theater, though as Broyles-González reminds us, the play became more and more invented with each version) buttresses the idea, among others, that art is an effective way to question—but also to represent—history. Margot Roosevelt writes that “[w]hen Valdez visited to research his play, McGrath introduced him to the former defendants and their families, and shared her papers, including letters back and forth from San Quentin, that are stored at UCLA. ‘She was the heart line of my story,’ Valdez said. ‘She maintained contact with “her boys,” as she called them. She was a selfless person, with compassion and humor.’ ” In the play she is far more experienced and sophisticated than she was at the time, though the issue of being an outsider already resonated. Valdez presents a nuanced version of Alice and the “boys”: I don’t need defending, esa. I can take care of myself. alice. But what about the trial, the sentence. [. . .] henry. It’s my life! alice. Henry, honestly—are you kidding me? henry. You think so? alice. But you’ve seen me coming and going. Writing to you, speaking for you, traveling up and down the state. You must have known I was doing it for you. Nothing has come before my involvement, my attachment, my passion for this case. My boys have been everything to me. henry. My boys? My boys! What the hell are we—your personal property? Well, let me set you straight, lady, I ain’t your boy. henry.

Zoot Suit Allies and the “Arizona L aw ”  95

You know I never meant it that way. You think I haven’t seen through your bullshit? Always so concerned. Come on, boys. Speak out, boys. Stand up for your people. Well, you leave my people out of this! Can’t you understand that? alice. No, I can’t understand that. henry. You’re just using Mexicans to play politics. alice. Henry, that’s the worst thing anyone has ever said to me. henry. Who are you going to help next—the Colored People? alice. No, as a matter of fact, I’ve already helped the Colored People. What are you going to do next—go to the gas chamber? ( 71) alice.

henry.

Far from eschewing the topic of white privilege, here it seems Valdez takes it head on, even the patronizing tone, the Marxist rhetoric, and the use of “boys,” an often derogatory, emasculating term even though it is applied in this case to men who were indeed young at the time of the trial. In fact, by some accounts the real-life Alice and George continued to call the men they represented “boys,” despite the clear admonishment in Valdez’s play. The PBS site mimics this representation as it places Alice at the center of the trial and its aftermath: “McGrath was the first to notify the boys of the appeal’s success. She did so via a Western Union telegram, addressed to Hank Leyvas at San Quentin, to notify all the boys of their release. The S.L.D.C. disbanded soon after the boys left prison.”  There are two interesting topics here: the fact that the emphasis is on male defendants and white saviors; and the condescending stereotyping that is so often seen between activists from different communities—something that was clearly on Valdez’s mind as he placed this debate on stage, as seen in the dialogue quoted above. The desire to connect across boundaries is rife with pitfalls, which Valdez captures well. Yet he also captures the sense that despite our blind spots a common goal can lead to (perhaps imperfect) understanding, something seen in one of the play’s letters from Alice: “Dear Boys, Feeling that el Cinco de Mayo is a very appropriate day—the CIO radio program, ‘Our Daily Bread,’ is devoting the entire time this evening to a discussion of discrimination against Mexicans in general and against you guys in particular” ( 70). After Alice reads this letter, from The Appeal News, with its awkward but genuine attempts to build cultural connections, the stage directions inform us, “The repartee between ALICE and the batos is now friendly and warm. Even SMILEY is smiling with ALICE . They check out her ‘drapes’ ” ( 70). It is no surprise that Alice McGrath experienced her own feelings of displacement: “As the daughter of the only Yiddish-speaking foreigners in her

96  chap ter 3

poor southwest L.A. neighborhood, she would later say that she understood the experience of being ‘the other’ ” (Roosevelt). Just as acting in a play can transform the actor—even if no such (desired) transformation takes place in the audience—so too can activism change the activist, a topic that I take up again in the last chapter. Being an ally for justice also gives life meaning and spurs additional action: “Decades later, in 1981, McGrath would tell a Los Angeles Times interviewer that the successful appeal was ‘the most important event in my life. If I had never done anything since . . . my involvement in Sleepy Lagoon would justify my existence.’ ” McGrath continued her work as an activist, and continued to justify her links to the Chicana/o community with an “us”/“them” tone: It’s a very hard thing to say to somebody who’s just been convicted and sentenced

on the charge of murder, to say to them, “do you know this trial wasn’t about you, this trial was about racism.”

I came to the [Sleepy Lagoon Defense] Committee having no recognizable

or apparent skills for doing anything except running the mimeograph machine, stuffing envelopes. . . . But I dealt myself in. I just wanted to be part of this.

By the time I finished working with the Sleepy Lagoon case, I was ready to

take on anything. (qtd. in PBS)

At the time, McGrath had a link to the Communist Party (she was a member of and later cut ties with the CPUSA) and—perhaps more her style—to the multiethnic CIO, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (Armbruster-­ Sandoval). As noted above, there is significant controversy surrounding Valdez’s choice to give Alice a central role in the play—she is the outside agitator par excellence both in terms of how the government viewed her and how some members of the Chicano community viewed her, especially given the roles others had played. In “The Life of the Party,” Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval affirms the multidimensional activist effort around Sleepy Lagoon: The appeal proceedings did not actually begin until September 1943. Before and after that point, literally thousands of people were drawn into organizing around

the case. They included Mexican Americans and Latina/os like Josefina Fierro de

Bright, Luisa Moreno, Bert Corona, Frank Corona, Lupe Leyvas (Henry’s sis-

ter), and Margaret Telles (Bobby’s mother). And yet, as Frank Barajas has shown, many Mexican Americans did not participate in the SLDC because of assertions by a local Catholic priest and the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinión that

Zoot Suit Allies and the “Arizona L aw ”  97

the committee was a “communist front.” Nevertheless, many brown-skinned peo-

ple were active in the SLDC, as were some African Americans such as Charlotta

Bass, owner and publisher of the California Eagle, and her nephew, John Kinloch. In addition, several Japanese American internees in Manzanar scraped together

loose change while walking around the barbwire-enclosed camp and, remark-

ably, sent it to the SLDC. This was clearly no heroic, single-person effort; the

SLDC represented a collective, multiracial struggle that included people from all walks of life, especially those affiliated with unions and community-based organ­ izations. (81)

Equally important, perhaps, Armbruster-Sandoval questions those who have criticized Valdez for placing Alice front and center as the theatrical representative of the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee: While it is true that Valdez repre­sented Mexican American women in a demean-

ing manner and that he failed to highlight the multiracial nature of the SLDC

coalition, the fact remains that two “white” people, if not more, played critical roles. Without Shibley, an Arab American, and Alice, a Jew, along with white

people such as Ben Margolis, Carey McWilliams, Guy Endore, and many others, the campaign to release the “boys” would not have been as effective as it was. (83)

Another story, also of equal importance, is that after the appeal—when the men of 38th Street were freed—the young women from the Sleepy Lagoon trial remained incarcerated. As is the case in many other political movements, women, in this case Chicanas, despite their central activist roles, were literally and figuratively sidelined. To see a white, Jewish, zoot suit–wearing woman in the role might have been seen as a slap in the face to some Chicanas and Chicanos, especially because Alice is portrayed not as an inexperienced mimeograph operator but as a confident, zoot suit–wearing hotshot organizer (especially in the film, when she is portrayed by Tyne Daly). It is also possible, of course, that spectators identified with Alice—as a woman, as an outsider, as a human in search of justice and dignity. The process of earning bidirectional trust is central to an understanding of cross-cultural allegiances, as is interrogating the privilege that is always at play. Zoot Suit is successful so many years later because the more contexts change, the more they stay the same, as with SB1070; but also because it offers a complex snapshot of 1940s L. A. as well as reverberations that continue today,

98  chap ter 3

reverberations that point to multiple intersections with the collective origins of the play, 1970s L. A. and its production scene, and 1980s Broadway and Hollywood. The current, sustained impact of critical race theory heightens the possibility of understanding the complicated relationship between privilege and participation. Shibley (portrayed as the character George Shearer), who in the play as in real life was a legal advocate for people who would otherwise have subpar representation, is seen in the play justifying his commitment to the cause, just as in real life: For Shibley, who had suffered from racism because of his Arab ancestry, [and who

would himself later spend time in jail,] People v. Zammora had special resonance. The defendants, who had only seven lawyers among them, were clearly being denied a fair trial from the start. When Shibley joined the defense, he quickly provoked the ire of the presiding judge, Charles Fricke. Shibley frequently raised

objections to Fricke’s procedures in the courtroom, which included seating the

boys away from their lawyers, not allowing them to clean up or change clothes, and repeatedly demeaning the defense team and their clients in front of the jury.

Shibley told the jury, “it’s always been open season for the police on Mexicans,” fully realizing the odds that were against his clients. (PBS)

It is not a stretch to see Shearer as both the victim of larger society, which sees him as an undesirable “other,” and as a perfect example of a white “savior.” He represents another complicated example of white privilege and volunteer work (or work for scant pay). Seen as an outside agitator by the government in real life, in the play he has to earn trust from the men of 38th Street, something he doubtless had to do often. He had an extraordinary career as a criminal defense attorney: “He took cases that no one else would,” said his wife, Eleanor. Frequently, his cli-

ents were homosexuals, minorities, and radicals. In his 56-year career, none of his clients ever received the death penalty. He was known in the legal community as a fighter for the underdog, sometimes providing his services only on the promise of payment. It was therefore a lucky moment for the Sleepy Lagoon defendants

when in 1942 LaRue McCormick, a labor organizer and member of the Communist Party, asked Shibley to replace one of the seven lawyers in the highly controversial case of People v. Zammora. The case would test Shibley’s abilities as

Zoot Suit Allies and the “Arizona L aw ”  99

a defense lawyer and win him notoriety. He said of the experience, “it made the forces of law and order hate me.” (PBS)

Broyles-González writes that in 1979 Shibley publicly stated that “Zoot Suit does perpetuate some seriously damaging distortions of the realities of the Sleepy Lagoon murder case.” He elaborated on these serious and damaging distortions: “Chief among these distortions are the myths that the Mexican-Americans themselves had little or no part in the organization of the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee; that no ethnic group other than Jews came to the aid of the 22 defendants; that the case was won almost singlehandedly

by the unmarried heroine, Alice, whose Jewish identity impelled her to set up a

defense committee, hire a lawyer, and then fall in love with the chief defendant, Henry Reyna.” (202–3)

Focusing on Alice and George, both the characters and real-life activists, not to mention Alma Martinez, mirrors a power dynamic seen in many social movements: while there are clearly personalities that can galvanize and represent a community (think of César Chávez), lost in the shuffle are organizers without whom social change would be impossible. Yolanda Broyles-González writes that El Teatro Campesino is widely regarded as the theatrical fountainhead from which all inspiration and

technique trickled down to other Chicana/o theaters. Critics’ conceptualization of creativity usually narrows even further, crediting one individual and ignoring

groups of people. Luis Valdez is seen [. . .] as the omnipotent agent who variously “brought,” “introduced,” who “wrote” for, who “directed” the anonymous

others [. . .]. This top-down view of creation—related to the great-man ideological

construction of history—is symptomatic within dominant Western print culture, which a priori conceptualizes theatrical (and other) production as the work of

an individual male “creative genius.” An alternative construction or model might well invert relations and reveal to us, for example, that the farmworkers introduced the acto form to Luis Valdez, who subsequently made it his own. (4)

A top-down view of activism misses key players, without doubt, but also makes it starkly evident that times can change: the lawyers for Alma Martinez in her

100  chap ter 3

case against Pomona College, for example, are both Latinos: Victor Viramontes (national senior counsel at MALDEF) and Matthew J. Barragan (staff attorney at MALDEF). Martinez’s case may very well be against what Broyles-González calls the unholy alliance (the media, the judicial system, and law enforcement officials [186]), and the attorneys are male in an otherwise gender diverse organization, but the Zoot Suit actor’s struggle does not depend on the privilege of white activists like those portrayed in the play. Armbruster-Sandoval acknowledges the difficulty of narrating the Sleepy Lagoon story: Telling the Sleepy Lagoon story is no easy task. One must choose between ver-

sions. Telling it as the story of Alice McGrath, the courageous white savior who sacrificed her life for the poor and oppressed Mexican American “boys,” gives her

and thus white people too much credit and excludes the contributions that men and women of color made. Telling it as “our” story, the story of brown-skinned

people, and insisting that some of us (Fierro de Bright, Moreno, etc.) did more than McGrath did, is empowering but not completely truthful. Alice McGrath was probably the committee’s most committed and instrumental activist. That said, she didn’t single-handedly free the male defendants; a multiracial coalition

of determined, engaged, and passionate people did. This is the story that Alice McGrath chose to tell. [. . .]

Told from this perspective, the center of the story becomes the collec­tive mobili-

zation of many people to confront an injustice, all recognizing that they could be

the next targets. Such a story can help inspire social movements and broad-based coalitions in response to the issues of the pres­ent day. Sleepy Lagoon was a case of racial profiling before that term and concept came into wide use. Such profiling

is still happening: Latina/os are being targeted in Arizona with the passage of SB 1070; Muslims are being beaten and mosques burned down. The recession

has exacerbated racial tensions in the United States, making the current moment combustible and dangerous. (92, 93)

In 2010 the situation in Arizona was in many ways similar to that of 1940s L. A. Mexico was in the middle of a drug war that had claimed up to 100,000 lives (even by official counts) in three years, and the United States was suffering from the worst economic crisis since 1929. Arizonans were suffering one of the worst manifestations of the housing crash, among many other economic stresses, and drug-related kidnappings were common in Maricopa County.

Zoot Suit Allies and the “Arizona L aw ”  101

Anti-immigrant sentiment was as high as people could remember, and SB1070 passed easily. The results of each case—the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial, and the killing of Krentz and the passing of SB1070—had negative effects on many people but also, importantly, promoted increased activism and allied collaboration. Indeed, the zoot suit riots in Los Angeles in part spurred community organizing that made L. A. the place it was in 2010, the year SB1070 passed. The city leadership itself decided that L. A. would boycott Arizona businesses, and the mayor—Mexican American Antonio Villaraigosa, a former labor organizer raised by a single mother in East L. A.—told the press something farmworkers had also learned: “[T]he bottom line is, boycotts work” (Zahniser). In Arizona, protestors mobilized and fomented a national debate on civil rights. And, of course, the law generated publicity that changed the context in which Zoot Suit and its pachucos are viewed in Mexico City. Splashed across the pages of Mexican and U.S. newspapers during the opening weeks of the play would be headlines that decried the treatment of “brothers and sisters” in the United States and referenced the multiple protests, press releases, concerts, blogs, social networks, and so on, in both countries, all pointing to opportunities to build bridges like those surrounding Valdez’s work. There are many Zoot Suit allies—allies in the play itself, of course, and allies beyond Valdez’s fiction. Alma Martinez exemplifies the bicultural, binational scope of this play: she was in the original cast in the late 1970s in Los Angeles, in the film, and in the 2010 Mexico City production, for which she switched from the role of the daughter to that of the mother. For Martinez, the connection to Paz’s writing detailed above is very personal, though it also represents a common experience: I was born in México, but I was raised in southern California in the United States

from when I was just a few months old. I started acting but I had never acted pro-

fessionally. I went to college, junior college, but I had never acted professionally.

Nor did I consider myself a Chicana; because I was raised as a Mexican in the U.S. Chicano literally was a dirty word in my family. To this day, it’s a dirty word. My mother cringes when she hears it. (Personal interview)

She also explains her idea, first expressed on Facebook, that Arizona’s SB1070 influenced the reception of Zoot Suit. For Martinez the possibility of support from present-day Mexicans, and the opportunity to act in Mexico City, where she had studied decades earlier, represented the broader feeling that Chicano

102  chap ter 3

artists had won the respect of their counterparts and collaborators south of the border, a sentiment that was bolstered with the passing of SB1070. Reviews of the play in Mexico City referenced the origin of Zoot Suit, its pachuco characters, as well as its author and its key actor, Alma Martinez, who had made it to center stage. Luis Valdez is the main creative force behind Zoot Suit, but Martinez’s variety of roles in the three-plus decades the piece has circulated is unusual. As mentioned above, she was in the original play, the movie, and the Mexico City production. In the first two, she was the daughter; in the last, the mother and associate producer; and in between she directed Zoot Suit at Pomona College. Martinez and Luis Valdez could be considered artistic allies, and both saw the return to Mexico as important. In the case of Martinez, bringing the play to Mexico City (and being an associate producer) combined two experiences in the theater: What’s so funny is when I, let’s see, when I saw Teatro Campesino I was at the

CUT [Centro Universitario de Teatro], that’s it! After the CUT, again that’s where I met Luis de Tavira, who was my teacher for 12–14 months. I went to

San Francisco and I toured with Teatro Campesino, fell in love with Zoot Suit

and in my mind, always . . . the two Luises, how can I bring these two together? We’re talking 1977, how can I bring these two together? Because bringing these

two together was bringing two parts of myself together. So that was always on

my mind, because it was a way for me of bridging. And people are saying, “Aren’t

you tired of this? Why do Zoot Suit?” I go, “You know, it’s not about the play.” It’s about major theaters doing Chicano productions and Zoot Suit happens to be something that is a proven hit that they can take to the bank. (Personal interview)

It is clear that for Martinez Chicano activism is tied to the financial viability of a production. One of the main criticisms of Valdez, of course, is that he pursued commercial theater. But the combination of politics and economics—bridged by Alma Martinez—is what led to the Mexico City production of the play, and to a deeper understanding of Mexicans in the United States. An LA Times story refers to the same phenomenon Alma Martinez noted on the Facebook page for Zoot Suit, and adds a sobering view of racism in the United States: In Mexico City, where “Zoot Suit” is playing, audiences have erupted in applause and laughter in response to the line [“I’m taking my family and I’m moving to

Arizona,”] in light of the controversial illegal immigration law recently enacted in

Zoot Suit Allies and the “Arizona L aw ”  103

Arizona. Smiley’s optimism about life there sounds like a gag squeezed into the dialogue at the last minute.

But it is not. The line is actually in Valdez’s original 1978 script.

Speaking in Mexico City after the opening of the production here, Valdez

can’t help but feel good about the serendipity of the moment. “Critics ask me,

‘What makes your play relevant after 30 years?’ And now the response I get is, ‘How come your play is so fresh?’ ”

But it is a somewhat bitter acknowledgment, he said. “The situation has

changed and not changed in the United States. In some ways it’s better, in some ways it’s worse.” (Hernandez, “For Mexico”)

Valdez included specific references to Arizona in Mexico City interviews, making sure to link the topic to what people would see if they attended the play. In this way his play connects people to the pachuco past without allowing them to encapsulate—and thus ignore—the story of racism that is part of a continuum. The California production of Zoot Suit in 2008, directed by Martinez, was clearly this same type of bridge—with two key differences: Martinez was able to use it as an explicit educational vehicle, and Pomona was able to use it as a political one. In the first case, in addition to the impressive number of students who participated in the production, “Martinez set aside 1,000 reduced price tickets for Southern California high school students and created a study guide to help students compare events then to their lives today. Schools eagerly snapped up the tickets, and the show was performed to sold-out houses both for high school and public performances” (Peters). The president of Pomona College acknowledges the value of the production to an elite college: “I told you this in person on Sunday but I wanted to put it in writing as well: the production of ‘Zoot Suit’ is truly outstanding, and the connections it is helping us to make—with alumni, with the Latino community, in Los Angeles, and with students—represent an extraordinary opportunity.” Luis Valdez would single out Martinez at the Mexico City symposium to honor Zoot Suit, just as he did after her Pomona College production: On behalf of all your fellow board members at El Teatro Campesino—who, of

course, still count you as one of their own—I thank you for an outstanding job of reviving Zoot Suit at Pomona! Your production was remarkable, and the reunion

of the Leyva family with Alice and so many of the original cast members from 1978 was incredibly moving and memorable. As I said at the event, I am so proud

104  chap ter 3

of your achievement [. . .]. We continue to be impressed by your energy, creativity and beautiful vibrant being. Please receive el abrazo más caluroso posible from your old friend, the playwright. (Martinez, personal communication)

An August 2013 LA Times story points to the circularity of Martinez’s situation—from her roles in the Teatro Campesino and Zoot Suit to someone in need of assistance from the Latino community: Alma Martinez, who is also an actress with a long resume of stage and film roles, filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Superior Court in Los Angeles with the help of the

Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. She contends that she had a stellar teaching and theater-directing career during six years at the college and that should have qualified her for a permanent tenured position. (Gordon)

It is particularly difficult to gain insight into tenure decisions at a private college, but the fact that Martinez’s lawsuit was settled in her favor is telling. What Zoot Suit and so many other historical examples teach us is that at trial there are no perfect players. One thing, however, is clear—the students who were in her acting classes were inspired by her ability to help them see beyond their current subject positions and to engage in national and international debates. As she worked to stage Zoot Suit and then Stand and Deliver at Pomona, and later in her effort to make Zoot Suit a reality in Mexico City, she exemplified the work of a committed ally—someone who works in the theater to build bridges, and who does so with an eye toward social justice and mutual understanding. The productions of Zoot Suit at Pomona and in Mexico City show the power of the play to teach without being pedantic (many of the criticisms of the play over the years are valid, but if all were taken into account the play would be a mere political pamphlet), and the play’s ability to reach across cultural divides is impressive, especially when combined with people like Martinez, who set up Facebook pages and web pages to promote plays, and who work tirelessly to make productions a reality. Zoot Suit clearly resonated with college and high school students in the United States. It served as an artistic vehicle in the hands of a dedicated artist-professor who engaged actors and audiences in the public sphere of influence. In Mexico, the production was well received in large part because of the Arizona law, which was an affront to the dignity of Mexicans (of course) and came at a time in history when media allows people, amazingly, to share their ideas

Zoot Suit Allies and the “Arizona L aw ”  105

broadly and when left-leaning politicians, especially in Mexico City, have made a point to speak for Mexicans across the border and to allow them voting rights in Mexico. The combination of a spectacular play—incredibly well directed with outstanding professional actors—and an evolving view of Chicanos by Mexicans made for a relevant remake over three decades after the original Zoot Suit was performed. The headlines speak not of a pachuco crime wave but of success and understanding. Martinez sums up the feeling of elation at having connected disparate people: Well, we did it! Zoot Suit opened in Mexico City on April 29, 2010 and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Luis Valdez directs the National The-

atre Company of Mexico (CNT) in what is the first Chicano play ever performed

by this government-funded company. The Mexican press and electronic media are out in full force and the word “Chicano” is being spoken in the most positive light imaginable. (qtd. in Albin-Najera)

4 Moderating the “Ignorant Masses” and the Emergence of Internet Allies “¡Viva México, hijos de la chingada!”

T

mirror up to the audience. Sometimes it does so lit­ erally, as at the end of Ariel Dorfman’s play La muerte y la doncella, where in the last scene, after the audience has witnessed a South American torture trial unfold on stage, a large mirror is lowered. Audience members see themselves and, very possibly, ponder their complicity in the dirty wars carried out by South American dictatorships. Sometimes the reflection is figurative but no less effective, as when, in Rodolfo Usigli’s play about post-Revolutionary Mexico, El gesticulador, the main character asks if all present (including, by extension, the theatrical or literary audience) are also simulators or gesticulators—that is, liars. Octavio Paz’s “Mexican Masks” is one of the most famous iterations of this concept, a concept that is anything but exclusive to Mexico yet resonates profoundly in Mexican culture and exemplifies an important part of the trajectory of the country’s literary and philosophical traditions. Paz writes: heater holds a

The dissembler pretends to be someone he is not. His role requires constant improvisation, a steady forward progress across shifting sands. Every moment

he must remake, re-create, modify the personage he is playing, until at last the moment arrives when reality and appearance, the lie and the truth, are one. At

first the pretense is only a fabric of inventions intended to baffle our neighbors,

Moder ating the “ Ignor ant M a sses”  107

but eventually it becomes a superior—because more artistic—form of reality. Our

lies reflect both what we lack and what we desire, both what we are not and what we would like to be. Through dissimulation we come closer to our model, and

sometimes the gesticulator, as Usigli saw so profoundly, becomes one with his gestures and thus makes them authentic. (40–41)

This type of simulated act—a performance becoming real life, the blurring between fact and fiction that could well serve as a definition of metatheatre—is similar to the idea I addressed in chapter 2 (on Gamboa) of the face growing to fit a mask of vulnerable, feigned acquiescence. The question in that chapter was whether the characters in La venganza de la gleba and Gamboa himself, in his diplomatic dealings during the Porfiriato, became their impersonated personas. This idea—that of a false consciousness, where characters/people are unaware of their social situation and political oppression—seems in the case of Gamboa’s play a highly unlikely possibility, though there are many factors that keep people from pursuing a more just world, including the lack of tools for explicit consciousness-raising. Paz’s view, expressed in the above quotation, buttresses the case for intentional, rehearsed change in line with the principle that teatreros hold dear: acting and improvisation, originating as planned or spontaneous simulation, lead to new realities and new social configurations. That is, to use an oft-cited example from psychology, by smiling we become happy (or, rather, by deliberately scripting the word “smile,” and then acting the role, a physical change becomes an emotional one). Theater, or the performance of life, is more than a rehearsal for change but, following Paz, it is, or at least can be, change itself. In this sense progressive political posturing, acting, and the occasional chaos that erupts (to disrupt) the status quo either follow the lines or go “off script” but, no matter the route, often lead to new understandings of reality. Carnivalesque disruptions, like Scott’s idea of the hidden transcript exploding onto the political stage, can also be expressed with the familiar epigraph that heads this chapter. In his essay on La Malinche, Paz expands on the saying: “All of our anxious tensions express themselves in a phrase we use when anger, joy or enthusiasm cause us to exalt our condition as Mexicans: ‘¡Viva México, hijos de la chingada!’ ” ( 74). The combination of exaggerated simulation and “exalted” disruption can lead to chaotic denaturalization (or “making strange,” as Brecht would have it), the process by which ideas that bind the social order and appear natural are instead exposed as historical, human constructs, pointing the way toward

108  chap ter 4

positive if messy social change. Chaos, or lack of order and hierarchy, can foster counterhegemony—as exemplified in Michel de Certeau’s “Walking in the City,” where citizens use a variety of tactics to navigate and sometimes take over or repurpose spaces that are meant to regulate them—and the fissures in social control for promoting change (91). This would be in line with the Oxford English Dictionary, which to define “chaos” uses Shakespeare (“This chaos when degree is suffocate”) to underscore that hierarchy is “suffocated” (“Chaos”). But of course what we see as chaotic, as I will describe below, is often highly ordered. Such is the case for improvisation and for places like Mexico City—both are decidedly structured but do not appear so to the casual observer or spectator. It is out of this order that we can discover the chaotic flashes I am most interested in understanding—and that are most useful for understanding the role of allies, or more precisely in the case of Luis Mario Moncada’s play 9 días de guerra en Facebook, Internet allies, regular people who participate in, negotiate, and promote online, democratic debate despite the dangers this can entail. This idea was emerging in 2010 and continues to provoke metadebate about the efficacy of Internet debate and constructive dialogue. In Moncada’s piece, spectators and readers experience the ways the Internet can mirror society: social bonds are often strengthened, but radical ideas—and even a pseudo “disappearance” effected by a forum’s moderator (53)—are critical to the scene. The play is also a good reminder that at times allegiances can cross usually well-defined political stances. Among the varied group of U.S.-based friends and colleagues with whom I saw the production, the wide-ranging taboo of speaking about Israel and Palestine in a meaningful way was evident, something that is also present if slightly less marked in Mexico. The choice of this particular topic was, of course, part of Moncada’s strategy: while the subject may not be as heated as it is in the United States, it still cuts across typical ideological alliances (and presents some of the same dichotomies: many successful artists in Mexico are Jewish leftists). 9 días de guerra en Facebook was staged successfully in a black box theater at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 2010 at the Foro Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and revealed a challenging, fruitful combination of the inner workings of a computer (depicted by enormous whiteboard walls onto which characters can write their Facebook posts with markers, sometimes doing so while standing on ladders) and the social side of networking: the human beings, dressed in everything from underwear to military attire, plus the Moderator, “chat” for hours in an (almost) free-for-all that leads the audience to consider both the relationship between social networking

Moder ating the “ Ignor ant M a sses”  109

and “real” life as well as the possibility of finding peace through (intimate) dialogue, however chaotic. Beatriz Rizk, in her introduction to the play for the Latin American Theatre Review, situates Moncada’s work and highlights two central aspects of the play: In previous plays such as Superhéroes en la aldea global (1993–95), or in James Joyce: Carta al artista adolescente (1994), which he wrote with Martín Acosta, he already showed signs of his fondness for citing global iconic currents exploring their effect

as much on national cultures as on individual identities. Now, in the play that we

present here, 9 días de guerra en Facebook, he fully enters into the “global village,” extolled by Marshall McLuhan, in which a great part of the universe is connected by media technology and this technology acquires unique power in daily life.

On the other hand, just as we were thinking that “documentary theater” (as

the play’s subtitle indicates), in the best sense of the word, was a thing of the past, Moncada turns it up a notch by giving it a novel treatment in which he

ambitiously lays out two unavoidable themes of the moment in which we live: the

reach and impact of the “Social Network” (also known as Facebook) in our daily lives and the Israeli-Palestine conflict. (90)1

In addition to topics like the global village and a genealogy that points to documentary theater, which is a vein of ripped-from-the-headlines (of history) theater practiced by many writers in Mexico, including the late Vicente Leñero and Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda, the humanizing, denuding effects of the play are impressive. To see the intimate lives of people behind their social media avatars, usernames, and Internet walls is similar to (but even more jarring than) newspapers requiring that people who use the comment section identify themselves with their real names, as is happening more and more. Though requiring identification is not foolproof, since it is relatively easy to invent shrouded Internet personas, the conversations change dramatically: on the one hand, they become much more civil and less verbally abusive, the declared goal of many attempts to regulate the Internet; on the other hand, individual and private (as opposed to government) self-censorship—including erasure by moderators—is painfully evident, and fewer people feel they can participate in a given conversation. In 9 días de guerra en Facebook, however, the audience sees the flesh-and-bone characters and their comments, and gets omnipotent access to the public and private spheres. Still, the characters’ comments on the Internet remain covert to their interlocutors—except when characters know each other or live in the same

1 10  chap ter 4

cities and arrange meet-ups. Thus we get a dose of international dialogue, both embodied and uncensored, representing different voices and an array of cultural referents ( José Martí, the I Ching, Noam Chomsky, George W. Bush, Iraq, Edward Said, bombings on TV, which bring to mind Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation, etc.). In doing so, Moncada’s play highlights forms of dialogue (dramatic and otherwise) that were harder to foster before social media and that offer an alternate or complementary path for activists who would otherwise be less powerful, especially considering the censorship that often results not only in skewed information but also, especially in recent years, in death. This has been the case in Mexico when people attempt to speak truth to power—they are more and more likely to be threatened either physically or otherwise. And even virtual activism can be dangerous; many journalists, to give one example, whose work is represented on the Internet even if their main activity takes place outside the virtual world, face a calamitous reality. An editorial from the board of the New York Times explains the situation succinctly: Since 2010, at least 41 journalists have been killed in Mexico. Roughly 20 have disappeared. Mexican journalists are targeted by powerful criminal organizations and in some instances by government officials who don’t want their misdeeds

exposed. The majority of cases remain unsolved, leaving journalists in many parts of the country with a terrible choice: they censor themselves or get silenced by a bullet. (Editorial Board)

Despite this oppressive social reality—or perhaps because of it—the relative safety and power of the Internet make it one of the most prescient examples of the potential for a more robust civil society in Mexico. Moncada’s 9 días de guerra en Facebook is particularly interesting in that it portrays the emergence of Internet debate in 2010 and illustrates various ways to counter seemingly chaotic order—questioning the status quo without obliterating productive human interactions. Two of these strategies, which I will address in the following pages, are to disrupt interactions with chaotic interjections, inserting into conversations non sequiturs or comments that undermine accepted arguments, often through the use of irony; and to be efectista—that is, to appeal to emotions with words and especially images in order to denaturalize and open up for debate a given topic. Each of these strategies adds to democratic debate, albeit counterintuitively, by reinforcing the importance of dissident voices, voices that become a web of allies to promote civil society;

Moder ating the “ Ignor ant Ma sses”  1 1 1

each strategy is made more visible by the theatrical gaze, which at key points in the play is turned on the audience, and by a conscious effort to historicize the “natural” social order and to remind the spectator that there are humans behind virtual walls—almost always. One of the keys to the first strategy, chaotic interjection, is to take advantage of spaces that allow for dissident voices, even if in some cases they are silenced. Theater and performance, though by no means free of censorship, offer eclectic spaces for discussion (much like the Internet) that are hard to shut down—in the case of theater because of social conventions and irony, in the case of the Internet because of the extensive nature of the virtual world. Rizk captures the combination of theatrical and virtual multiplicity that Moncada brought to the stage the night we saw the play: It’s really about a patchwork quilt of texts written by various people, starting from

the “seventh day of the invasion of Gaza” by the Israeli army, collected by the

Moderator/Playwright, in which are included all kinds of “gifts”: true collages, in the postmodern sense of the word, composed of poems, photographs, com-

mercials, websites of institutions, fact-checking reference sites, archives, etc. The

interaction that is established between the different threads of communication, the personal walls and the chat rooms that permit the user to engage in various communications at the same time with different interlocutors and to pass from

the general, and supposedly debatable, to the absolutely personal and intimate, is resolved in the staging by means of whiteboards at the back of the stage. On the other hand, the staging, with characters entering and leaving in their under-

wear—since the majority of the messages were posted during the night or early in the morning—in the protection of their own homes while several of them, for example, carry out their daily hygienic necessities, placed the audience in the role

of indifferent voyeur; from this comes the surprise when the rules of the game are broken and the audience becomes part of the action. (91)2

When considered in terms of audience participation (and mostly an uncomfortable lack thereof, as Rizk suggests), and in light of Moncada’s other Facebook-­inspired performance, a twenty-four-hour period during which the author “unfriends” his Facebook contacts despite their pitiful pleas, the author (as well as the characters he plays, the Moderator in 9 días de guerra en Facebook and the eponymous character in his Facebook performance) unites two seemingly separate universes: the flesh-and-blood material world and the world

1 1 2  chap ter 4

of social networking, where so many of us find a (second) home, and where activists find a (first or second) voice. As noted above, Moncada employs allegiances to Israel or Palestine as a case study of Internet censorship, the civic opportunities presented by chaotic disruptions, and ultimately the possibility that much-­maligned social media is the strongest possible ally for social movements. The infamous theater critic Olga Harmony describes the first scene of the play: “Luis Mario Moncada, who as an actor plays the Moderator, is already there, accompanied by a pair of actresses, and he addresses the public to inform them that the lines of the play were taken exactly as they are from the online discussion. Little by little actresses and actors begin to appear, performing such daily tasks as brushing their teeth and others while they write on their computers.” 3 The intimate staging, which, as Rizk suggests, is indeed voyeuristic, also breaks the fourth wall as a necessary precaution against spectators who might be tempted to distance themselves from the debate: In the staging of the play, directed by Martín Acosta [. . .] the action is interrupted at a given moment to ask the audience, obviously unprepared, what they thought about the subject. This “interlude” exposed, on this occasion though of course it

can vary in each instance that the play is presented, the strong contrast between

their limited comprehension of the conflict and that of the “experts” on both sides, who were bombarding each other through Facebook in the play. (Rizk 90–91)4

Moncada’s production thus creates the possibility that spectators will feel uncomfortably ignorant and possibly be moved to inform themselves—or even join debates—about this and other topics that concern civil society. The trespassing of the fourth wall also reinforces the idea that, despite our often-­ successful attempts at anonymity, there is always the possibility that we are being watched, monitored, and not just “moderated.” Adding to the intimacy of the staging, which placed spectators on two sides of a black box with a close and often-uncomfortable view of the characters, who at times seemed imprisoned in terms of ideas and space, is the all-access view of the characters. Indeed, the set was reminiscent of the Panopticon as theorized by Foucault, who opines, in Discipline and Punish: “Our society is one not of spectacle, but of surveillance” (217). Foucault’s writings relating to the change from public spectacles designed to send a cautionary message to would-be criminals (“This could be your demise, too,” a modus operandi still used in Mexico, especially by drug cartels) to a surveillance society (Surveiller et punir,

Moder ating the “ Ignor ant M a sses”  1 1 3

the French title of Discipline and Punish, emphasizes surveillance) are useful in understanding criminology in present-day Mexico City. Neither the idea of the Panopticon nor that of  Thomas Mathiesen’s synopticon, which inverts the former, explains the dynamic at work when it is not simply the few who watch the many (Panopticon) or the many who now watch the few (synopticon) but rather an array of multidirectional observance practices that can catch anyone in the act of a social indiscretion. Think of the political demonstrations in present-­ day Mexico: as police film and arrest protestors their actions are immediately, in turn, filmed, documented, and disseminated. In the play, audience members have the power that comes from the position of omnipotent viewer, but of course, they might also be provoked to consider that their own Internet activity might be monitored. The fear of the Panopticon comes from a potential invasion of privacy, not the certainty of being watched (Foucault 201). Internet users are often aware idea that their communications might not be anonymous. Still, compared to the danger of physical protest or the unlikely possibility of getting a legitimate audience with a powerbroker, the risks are relatively low. Moncada presents a highly monitored system but also illustrates the potential power of subversive, chaotic acts. The playscript is a good representation of the chaotic interactions (not to mention multitasking) that characterize the Internet. Except at the beginning and the end, the play, both as published in the Latin American Theatre Review and in the original manuscript, is divided into columns: on the left, the forum debate is usually highlighted, while on the right side of each page there are individual (but still virtual) conversations and in-person meetings that, as mentioned above, blur the line between the virtual and real worlds—or make the case that the Internet is nothing but an extension of the latter. The forum participants ease in and out of heated debates when they are working or sleeping, or in one case when the Moderator heads out of town for an anniversary weekend. One could argue, cynically, that their online activities are trivial and unlikely to influence the world beyond their computer screens. One could also argue that the participants simply spew vitriol (or in some cases adoration). Yet the debates presented are rather sophisticated—at the very least they are as sophisticated as the almost nonexistent salons where intellectuals might debate the topics of the day. And they are arguably more open and honest than political debates. For example, each side of the conflict is laid out in great detail, and opinions are challenged and explanations offered. The ability to think, research, and reply represents a distinct advantage to people who do not have, for example, political advisers.

1 14  chap ter 4

There are more cynical takes on this play, to be sure. Compton writes that the staging made for a bizarre, chaotic scene, with characters buzzing around the stage never looking at each other, but making grand pronouncements about peace and tol-

erance. One of the many ironies of the play was that they argued vehemently for peace with a war of words. Another was that a medium designed to help people

communicate actually isolated them from each other. Often several people spoke at the same time and at times the physical actions became frenetic, showing the chaotic world behind Facebook. (“Spring” 141)

Most people would agree with this assessment, of course, but a complementary reading would hold that verbal wars—heated debates and negotiations, even if they at times break down—are the antidote to dirty wars; that isolation and alienation, especially in times of war (Mexico and the Middle East), are mitigated by the ability of people to express opinions, take solace, and, yes, argue on the Internet; and while the physical actions behind Facebook’s interactions may indeed be chaotic, the site time-stamps each post and places them in chronological order, meaning that the chaos is, ironically, quite highly organized. And Facebook debates often involve quoting what a person said previously—the written record leads to a more accurate debate even if, as noted above, a contributor can always plead irony.5 Compton continues: Characters occasionally wrote messages on an enormous whiteboard at the back of the stage, and advertisements would pop up from time to time. In the second

scene the actors took on the role of military liberators of Palestine, and performed

exacting military choreography as the virtual exchanges continued. At one point, perhaps to illustrate how the internet provides an entirely open forum, audience members were allowed to publicly voice their opinions on the Middle East. (141)

The disturbing proximity of highly choreographed “soldiers,” blended with voices from around the world—and from spectators—created a highly structured atmosphere that was, at the same time, disturbingly chaotic. After noting that the central theme of the play is not exclusively the Israel-­ Palestine conflict, a point with which I agree, though below I will trace the ways this theme relates to crucial alliances, Leonardo Monroy Zuluaga writes:

Moder ating the “ Ignor ant Ma sses”  1 1 5

The realism probes, consequently, not so much the Palestine-Israeli conflict, but rather the globalization of perspectives through the web. In that regard, reading 9 días generates some questions. Is the globalization of communication—that

possibility of interacting almost unlimitedly offered by mass media to all of their participants—the utopian space for dialogue? Or on the contrary does it repre-

sent the most elevated degree of chaos, whose levels of hysteria are moderated by the keyboard and the screen? Such questions—and their answers—have been

addressed not only in literature but also in philosophy and cultural criticism and the author indirectly dialogues with these fields. (62)6

The “chaos vs. meaningful dialogue” dichotomy, represented again here, evidences our inclination to see heated debate as chaotic, and the (usually) ordered, oft-scripted debates on television as normal. Moncada’s creation is indeed the postmodern world exemplified, but is it a critical postmodernism (à la Nelly Richard)? For Richard and others, like Terry Eagleton, critical postmodernism would offer something of a combination—an alliance to combat an unregulated free-for-all, easily coopted by neoliberal technocrats, and the critical intervention of diverse voices, especially marginalized voices. These voices appear chaotic, but as Judith Adler Hellman makes clear in Mexican Lives, organized chaos is the order of the day. Hellman details the activities of numerous Mexicans, humanizing through personal stories (based on extensive fieldwork) people we might ordinarily dismiss and showing the level of organization that underlies much of what to the untrained eye seems utterly random. A hawker on the street, for example, might appear to be a businessperson unencumbered by burdens beyond those inherent in the brutal small-business practices we imagine. Hellman profiles a man named Miguel, who works as a street vendor. An outsider might think, given the supposed chaos of Mexico City, that he would be largely unregulated, but this is not the case: “Along with the other two hundred thousand street vendors in the capital, Miguel had to pay a daily ‘quota’ to a political leader who, in return for this sum, would guarantee that Miguel could ply his wares unmolested by the police” (Hellman 34). The level of organization in the PRI’s Confederation of Popular Organizations (CNOP)—for example, the exact spot to sell his electronics, a specific cut of his “quota” for each interested party, precise legal and extralegal protocols—was similar, writes Hellman, to the rules Miguel was subject to when he worked in a factory and was part of the PRI’s

1 16  chap ter 4

Confederation of Mexican Workers (Confederación de Trabajadores de México, CTM): [H]e was affiliated with the CTM, and his union leaders made clear to him his

responsibility to show up for rallies on the Zócalo, the Constitutional Plaza, and

to vote the PRI line. As Miguel recalls, his participation then was virtually iden-

tical to what he was later called upon to do as a street-vending member of the CNOP. When a huge and enthusiastic crowd was required on Independence Day

or when the president decided to address the masses from the National Palace overlooking the Zócalo, Miguel would be assigned a number that corresponded to a square lettered in chalk in the immense plaza. ( 37)

The PRI has since lost—and then won—the presidency, and the specific manifestations of order change. Still, identifying order in what appears chaotic is important to comprehend the significance of stepping outside the chalk lines, so to speak, of expected behavior. María Cristina Pons explains the tension between order and disorder in analyzing Carlos Monsiváis’s chronicles of Mexican life. She writes: Monsiváis’s concept of relajo can mean several, usually interrelated, things. It may

refer to a sense of humor and playfulness that imply an enjoyment of language; spontaneous fun; any kind of carnivalesque expression, either in the form of a big mess, a rowdy party, or a social gathering; a purposeful avoidance of schedules and

all types of conventions; anything implying real or symbolic excess that would

defy the status quo or the ruling order. Essentially, relajo would be all that happens outside the limits of any given order or within a spontaneous, changing, unpre-

dictable or absurd kind of order. This term, relajo, usually appears in Monsiváis’s

chronicles associated with “chaos.”  The chaos/order relationship is one of the bib-

lical/mythical references we find throughout his chronicles, often in relation to

culture and the urban landscape as the privileged site where society’s real and symbolic struggles take place. (84)

Pons notes that this “explains to a certain degree the ambivalent love/hate relationship, the attraction and rejection of the cultural and social manifestations of the popular classes that Monsiváis expresses throughout his chronicles” (83). The direct access the audience of 9 días de guerra en Facebook is given to Facebook “walls,” a moderated discussion group, and private chat rooms highlights

Moder ating the “ Ignor ant Ma sses”  1 17

the power of chaotic exceptions—interjections—within highly structured, moderated interactions. Consider the following two examples: the first is more nuanced than the second, yet still breaks the chain of order. One character, Rosalinda, writes a sarcastic cautionary post, noting that everyone on the forum must be of the same opinion. When her sarcasm misfires with one interlocutor, she clarifies that “it was meant to be ironic” (pretendía ser una ironía; 100). For most people on the forum, the statement was a reminder that different opinions are central to debate, and thus Rosalinda furthers the possibility that debate includes myriad voices. Irony provides a unique type of chaotic interjection; although employed in formal essays of the Lettered City it is generally anathema to the storied words of Mexico’s mainline intellectual history. Irony can provide an enticing tool: it is double-voiced, as Linda Hutcheon and others help illuminate, and one can always run for cover by claiming the “tone”—hard to discern on the Internet, which is why numerous people have proposed emojis to represent sarcasm—was misunderstood. But this case is a bit different: the character, it seems, makes a deadpan statement and waits for someone—and there almost always is someone—to misread it, giving her the opportunity to double down on the idea. That is, if someone takes her seriously the line is not out of step with those who in fact believe that instead of debate only one voice, or a handful of powerful voices, must be heard. The second example of a chaotic interjection is also ironic in that the words are meant to indicate fissures and not commonalities. Despite the Moderator’s comment that at one point “the debate didn’t have an order” (el debate no tenía un orden; 102), the self-policing of Internet sites—but also, of course, the ability of a single person to interject and change the tone of a conversation—is apparent from the beginning. After several chaotic posts, an elderly participant, Ariel, offers some sage advice meant to remind the others of the importance of civility: No, we’re not in a competition. What is the crux of this discussion? To look for the guilty? As far as I know, no one has ever managed to resolve a conflict, even in a relationship, by just arguing about guilt . . . What is needed is comprehension of the problem and of the other’s pain. But I’m afraid that in the Middle East the goodwill of all parties is impeded by a series of forces that make understanding a nearly impossible task. Understanding that my family has lost half its members to a bomb, whether it’s fired from a plane, or from the stomach of a person who immolates themselves in the act? It’s all a horror. And as

ariel.

1 18  chap ter 4

in all of these arguments, the spiral of guilt never ends. That’s why it’s important to take the discussion, at least among ourselves, down the road of most “understanding.” moderator. Ariel’s words must have had some effect because for a few minutes there was silent reflection . . . Until Rosalinda interrupted again. rosalinda. “We are the world, we are the children . . . Lalalalalalalalala lala!” (102) 7 Out of the order that Ariel attempts to impose on the forum comes only a moment of respect and then a nod to disruptive chaos in the form of a deflating, sarcastic, undermining comment. The ease with which a younger woman can question the sage teacher is impressive: it’s not often in a public forum that the voices of authority can be so effectively undermined. If the name Ariel points to Shakespeare’s Tempest, it also, in a Latin American setting, points to José Enrique Rodó’s essay of the same name—“Ariel.” Rodó’s work was of course elaborated in favor of its title character and against Caliban: the latter would lead the hemisphere toward a barbarous future. Rosalinda is Caliban in this scenario—in contrast to the virtuous opposite, Ariel. And while most of the audience would probably agree with Ariel’s assertion, and while achieving peaceful debate seems to be the goal of most of the participants in the forum, Rosalinda’s interruption is productive chaos. And whereas a demonstrator in a public forum may interrupt debates, in this case an interjection is made (that Ariel’s words are idealistic) that modifies but does not stifle debate. Rosalida’s may appear to be the most uncultured comment possible, yet it communicates directly the feeling of alienation and—at the same time—empowerment that in other venues could not be expressed. It might appear that policing and ordering are unusual for the Internet; however, what is surprising is not that there are conventions that are followed very closely (and despite their complexity make way for legitimate debate) but, as mentioned above, that the exceptions are what offer hints toward fomenting democratic debate. Rafael Lemus notes: The novelty in this case lies in the fact that social networks (above all Twitter) defy the traditional distinctions between public and private and offer themselves as half-public and half-private spaces that millions of users can occupy to chat with friends, express political opinions, or question public intellectuals without needing to change their linguistic habits or codes of conduct or repressing certain practices

when talking about one thing or another with some or other interlocutors. In fact,

Moder ating the “ Ignor ant M a sses”  1 19

the very existence of this endemic twenty-first-century subject, the social network

user, already represents a challenge to that old division of labor that detached the

intellectual from the public: the Twitter user reads and writes, is an audience and a participant, intervenes in the formation of public opinion without demanding to

be categorized as an intellectual or mastering the registers and habits previously used in public space. In some way it is as if, through social networks, the pub-

lic was being insubordinate: suddenly they abandon the passivity that had been

assigned to them, they talk and write and, for the moment, even interpellate those who previously claimed to express and represent them. (238–39) 8

In this case it is not the blocking of forum members, since people are routinely blocked or banned from a variety of social media, but the conflation of Internet debate and the “erasure” of a character that is for all intents and purposes a “disappearance.” It is Rosalinda who is disappeared—she has clearly behaved badly, but having declared, “I am a dissident voice” (soy una voz disidente) earlier in the play (100), it is likely that many in the audience, and to an extent readers too, would have this in mind when she is eliminated from the forum. Dissident voices—exceptions, disruptions—exemplify emerging attitudes across the political spectrum toward a more inclusive, democratic society, even as it seems that the country is crumbling around the characters on stage—and the spectators in the audience. What the audience witnesses is something that currently permeates societies with significant access to computers: the negotiation of Internet democracy, a phenomenon that is also occurring in other settings but that seems particularly crucial in present-day Mexico. There is a distinct sense, foreshadowed by Moncada’s play, that there is something to be gained by taking hold of whatever tools are available to influence sociopolitical events, often by taking advantage of fissures in social and virtual organizations, and that social media may be the safest, most effective way to do so given the increase in violence that the U.S.-backed drug war of former president Felipe Calderon instigated. Chaotic disruptions to decidedly ordered structures (even those that at first appear chaotic themselves) allow for the intrusion of a multitude of voices and bodies, promoting fleeting but important opportunities for dialogue and even lasting change that at times influence discourses of power. In doing so, they offer a key reminder of the ability of individuals, no matter how insignificant and dehumanized they are or how insignificant they may feel (a topic I take up again in the conclusion, in my analysis of Más pequeños que el Guggenheim), to make powerful social connections that undermine common

1 20  chap ter 4

conventions. Of course, Moncada’s play also reinforces to a degree the discourses it challenges—such is the nature of art, especially when it is created not as a political pamphlet but as part of a broad dialogue that enters and exits the formal theatrical stage in unpredictable ways. He offers his audience a de-anesthetized version of the world around them that focuses on the power of art to humanize the weak and to promote the chaos that self-­expression sometimes triggers. To be sure, the play could leave a spectator or reader depressed—9 días de guerra en Facebook shows the best and worst of Internet debate—but also with a bit of hope thanks to the voices of those who might otherwise go unnoticed and the ability of characters to make sense, and use, of the chaos around them to make their voices heard. Self-expression takes many forms—just like the censorship it sometimes attracts. As I discussed in the introduction to this book, the most astounding cases of censorship are carried out by the most powerful forces in Mexico: the government and the narcotraffickers, the latter having splintered off into many other ventures. For this reason it is always surprising to see the degree to which those who bemoan the lack of genuine democracy and transparency in Mexico, people who regularly criticize government censorship, fall in line with the powers that be. Such is the case with many Mexican intellectuals who have been surprised (and at times usurped) by the chaotic democratization of the Internet—they fight for an inclusive society but find that for them this inclusivity, or civic participation in national dialogue, should have its limits. In “La insubordinación del público: Intelectuales y redes sociales en México,” for example, Lemus writes that, despite their democratic rhetoric, the social media wave during the last election caused significant consternation among powerful Mexican intellectuals. The unprecedented election-related Internet activity on sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others threatened not only politicians but also the self-appointed moderators of spaces reserved for “debate,” in this case virtual spaces: A more extensive study of the role of intellectuals during the past election cycle should focus on the already obvious centrality of digital publications ( Animal

Político, ADN Político and Sin embargo, for example) in the extended and, in the case of Mexico, novel habit of votos razonados (those many texts in which writers and journalists, normally young ones, expounded on the reasons behind their

vote) and, especially, on the eruption of the civic-student movement #YoSoy132. Among other things, the members of this movement shifted attention from the

Moder ating the “ Ignor ant M a sses”  1 21

goal of deliberation to that of mobilization, they abstained from traditional mass media, and, instead of appealing to the intellectuals, they spurned the mediation services that they offer and presented themselves by themselves, in the streets and

on digital networks (to which, by the way, more than a few intellectuals reacted in a way that is becoming increasingly common in the face of recent citizen insurgencies in various parts of the world: by calling for discussion, demanding that the

movement release statements and return to the realm of deliberation where they, the intellectuals, hold power). (232)9

Thus citizens both avoided media traps and fostered divergent means of communication. For the 131 students who sparked the #yosoy132 movement, the act of reading their names and Universidad Iberoamericana identification numbers into a camera in order to prove their identity as bona fide protestors and not acarreados (bused-in faux demonstrators), as I mentioned in the introduction, speaks to this idea of (more) direct connections with multiple audiences. Despite issues related to access, Lemus writes that the truth is that discussion in these mediums represents a new challenge to learned intellectuals, as much or more severe as the one they faced in the nineties with the processes of economic liberalization. In principle, the emergence of

social networks implies an unusual amplification and dispersion of the space of public opinion. Moreover, the participation of millions of citizens in these medi-

ums demonstrates that, as was already known, citizens can think, talk, and opine without the mediation of the lettered elites and, more importantly, that for some

time now they can advertise their opinions without having to resort to the mediums that intellectuals administer. (233)10

Who are the arbiters of good (intellectual) taste if there are multiple venues beyond storied journals like Enrique Krauze’s Letras libres, or newspapers and magazines? In the end, the number of views a video gets, as well as the comments it receives, may be the best indicator of “reach” and impact, as opposed to the venue itself—a terrifying proposition for those who promote “civilized” debate on their own terms. And while the Internet can be messy, especially when unmoderated, so is all genuine dialogue—not to mention democracy itself. Lemus writes on exemplary texts from three prominent Mexican intellectuals, highlighting their responses to Internet engagement: Enrique Krauze, Héctor Aguilar Camín, and Fernando Escalante Gonzalbo. The first, Krauze,

1 22  chap ter 4

notes that “Mexican cyberspace has contracted a virus: Alejandro Rossi called it ‘semantic corruption.’ Political indignation is vented in a verbal violence that is incompatible with the true instruments of rationality: argumentation, foundation, persuasion, coherence, clarity” (qtd. in Lemus 233).11 The objection to violent comments in “Mexican cyberspace,” those in newspaper and journal comment sections as well as on social media sites like Facebook, points to the conservative nature of Krauze’s piece. Lemus writes: “The text concludes the way that it began: by activating the ideologeme of a supposed purity of language (an ideologeme that certain linguists have already identified at the heart of discourses that fear the emergence of new speakers) and by warning that the ‘biggest danger is the degradation of the public word’ ” (234, emphasis in original).12 The second of the intellectuals Lemus discusses, Aguilar Camín, objects to selfies that are tacky (cursi, a topic that comes up in 9 días de guerra en Facebook, where the museum of tackiness/silliness provides a respite from the horror of war) and to the anonymity people can find on the web. Lemus quotes him: The network of insultors working for Andrés Manuel López Obrador is very well set up. As soon as anything bothers them, anonymous Twitter users begin

to appear, camouflaged, repeated and reinvented, to create the impression that

there is a wave of opinion against the latest sacrilege [. . .] Twitter users on record who can’t say their names, who do everything under idiotic pseudonyms and with cheesy selfies. (qtd. in Lemus 234)13

Moncada addresses a similar point in 9 días de guerra en Facebook: The majority of you are educated, nevertheless, people on the Street don’t have the capacity to separate the good and the bad, or better yet to understand that on each side there are always good people and bad people and that you shouldn’t generalize. You feel terrible that people are dying, it’s true; but if you are in command of the Ministry of Defense you have to think about the message that you’re sending. You can’t send a message of weakness because then they’ll attack you on all flanks . . . (124)14

efraín.

While Krauze laments the corruption of language, Aguilar Camín objects to masked identities and the potential for trolls, paid or otherwise, to sway conversations.

Moder ating the “ Ignor ant M a sses”  1 23

The last of the three examples comes from Escalante Gonzalbo, whose comments, according to Lemus, harken back to the well-known trope of taming the ignorant “other,” outlining a distinction between what he calls “spaces of dialogue where expression matters” (parliament, the press, the courts, the classrooms) and the digital spaces where, for

better or worse, more that ten million Mexicans express themselves. In the end, referring no longer just to the spaces for comments in the newspaper in which

he published, but rather, in general, to discussion on the Internet, he slips in that dichotomy of civilization and barbarity that was articulated by a good portion

of Latin American thought in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth . . . (236) 15

Lemus responds to Escalante Gonzalbo’s vitriol by noting that while there are of course excesses on the Internet, such as unacceptable hate speech, [i]n general, nonetheless, the interventions on Twitter that directly interpellate

intellectuals are free from all racial, religious, or gendered hate and tend to discuss, sometimes argumentatively, matters of public interest, among them the moral

authority of intellectuals and the relationships between the intellectual elite and the political and economic elites. To put it another way, those interventions were

not merely spontaneous and visceral outbursts, explainable as the simple clamor

of an electoral campaign, but rather expressions of a growing phenomenon: the troubled readjustment of the Mexican public sphere.16 (238) 17

This emerging reorganization is evident in 9 días de guerra en Facebook, where the power dynamic is similar to that of the “real” world but can be countered through strategies (like chaotic interjections) that are often honed in cyberspace. Of course, some Internet strategies can be effective yet destructive. In a review for the New Yorker on books that treat the topic of private Internet censorship, Kelefa Sanneh addresses the thorny issue of Internet shaming and political correctness, reminding the reader that despite complaints about a reduction in freedom, our discourse is shaped by innumerable taboos. ( Just think of all the things one shouldn’t say about members of the military.) Certainly, some new taboos are

emerging, even as some older ones fade away, but no one with Internet access

1 24  chap ter 4

will find it easy to claim that, in general, our speech is more inhibited than it used to be. Taboos discourage some speech, but the system of taboos is also main-

tained through speech. If you say the unsayable, you might well be shamed—and

that shaming can have consequences—but you will not be arrested. Mostly, what inhibits speech is the fear of being spoken about.18

And it is clear that what one has to say to get the attention of interlocutors— much less censors—is more and more extreme. In the emerging ideas of Internet democracy in Moncada’s play, the “uncultured” masses—like Rosalinda in 9 días de guerra en Facebook—mold spaces to their needs, to the degree possible based on their individual circumstances. They use real and virtual space to make profound social connections, albeit connections fraught with the vicissitudes of contemporary life. More importantly, the play humanizes (through a process of denaturalization) socially or politically marginal figures. This is especially pertinent as it relates to the politics of the marginal, by which I mean the politics of the easily disregarded or expendable—individuals who are shaped by circumstances that leave them feeling helpless and dehumanized. Moncada’s play is especially effective at bringing about denaturalization, a key component of humanization that is closely related to the alienation effect, with traces of Brecht’s reworking of the concept as a political tool, though with a postmodern twist that would leave audience members with more varied interpretations that the average (successful) Brechtian play. Denaturalization is the ability to bring audiences out of a state of anesthetized acceptance of the world around them—a self-preserving but destructive acceptance that allows them to ignore their own suffering and that of others, and to see the disadvantaged as less than human.19 Thus denaturalization (allowing the accepted/ordinary to appear “strange,” as Brecht and other would have it) highlights the constructedness of our surroundings. Humanization, a concept generally referred to in the negative, as dehumanization, is a concept that provides a constant flow of examples in the news in any country. An example removed from the Mexican scene (but not from the theater of war) serves to highlight the effects of dehumanization, to remind the reader that it is often easier to be open-minded when the results of dehumanization take place outside one’s geopolitical borders, and to underscore the universality of the concept. U.S. military staff sergeant Robert Bales, who massacred innocent Afghan civilians, offers insight into the horrors that dehumanization can produce: “Over his combat tours he came to hate ‘everyone who isn’t American,’

Moder ating the “ Ignor ant M a sses”  1 25

he wrote, and he became suspicious of local residents who might be supportive of those fighting Americans. ‘I became callous to them even being human; they were all enemy. Guilt and fear are with you day and night. Over time your experiences solidify your prejudice,’ he wrote” (Associated Press). The downward spiral—military personnel become dehumanized components of a military machine, and in turn dehumanize the “enemy”—is the most disturbing topic of this book. For this reason, however, it offers the most viable opportunity to harness the power of the art and other fields that at their best emphasize our commonalities, offering “peoples’ histories,” as Howard Zinn did when he told the stories of marginalized people in his widely read history of the United States. Thus the allies in the plays discussed here—fictional allies who form bonds and recognize the humanity of their interlocutors, while at the same time desiring to be recognized themselves—and the authors, actors, and other teatreros who stage these plays and, in doing so, become transnational, humanizing allies, counter the hegemony that would make enemies of common people. Understanding (de)humanization is the key to understanding efectismo, the second strategy I want to address in this chapter. In the initial scene of the play, the Moderator explains that he uploaded a poem and went to sleep, not thinking (and perhaps here he is being sly) that his posting of a poem by León Felipe entitled “Auschwitz,” coupled with a photograph of emaciated children, would cause a stir. He tells the audience: “Generally you send out messages and go to bed hoping to find a little surprise the next day . . . When he connected again, 11 hours later, there was his surprise: in the thread there were a hundred comments that had become a true debate” (97).20 The comments come from all over, especially Spanish-speaking countries, and a Mexican commenter does not enter the scene until the debate is well under way. Thus the provocative post highlights another aspect that makes Internet debate potentially more balanced and democratic: the external comments, though equally variable in terms of tone and content, offer outside perspectives that bring genuine nuance to debates and increase the chances that a post will be considered efectista. The play is about the crisis in the Middle East in large part because the conflict is so utterly complex. The Moderator’s picture, which he uploaded along with Felipe’s “Auschwitz,” is of emaciated children at a Nazi concentration camp. The poetic voice in Felipe’s poem asks for silence from Dante, Blake, and Rimbaud because “Today / any inhabitant of the Earth / knows a lot more about Hell / than those three poets put together” (qtd. in Moncada 95).21 The

1 26  chap ter 4

poetic voice admonishes Dante: “How do I explain it to you? / Since you don’t have any imagination! / You . . . have no imagination, / remember that in your ‘Inferno’ / there isn’t even one child . . . / And that one that you see there . . . He’s alone” (96).22 Next to the image presented in Felipe’s poem of a child who, ripped from parents, awaits the crematorium alone, the work of the three older poets seems almost quaint (95–96). But the idea, of course, is not to compare historical levels of depravity but to jolt the reader out of complacency so that words and images will have an impact, first viscerally and then, ideally for many activist poets, through political action. The word efectista, most generally translated as “sensationalist,” is used throughout the play to indicate times participants try to elicit a response from others—the accusation is that it is a dirty trick, and indeed it is. Efectismo is also, however, what challenges participants to confront each other in dialogue that is often encountered not in cafés, where we tend to gather with those who agree with the majority of our opinions, and not on most social media, where we tend to do the same, but in online forums where cultures (local, national, transnational) collide. In the growing field of affect theory, efectismo refers in part to the visceral, biological response that a text or image can invoke. In WordReference, the word efectismo appears alongside two other words: invocar, “to invoke or appeal to emotions,” and teatralizar, “to dramatize—to make dramatic.” Dramatizing—that is, both staging a topic and exaggerating and intensifying it in order to stimulate a reaction—is always already affective, and the use of images in Moncada’s play, as seen in the initial image of the children in a concentration camp, furthers the process of denaturalization by eliciting a (partly corporeal) response to visual stimuli. If the image leads a reader or spectator to turn inward, a physical response to visual stimuli, the reaction can also take the form of debate. After being accused of playing on (and with) the emotions of his fellow contributors, the Moderator admits, “In a world that’s not very sensitive to pain it’s necessary to look for efectismo. The photo is efectista in the sense that I wanted to give an effect to the note, and from what I see it didn’t turn out that bad. So then, I recognize that the photo is efectista. Sending a hug, ’cause—despite everything—I’ve never thought that you were a bad person . . .” (108).23 The Moderator sees it as perfectly reasonable to provoke a reaction, and is clearly content that he did so. “Indeed, he had put a poem on the wall to provoke reflection, but not even in his wildest blogger dreams had he imagined that a post of his would generate this type of commentary. He, who in some way was the cause of this agitated debate, was being called to participate: and so

Moder ating the “ Ignor ant Ma sses”  1 27

he said this to the discussion forum . . .” (104).24 He sees it as his duty and also traps the spectator in his gaze: when he breaks the fourth wall there is palpable discomfort in the theater; the shifting of bodies in the seats lining two lengths of the black box theater was notable the night I was in attendance. Turning again to Williams’s structures of feeling, it becomes clear that for both theater and social media in general, the chaos we perceive is also an emerging element in society. Writing on the widespread use of affect theory (including in theater and performance), Lisa Peschel notes: By considering the elements that he intended to capture—the specific type of

affect, the spatial and temporal nature of the structure it engenders, and the struc-

ture’s relationship to power—and describing how they manifest themselves in the

situations we are attempting to analyze, we may actually conform more closely, not to the letter of his definition, but to its spirit; as Williams himself wrote, “ ‘structure of feeling’ is a cultural hypothesis, actually derived from attempts to understand such elements and their connections in a generation or period, and needing always to be returned, interactively, to such evidence.” (171)

Of course, the Moderator’s image of emaciated Jewish children is countered by other images, including one of a bloody woman’s corpse that accompanies this post by Fátima: “For your information, I do know the zone and the conflict. I couldn’t enter Israel, but I had the honor of meeting a friend of Rachel Corrie’s in Jordan. For those of you that don’t know, an Israeli bulldozer went over her while she was trying to defend the home of a Palestinian family that was going to be demolished . . .” (106).25 At one point in the play the Moderator takes a break for an anniversary trip, and the conversation on the forum continues without him, in much the same way that we engage with—and then ignore, as we struggle with daily life—the many wars and other atrocities that appear daily in the headlines, at least if they make for an attractive story line. For the moment I’m going away, friends, but everyone can give their opinion

here, I haven’t deleted even one comment and my interventions have only been to clarify and emphasize my opinion. (To the audience) After saying this, the Mod-

erator wrote on his wall, as a good-bye: “Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of

the Moderator’s marriage to his beloved Lucrecia. He’s sorry to leave you all for a couple days. Kisses, hugs, and the usual white rose from Martí” . . . The shots continued in

1 28  chap ter 4

his absence, while, as you can imagine, he tried to take advantage of a weekend of pleasure. (108) 26

On one hand, the continued conversation on the forum indicates that together we can continue productive debate and “cover” for those who need to take a break; on the other hand, our ability to anesthetize ourselves is a survival mechanism indicative of the complicity that so easily undermines positive social change. While both the director, Martín Acosta, and writer/actor Moncada affirm that their goal with the play was to trace a separate universe, what comes across most clearly is that social networking is an extension of the real—and vice versa—that buttresses the power of the middle class (in this case) to make their voices heard through the chaos that is democratic dialogue. By embodying dialogue usually experienced only in bits and bytes, the cast pulls Facebook dialogue onto the stage and lets it flow over the audience. It is somewhat common in Mexico to have either a questionnaire for each audience member to fill out or talk-back sessions during which audiences can interact with the actors, directors, or writers after the play. Breaking the fourth wall is of course not revolutionary, but in a relatively tight theater space the impact can be powerful.27 The Internet, also a site of symbolic struggles, at times appears similarly chaotic yet is moderated (indeed, the main character in 9 días de guerra en Facebook is the Moderator, played by the play’s author and director, Luis Mario Moncada). The Internet also has the same structure: in appears in our conceptions as endless and chaotic, yet the rules that govern our interactions—largely because we choose social media applications that include detailed user agreements, and because of the social conventions we follow—are also highly structured. Just as we form Internet alliances, we form face-to-face allies. Both Mexican cities and the Internet have spaces outside control—spaces that escape the dynamic of (in)corporation and censorship. As the Economist puts it, because nobody controls the internet, it has proved hard to censor. And despite

(or perhaps because of ) this lack of governance, the network has proved surpris-

ingly resilient. More than two billion people are now connected to the internet. The many predictions of collapse have not yet proved correct.

Governments are uncomfortable with the current set-up. There is a growing

sense—and not just among the usual authoritarian suspects—that the internet is

too important, politically as well as economically, to continue to operate beyond the remit of governments. (“In Praise”)

Moder ating the “ Ignor ant M a sses”  1 29

The issues of censorship, government control, and corporate greed remain central to discussions about the Internet, but for those with access it can provide both a sense of relajo and offer multiple potential allegiances, both positive and negative. The emergence and playing out of a new, convoluted democracy can be seen in many online interactions. Indeed, it sometimes seems that the more corrupt the government becomes, the more citizens become vocal participants. This is a significant change, given that in “dirty wars” it is much harder to express ideas without suffering physical, emotional, and economic repression. Despite despair about the situation in Mexico, where people regularly refer to the country as a failed state—or to individual states as failed states—forums are alive with dialogue that represents eternal optimism (and, yes, the need to blow off steam, connect with others, support, and harass), something that 9 días de guerra en Facebook shows is common to many cultures. This freedom for dialogue can be seen in the online response to the August 2015 murder of photojournalist Rubén Espinosa, a socially committed young man who worked for two news agencies and the magazine Proceso and who titled his cover photo of the governor of Veracruz, Javier Duarte, “Veracruz: Estado Sin Ley” (A Lawless State). Espinosa had moved to Mexico City to escape the not-so-subtle intimidation he experienced on a regular basis (“Ruben Espinosa”). In the aftermath of his death, an online user criticizes Duarte, widely believed to have ordered Espinosa’s murder, noting that she or he (the commenter) hopes not to become number fifteen—a reference to the fourteen journalists murdered in Veracruz since 2010, when Duarte became governor.

5 Documentary Allies Sabina Berman and Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda Let the theater fall, let it fall on them. —M o loto v

Any resemblance of this work of fiction to real persons or events is intentional. —S a b i n a B e r m a n

If you want to really understand a country, visit its insane asylums. —V í c to r H u g o R a s c ó n B a n d a

W

invited the mothers of a group of young men and women who had been kidnapped from a Mexico City nightclub (and later murdered and buried on a ranch) to her TV Azteca program Shalalá (Anything Goes), she walked a fine line between journalistic practice and compassionate deference. The title of her program refers to themes—any topic can be treated, and Berman has interviewed an amazing cast of characters from transvestites to presidents—but not to Berman’s style of interviewing. Her rhetorical task in this case was to avoid a game in which the audience desperately needs to dehumanize the women on stage; it was clear that the elephant in the room, a presence that is not in the least unique to Mexico, was the audiences impulse to link these women’s children to the drug trade in order to dismiss as narco-related the heinous acts committed against them. hen Sabina Berman

Documentary Allies  1 31

Berman’s modus operandi in this segment mirrors her other work: she asks tough questions (of her audience, of society) yet does so in a way that makes them palatable, leaving the topic suspended, inconclusive, so that even the most cynical might consider, for example, their own complicity—and therefore their own responsibility to engage in the public sphere of influence. As an ally of los de abajo (the underdogs), Berman in this TV program brings real-life topics to the (nonfiction) stage, which in this case is a stage at the Churubusco Studios in Mexico City made to look like a comfortable, inviting living room. Making theater from (and of ) the news has a long history in Mexico as a way to present counterhistories and, at times, to point to ways to become more involved in civil society—taking advantage of postmodern concepts that allow for multiple truths without abandoning the spirit of 1968 (to choose one of many possible points in time). One of the most prolific and successful Mexican authors to do this is Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda, whose plays treat multiple topics but are always informed by his childhood in Chihuahua, where he witnessed justice and injustice, wealth and poverty. His plays often take an archival turn—he fictionalizes history in order to stage what we most prefer to avoid, for example, the case of a Rarámuri (Tarahumara) woman who was wrongfully incarcerated in a mental hospital in Larned, Kansas, for twelve years, as well as small if uncertain victories for people who engage in civil society, namely, the academic and community allies who advocated for her release. Though Berman and Rascón Banda are both part of the generation referred to as the New Dramatists of Mexico, Rascón Banda’s plays are bereft of the humor that we see in almost all of Berman’s work. His is a more somber, documentary vein of theater in the line of Rodolfo Usigli and Vicente Leñero; hers, while also clearly influenced by those authors, conjures the spirits of iconoclastic writers who use humor as a weapon: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Rosario Castellanos, among many others. Both authors tend to leave their plays open-ended, especially in the works I treat below, and both struggle to control their messages, Berman by directing or producing her own work, Rascón Banda by following—when possible—his maestro Leñero’s advice: “He didn’t ask for conventional plays, he wanted you to experiment with time, with sounds, with lights, with parallel stagings. And he also wanted plays to be closed, to not be open. I have the defect that my plays are all open and lend themselves to multiple interpretations, so directors abuse that freedom and sometimes betray the plays” (Rascón Banda, “En sus propias palabras” 25).1 The tension here is not postmodern in nature, since the idea Leñero tried to instill in Rascón Banda was that a closed ending

1 32  chap ter 5

preserves the message of the play, especially when dealing with renegade directors. The unlikely combination of experimentation and a direct message, one not easily warped in production, is a hallmark of Mexican documentary theater, as I elaborate in the two sections that follow: the first on Berman’s screenplay and film Backyard/Traspatio and the second on Rascón Banda’s play La mujer que cayó del cielo. I analyze the ways these authors write about some of the border region’s most salient topics: inequality, femicide, narco-violence, otherness, and ethics. In doing so they offer up fictional, ripped-from-the-headlines civically engaged allies (in both cases allies that existed in real life), all the while exemplifying the role writers, producers, and directors play as allies in the often dangerous struggle to promote robust civil society. Berman combines the power of humor with the strong tradition of Mexican documentary theater, eschewing the misguided fear of many practitioners of this subgenre that laughter diminishes social commitment. Mexicans are, of course, famous for their biting, playful, dark, sometimes sexist, clever humor. Many playwrights use humor successfully to entertain, to reflect Mexican culture, and to combat the status quo. Yet the unique combination of documentary theater and humor (irony, parody) is one of Berman’s most significant contributions to Mexican art. Taken as a commentary on Mexican civil society and politics, Berman’s productions offer a striking indictment of entrenched ideas on the political left and right, and a striking example of the ways artists can engage audiences as allies for justice. One of the multiple ways to make the “theater” of impunity fall, or, in other words, to unearth the seditious seductions of privileged and corrupt members of society, is to expose the theatricality of power using the subversive power of theater and other art forms. The publication of Berman’s film script Backyard/Traspatio (2005) and the subsequent film production offer key examples of artistic endeavors that start in the world of theater but reach ever wider audiences. As I argued in Mexican Public Intellectuals, Berman has successfully extended her literary career to other venues, including the above-mentioned talk show in Mexico City and the writing and production of film scripts like Backyard/Traspatio, which exceeded her previous, modest success in filmmaking—it was Mexico’s nomination for the Oscar in 2009. Whether for the stage or big screen, Berman is heavily involved in the production of her texts, both financially and creatively. This ability to be a successful producer brings regular accusations of “selling out” to make commercial theater (or making commercial theater to sell out), though it is probable that many teatreros would appreciate both the freedom from government subsidies

Documentary Allies  1 33

and the ability to draw large audiences to key venues in Mexico City. Focusing on Berman’s script allows me to consider the roles of fictional allies, characters that take a stand in one way or another to improve the situation in Ciudad Juárez, as well as real-life allies, including the author herself and, for example, human rights workers on the Mexico-U.S. border, the subject of Backyard/ Traspatio. It also allows for a discussion of what it means (for Berman, who is from Mexico City, or for international human rights workers from around the globe) to travel to Ciudad Juárez, the Mexican city that borders El Paso, Texas, in order to assist victims of violence against women. Most people consider any nongovernmental effort to ameliorate or expose the violence in Ciudad Juárez to be a positive counterweight to the official discourse, which has been largely political cliché (often at the federal level), tinged with explicit or implicit references that place the blame squarely on the victims. The artistic community, through hundreds if not thousands of creative works, has stood by the victims even as the drug war has overtaken the news in Mexico and abroad. From a distance it often appears that writing about the violence in Ciudad Juárez is a requirement for anyone wanting to prove their artistic and socially committed bona fides, though each author I have spoken with about her or his work on Mexico’s northern border has convinced me that the alliances they form come from a genuine desire to overcome the impotence many people feel in the face of crime, and to help their audiences do so by raising awareness or, at times, presenting concrete solutions or calls for action. Mexico City authors like Berman face reproach because of their privileged economic and geographical positions, a reality that did not deter Berman from traveling to Ciudad Juárez, conducting interviews, writing the script, and producing the film—a process that brought not only criticism from so-called allies but threats of violence from powerful players (drug traffickers, law enforcement) on the border. Backyard exemplifies the courage it takes to challenge authority, in this case on the border metropolis that Berman calls, with sharp irony, the backyard of the United States—and of Mexico. In the text we find a supplement to the dozens of plays, novels, documentaries, articles, and films from the United States that this tragic situation has engendered. With a thorough understanding that what is occurring in Ciudad Juárez is a transnational issue, in the following pages I consider four aspects of Berman’s written script: the fictionalization of a Mexican human rights worker; the uncovering of masks of impunity that feed corruption and violence, with Berman’s clear reference to the canonical play of Mexico’s post-Revolution, Rodolfo Usigli’s El gesticulador; neoliberalism, which

1 34  chap ter 5

provides employment but little protection for workers or the environment; and distancing techniques that keep Berman’s message from becoming obscured by the violence, eroticism, mystery, and action that the script so convincingly portrays. The analysis of these aspects of the text makes evident the power of art in society and points to the possibility that the tools of the theater can make the theater of politics (as desired in the Molotov lyrics quoted in the epigraph above) fall, if only temporarily. As is well known in Mexico, the number of abducted women in Juárez is hard to determine. A 2003 report titled Muertes Intolerables: Diez años de desapariciones y asesinatos de mujeres en Ciudad Juárez y Chihuahua, from Amnesty International, indicated that approximately four hundred women and girls had been assassinated in the previous ten years; and by 2013 the number was much higher, although, as with statistics in the drug war, it is difficult to know the real numbers given the context in which femicide is carried out. At about the time Backyard was written, the group Casa Amiga reported the following, cutting to the core of the problem: A decade of impunity and misogyny is over, and the wounds produced by gender violence and femicide have not healed, on the contrary, the majority are infected

and rot the fabric of society. Here, in the zones of contagion, political and economic power, narcotrafficing, gender violence, greed, and absolute incompetence in criminal investigation reach their boiling point. No additional commentary is

necessary, just creating awareness about the social decomposition and the collapse of the institutions of justice that foster a paradise of impunity.2

Casa Amiga’s mission is to promote “a culture without violence, based in the equality and respect for the physical, emotional, and sexuality integrity of the women and children of our community.” 3 Esther Chávez Cano, the group’s founder, became one of the key characters in Backyard, called Ester Chávez. At the beginning of the script, Ester speaks about a social worker and benefactor from Holland, and in their interactions we see the positive—if limited—side of globalization, the free trade in tactics and economic resources that combat injustice. This portrayal of Ester’s dedication mirrors that of the real-life Esther, who before her death on Christmas Day 2009 won many local successes that captured national and international attention. María Socorro Tabuenca, a professor from the border region (she worked at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte and is now a professor at the University of  Texas at El Paso), writes:

Documentary Allies  1 35

At the age of 19, [Esther] was sent to Guadalajara to live with her aunt and uncle, and there she studied high school and, later, accounting. In 1988, she began writ-

ing for El Diario, where she eventually gained a position on the executive board. In 1992, she ran for mayor as the candidate for the Party of Democratic Revolu-

tion (PRD) in Juárez but lost the election. The same year, she started the Grupo 8 de Marzo in Juárez, an activist women’s rights group that protested new authori-

tarian abortion legislation proposed by the conservative Partido Acción Nacional

(PAN). In 1993, Chávez Cano started recording data on the murdered women in

Juárez based on newspaper clippings. She also began, along with the 8 de Marzo, to complain publicly about the government’s negligence in solving the murders

and bringing the culpable to justice. In 1998, she joined with 13 feminist activist

groups, the Coordinadora de Organismos No Gubernamentales en Pro de la Mujer (Coordinator of Nongovernmental Organizations Pro-Women) to work together

to advocate for the prosecution and prevention of crimes against women. And in 1999 she cofounded Casa Amiga A.C., the first rape crisis center and shelter for abused women in the city, and sixth in the nation. (140)

When I interviewed Sabina Berman, she said that she was one of many who had made the pilgrimage to Juárez to the crisis center founded by Chávez Cano: “I went several times to Ciudad Juárez to acquaint myself with the places sadly related to the dead women—Lomas de Poleo, la Colonia Napra, the bare patch known as Ocho Cruces.4 I also went to human rights centers. I saw Esther Chávez’s archives; she was the first person to begin putting a name to what was going on” (Personal interview).5 From the very beginning of Backyard (both the fictitious text and the events upon which it is based) the name Chávez becomes a bridge that connects the reality of Juárez with what will become the film Traspatio—not as a stale archetype but as a palpable human being to be imitated. Indeed, the name Chávez is an attack on simulation in the real world, and even in the world of fiction her power seems to hinge on the fact that it is hard to differentiate her from the real-world woman who founded Casa Amiga. Also from the very beginning we see that this is not one of the multiple works of fiction by Berman in which the tables are turned on men, and in this case it is also clear from beginning to end that this is not a game, at least for the victims of violence in the city. Notwithstanding the research that she conducted for the screenplay, which included an audience with then president Vicente Fox and conversations with mothers of victims, maquiladora managers, and even a conservative U.S. senator,

1 36  chap ter 5

Berman recognizes that it would be impossible for her to provide new information. Yet her peripheral position as a resident of Mexico City perhaps paradoxically serves to highlight links between violence in Ciudad Juárez and the rest of the Mexico, not to mention the United States and other countries, as she explains: I think that what Backyard adds is a global vision of the issue. Generally they talk about the issue of the dead women of Ciudad Juárez at the level of the act itself

of the rape and murder of women, as if it had nothing to do with the government

of Juárez, the government of Mexico, the transnational corporations, the maqui-

ladoras, and finally the government of the United States. And even more, the neoliberalism of the planet? (Personal interview)6

Filming Backyard was not for the weak of heart. Berman explains to Tracy Wilkinson that the crew lived in fear: Despite the ongoing violence, and in the face of government resistance, the makers of “Backyard” decided to shoot the picture in Juarez. In fact, doing so gave it a

kind of added relevance. Often the violence from the ’90s that they were portraying conflated with today’s scourge.

State and municipal authorities “would have given anything for us not to

make the movie” in Ciudad Juarez, Berman said. Local government officials do not come off well in the film, having often preferred to downplay the murders of easily replaced female factory workers in order to prop up business interests.

When local authorities realized filming of the movie was going ahead anyway,

they ordered two rings of security to protect the crew and cast: one contingent of

police and another of soldiers. Two police commanders assigned to security duty were slain and a third had to flee in fear of her life.

In addition to Ester, Blanca and Juana are two key characters in this microcosm of the transnational world Backyard presents. Juana is a young woman who leaves a small town in Tabasco, a state where Berman herself has lived, to look for work in Ciudad Juárez—she has two cousins there—and thus the typical migration pattern begins. One of her cousins is Blanca, a local police investigator, and it is through these women and a host of other characters that first Berman and then director Carlos Carrera immerse the reader/spectator in the spaces that best describe the ordered chaos of Ciudad Juárez: nightclubs,

Documentary Allies  1 37

assembly plants, Casa Amiga, the morgue, a police station, the avenues of the city, local businesses, private houses, and—among other locales—the desert that envelops it all. As a specter in the background is the city that makes Ciudad Juárez and the rest of Mexico the proverbial backyard. But besides the obvious link to El Paso, which is portrayed as a city of glass, the script’s stronger link, in terms of emerging social decay, is within her own country: Mexico City and so many other cities: “We all learned what fear was,” Berman said in an interview in her apartment in the fashionable Condesa neighborhood of Mexico City. “We slept with fear.”

The cast and crew eventually realized that the tragedy they were depicting was

indelibly linked to Mexico’s current descent into chaos.

“We are really not just talking about dead women from the ’90s, but the begin-

ning of the hurricane that has come to destroy parts of the country,” Berman said.

“The anarchy there in Juarez has permitted anarchy in other parts of the country.” (Wilkinson)

Ciudad Juárez seemed far removed from Mexico City at the time, and, despite the fact that the border city augured emerging social decay, somewhat ironically the D.F. had become a sanctuary for people from the violence they were experiencing in other parts of the country, the so-called “interior.” This first section of my analysis of Backyard centers on a discussion of simulation; I will then turn to the topics of neoliberalism and distancing—and, in the end, the power of art to undercut the theater of politics. The most telling declarations in Backyard, those that question the inaccessibility, corruptibility, and impunity of everyone from powerful politicians (specifically the governor of Chihuahua) to the most pedestrian officials, come over the radio waves through the voice of talk show host Peralta, a kind of narrator—an anomaly in Berman’s body of work—who makes explicit the irony behind official affirmations and actions or the lack thereof. He is the type of media ally who works for the people, not against them, and he is also the type of ally who, as in many cases in Ciudad Juárez and elsewhere, is routinely murdered. With the same cutting irony Peralta drives home an important point, this time directed at those who say there is no government in Juárez: “There is a Government that only simulates being a Government” (Backyard 162, emphasis added).7 If we place the screenplay within the trajectory of Mexican theater, the references to simulation tie in solidly with Mexican playwright Usigli’s play El gesticulador,

1 38  chap ter 5

written in 1938, a tie-in that complements the writing of Jean Baudrillard, who in Simulacra and Simulation refers to the Borges short story in which a map is so detailed that it covers the entire globe: Today abstraction is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror, or the con-

cept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. The

territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it. [. . .] It is the real, and

not the map, whose vestiges persist here and there, in the deserts [. . .]. The desert of the real itself.

[. . .] It is a question of substituting signs of the real for the real, that is to say

of an operation of deterring every real process via its operational double, a [. . .]

perfectly descriptive machine that offers all the signs of the real and short-circuits all its vicissitudes. (1–2, emphasis in original)

Of course the desert surrounding Ciudad Juárez is as real as the corpses it hides (or does not hide, given that many are simply dumped). In the case of the femicides and Berman’s screenplay Backyard, the territory must survive the map, a map of complicity and impunity that can be countered by denaturalizing the status quo and uncovering simulators—and, more importantly, corpses—as very real referents of flesh and bone. Baudrillard warns, “[P]resent-day simulators try to make the real, all of the real, coincide with their models of simulation” (2). Berman de-masks myriad simulators and at the same time offers up characters who, through explicit, direct dialogue, underscore the problems Juárez faces and (surprisingly for characters Berman creates) offer concrete solutions. Granted, those solutions would require cooperation on the part of transnational corporations and politicians. Similia similibus curantur, the ancient homeopathic principle that poison is cured with poison, mirrors the effect of Berman’s script: the author works to “cure” simulation with another simulation, another work of fiction, this time constructed with recognizable referents and marginalized voices. She shows a preference for a different connotation of simulation, one that refers to a faithful image, albeit one made up of the same words and images as any other copy. Steven Best and Douglas Kellner remind us that “[t]he Baudrillardian universe of simulacra without referents can [. . .] be read as an effect of the poststructuralist critique of meaning and reference taken to an extreme limit where the effluence of simulacra replaces the play of [. . .] discourses in a universe with no stable

Documentary Allies  1 39

structures in which to anchor theory or politics” (121, emphasis added). Backyard is Berman’s most unambiguous, anchored work of fiction, and perhaps for this reason it is a rare incursion for this author into a pessimistic worldview, something seen most clearly in Peralta’s words: “I simulate. You simulate. The governor simulates. [. . .] I simulate that I’m getting mad. You simulate that you’re indignant. The Government simulates that it Governs. We all simulate that we are horrified. But the only ones who actually do something, definitively, are the killers” (161).8 In these lines we can hear the echo of Usigli’s character César Rubio, the underpaid university professor from Mexico City who returns to his pueblo and baptizes himself as the eponymous revolutionary, César Rubio, with the help of a Harvard professor who is more interested in building a career and establishing his academic dominance than in presenting a faithful representation of Mexican history. Rubio’s comments set the stage for the work of many writers in Mexico who turn to the audience and ask, in myriad different ways: It could be that I am not the great César Rubio. But who are you? Who is each of us in Mexico? Everywhere you find impostors, impersonators, simulators; assas-

sins disguised as heroes, bourgeoisie disguised as leaders; thieves disguised as deputies, ministers disguised as wise men, despots disguised as democrats, dema-

gogues disguised as men. Who holds them accountable? They are all hypocritical gesticulators. (107)9

If  Usigli’s play ends with a continued simulation—¡Viva César Rubio!—in Berman’s screenplay there is no space for simulated history. Usigli’s influence, seen in so many Mexican texts (including most famously Octavio Paz’s Labyrinth of Solitude), is evident here in concave form as the screenplay exposes corruption not only to the reader or viewer but, unlike Usigli’s masterpiece, to the other characters, city dwellers who listen to Peralta on the radio. Different from many of the authors who have treated the Ciudad Juárez femicides, and those who contend that there is only a tangential relationship between murder and neoliberalism (represented in Juárez by the free trade zone and the resulting maquiladora industry), Berman traces specific links, just as she did in her most well-known play, Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda (1992). The protagonist in that play, Gina, finds love not with her supposedly progressive lover, a historian of the Revolution who writes for the left-leaning newspaper La Jornada, but, ironically, through her links to neoliberalism: she and a conservative business partner are founding an assembly plant in Juárez. But of

140  chap ter 5

course in Backyard we find not women who traffic, but trafficked women; economic liberalism—which favors deregulation, reduced social spending, and the elimination of trade barriers (come what may and to the extent possible, since powerful nations can always subvert agreements)—rules the stage, as observed in this conversation between the characters Senator Adams and the governor of Chihuahua, who asks that the maquiladora industry help fund public safety measures in Juárez: Various companies, among them Ford, are seriously considering abandoning Juárez. And I’ll show you why. (Takes out a notebook and a pen from his jacket. Makes calculations.) One hour from a Mexican worker is worth $1.05. Add the taxes . . . governor. Which are very low. adams. But add them. And add the cost of the environmental protections that the Mexican Government demands . . . governor. Which are minimal. adams. . . . and the cost of one hour for a female Mexican worker is $1.15. (150–51) 10 adams.

This scene is interpolated with one in which the Sultan speaks with a supposed conspirator who reminds him, “You were giving us a thousand dollars per dead woman. That’s what we agreed on and that’s what was done, Sultán” (151).11 The character of the Sultan is based on the real life Abdul Latif Sharif, the Egyptian chemist convicted of various homicides in Ciudad Juárez and who in Backyard is “[i]n the best of cases [. . .] a rapist” ([e]n el mejor de los casos [. . .] un violador; 162). “Profit over people,” as Noam Chomsky would put it, is the order of the day, and women are seen as commerce in both the sex trade and the work force that keeps Juárez in business. Consider the ultrahygienic assembly plants that are often governed by the most effective elements of the Panopticon: surveillance and, more importantly, the ever-present possibility of surveillance. The capacity to monitor the work force is particularly impressive considering the blindness transnational companies can have when it comes to the reality beyond their metal fences. In Backyard, the character Juana begins her position at Honeywell with a photo ID, a uniform, some Nike shoes, and birth control pills. The latter come with a warning from the company doctor: “Every month I will give you a little

Documentary Allies  141

test to see if you are pregnant. If you are pregnant you lose your job. Do you understand, Juana?” (122).12 Berman’s text indicates that the Honeywell plant is “spacious like the campus of a midsize university” (121),13 but of course the goal in this alma mater is to perform under strict vigilance. What could superficially be considered a genuine desire to promote hygiene and well-being is in reality an efficient way to increase productivity and avoid dissent. When Juana enters the “main nave” of this commercial cathedral she sees hundreds of women, “[a]ll with face masks” ([t]odas con tapabocas; 122). Soon she is seen working with her own face mask, a chilling presage of her death by suffocation. Juana arrives in Juárez to find work, and in the process encounters the freedom to express herself: the Panopticon (of family, of commerce) does not envelop her beyond the walls of the assembly plant. But the personal autonomy Juana experiences upon leaving Oxolotán, Tabasco, has its price—Juana is not of the same social class as Gina in Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda. Berman spoke to me about the process of creating the character Juana: “I tried to understand what it meant, for a young woman coming from a country village, to go to Ciudad Juárez and work in a maquiladora” (Personal interview).14 Like her character, Berman has lived in Oxolotán, an experience that she says marks many of her texts. Perhaps for this reason she is so adept at presenting the two worlds in which Juana lives: in the first the character crosses a hanging bridge that “sways between blue mountains and a brown river” (112)15 and leads to her new life; while in the second the Río Bravo, known in the United States as the Rio Grande, marks a very different type of border, where in addition to gaining employment Juana becomes sexually active. She seduces Cutberto, a timid machista whom Juana leaves in order to preserve her newly won freedom, though in doing so she falls into the inevitable trap of the provocative victim, as this public service announcement in Backyard indicates: Don’t go out at night. Don’t leave your house at night. [. . .] But if you do go out don’t go out alone. [. . .] And if you go out alone at night, at least don’t dress provocatively. [. . .] And if you were to suffer a sexual assault because you went out alone and dressed provocatively . . . [. . .] Make yourself vomit, since it’s likely that the aggressor will feel disgust and flee.

announcer (V.O.):

The phrase “The Government of Chihuahua against the deaths of women” scrolls across the television. (160) 16

142  chap ter 5

As if the public service announcements from the Chihuahuan government, fictitious and real, were not already self-parodies, Peralta—the radio commentator—underscores the double victimization of women: “Don’t do this, don’t do that; don’t go out, cover yourself like a nun, don’t live: The Government of Chihuahua against women. [. . .] And if you are alone at night because you’re leaving working the night shift, may they kill you. And if you’re young and beautiful, may they kill you. And if they attack you sexually, throw up, just like that on command: you throw up, we’re busy collecting taxes . . .” (160).17 Juana’s rape and murder is prefigured in the Honeywell plant when her image is fixed in the camera flash as she gets her identification badge made; the photograph is similar to so many that have been made available to identify missing employees. Juana is raped by a group of men, among them her ex-­ boyfriend Cutberto, who suffocates her. Her death produces nausea, but it is not a surprise. She had told Cutberto, upon breaking off their relationship, “I’m my own boss” (Soy mi propia dueña; 147).18 Gayle Rubin writes: “If women are for men to dispose of, they are in no position to give themselves away” ( 37). In a reworking of the concept developed by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Rubin adds that the “exchange of women” leads us to consider “the oppression of women within social systems, rather than in biology. Moreover, it suggests that we look for the ultimate locus of women’s oppression within the traffic in women, rather than within the traffic in merchandise” ( 37). It is clear that in Juárez, not to mention other cities of the world, trafficking in women is the same as trafficking in merchandise: women in the screenplay and beyond at once assemble merchandise and become merchandise. To survive in this equation it is often necessary to accept the rules of a patriarchal society infused with neoliberalism, two systems that complement but also complicate each other. On the one hand, the “logic” of the market leads to survival of the fittest (most powerful, best connected), while on the other hand, the labor desires of the maquiladoras often focus on young, female workers, leaving women with more money and therefore independence. Humor is without doubt Berman’s preferred weapon as a writer; it permeates her work, opening space through distancing techniques for the denaturalization, demystification, and possible reconfiguration of social practices. Jacqueline Bixler lists some of the themes that exemplify Berman’s plays: “Despite this variety, a few constants stand out: the affection for dark humor and irony; the distrust of all official discourse; the postmodern subversion of Mexico’s official history; the interest in personal and national identity; the need to surpass limits, both sexual and theatrical; and the profound awareness of the intrinsically

Documentary Allies  143

dramatic nature of Mexican history and politics” (“Una introducción” 21).19 Although Backyard is less mischievous than other works by Berman, many of the elements of her other writing are evident—but with an added scathing tone brought on by the urgency of the subject matter. Yet even though her emblematic ambiguity in this case has more to do with the multifaceted context of the crimes, playful language and humor, especially if humor is understood broadly, are evident. The irony infused in the words of the character Peralta—for example upon exposing the words of the government for their hollowness—is of a sort that is much more direct and leaves very little space for misunderstanding. In other words, there are very few times in Backyard when the reader or spectator has to deduce Berman’s intentions. She explains: It’s the only thing that I have ever written in my life that has almost no humor. What’s more, I think that the humor that it has is derived from the young charac-

ters’ lust for life. You laugh at their candor and their enthusiasm . . . at the pleasure

they feel from living. It almost surprises me that it’s my work, because it doesn’t have any of the resources that I love to use at all. Here everything else would have been getting off topic. (Personal interview)20

This enjoyment of life—we see Juana transform herself and celebrate her new life—gives the impression that Berman is capable of offering up a Hollywood archetype. The scene in which Juana seduces Cutberto portrays an innocent dream; he shows some karate moves and she applauds, then she joins the competition: “Oh well I also know how to do my katas. Look this is the kata of . . . of . . . She has ended up with her torso naked without finishing the sentence” (134).21 At this point the destructive forces of Ciudad Juárez have not yet enveloped the characters, and Cutberto wants to call up (literally) his innocent past, in this scene that might indeed provoke laughter: Come here. (He goes, sits down next to her on the cot.) Will you kiss me? cutberto. It’s just that . . . We should have spoken with your Dad first. juana. But he’s in Oxolotán, Cutberto. And he doesn’t have a phone. (134)  22 juana.

The sweet humor, which originates from the juxtaposition of social norms from different worlds, makes the forthcoming transformation all the more brutal.

14 4  chap ter 5

The two teens share a certain innocence that does not interfere with their sexual awakening. Another conversation they have also shows an innocent, Hollywood banter: So you’re from Oaxaca. From Tepejuco, Oaxaca. juana. No way! cutberto. No way why? juana. I mean what a coincidence! cutberto. You’re from Oaxaca?! juana. Noooooooo. (They laugh. They really like liking each other so much.) But I’m from Oxolotán in Tabasco. (127) 23 juana.

cutberto.

This scene take place in a nightclub in which “couples dance northern style: the women in jeans with the pelvis on the men’s thighs, also clad in jeans; and everyone’s eyes are neutral, as if unaffected by the erotic current that arises in the rubbing of pelvis and legs” (126).24 The stark contrast of a conversation with such innocent humor and the nightclub with its pulsating beat make the audience want to save these two from scenes to come, from dramatic irony that—by definition— is unknown to them. Berman does not evade the sensual or the sexual, and she presents a character—Juana—with whom it would be difficult not to identify. In this way Berman avoids to a degree the sexualization of violence, as the author herself explains: It was a danger of the theme and I had also read various texts where violence is sexualized. But [Backyard] is structured in such a way that it is impossible to feel pleasure from the violence. The violent scenes happen in such a way that I hope

instead the spectator will feel horror. The only act of mortal violence that happens onscreen, the only one, happens when we already know the character extremely

well. [. . .] I don’t see how someone could break this identification with Juanita so late in the film. (Personal interview)25

It is precisely the identification with Juana, formed in large part through unexacting (but not superficial) humor, that works to prevent gratuitous identification with her attackers. Juana will learn the quebradita, a popular dance, she will take self-defense classes, and she will work like never before. She is and is not fictitious, which provides for a powerful distancing effect. Violence

Documentary Allies  145

against women has become normal, which is the fictitious truth of Backyard. Ester Chávez cannot even get the newspaper Reforma to publish an article about a woman who was raped and kidnapped and then escaped, because in “Juárez there are women raped and killed every month: that’s not news” (Backyard 140).26 After Juana’s murder, after having observed in so many scenes her smile and laughter, the reader/spectator not only sees that her murder—not to mention all the murders in Juárez—is unacceptable but may very well feel the need to look for solutions to the femicide that plagues the city. Berman’s screenplay is less playful that her other work; there is less dark irony than we would expect from her. The type of humor in the play, as alluded to above, creates links between Juana and the audience: sympathy, the possibility to feel the same, to feel similarly, a link that is formed through light humor. In this way solidarity is formed, and solidarity—an alliance—is the seed of social change. Backyard is also less playful in the sense that although it does represent in many ways Berman’s modus operandi, the cinematic elements offer additional (or rather different) opportunities for distancing. The abrupt scene changes and grotesque juxtapositions remove us from Hollywood illusion. One scene jumps, for example, from a commander sitting poolside to a darkly lit nightclub with the pulsating beat of Mexican music. Then it is daylight again, and we see “a house made out of scraps of a Coca Cola billboard [. . . that w]ould be in the Guggenheim Museum in NY, in the conceptual art section, if it were not in the poorest corner of the Planet” (155).27 And again it is night, and we see Cutberto, who had drugged Juana in order to rape her, with a pistol to the nape of his neck. The gun is in the hands of one of his “friends,” who has also raped her. Cutberto covers her face with a plastic bag. It is in no way playful, and if by chance a reader or spectator has not gotten the message, toward the end of Backyard numbers of the same sort that have marked the time throughout the film appear, this time noting the number of deaths and not the time of day. Also at the end the following words appear, indicating that Berman has exhumed the real: Any resemblance

of this work of fiction

to real persons or events is intentional. (180) 28

“It’s a tragedy,” says Berman about Backyard. “Now, it’s not a tragedy where we go back to the initial status quo of  ‘who knows what is going on.’  I think

146  chap ter 5

that in the end you say, ‘I finally understand what is going on.’ Because otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense. From knowing what is happening there is in fact a solution. I hate the attitude that there is no solution for this. There isn’t one solution; there are many” (Personal interview).29 These solutions—which start with the obvious (more honest police officers, more assistance from the government and the maquiladora industry) and end with more drastic steps (the intervention of the UN)—are enunciated primarily by Blanca, the police investigator who searches for justice, even if doing so involves approving the planting of evidence to capture criminals, or using her weapon when necessary. It is not surprising, given her thirst for justice, that she is being transferred to another city; there is no room for her in this tragedy that, in the real world, relates to the “[i]nvention of guilty parties, confessions obtained under torture, scapegoats, invented testimonies and false clues, all of these operations in which governors, attorneys, commanders of the different police agencies, agents from the Public Ministry, and even the special prosecutor named by the President of the Republic participated directly” (Petrich).30 At the end of the film we see Blanca’s car driving off (her new position will be in Mérida) while listening to the voice of then president Vicente Fox, whose words are made ironic by the context: “Today on International Women’s Day I would like my wife to announce the forceful measures that we in the Government of Mexico are taking in regards to the femicide in Juárez.”  The First Lady continues the announcement: “Thank you, Vicente. To begin we are going to initiate a determined campaign of television advertisements” (180).31 As in real life, the accused—who in Berman’s screenplay are guilty in one way or another—include the Sultán, los Rebeldes, a businessman from the United States, drug traffickers, husbands and boyfriends, and an unidentified serial killer. The anger the audience feels cannot be directed at just one victimizer. The “global vision” that Berman presents emphasizes the broad context in which these atrocities occur. The assembly plants attract but do not protect workers; the “invisible hand” of the neoliberal market is not, in the end, human. The fictitious governor of Chihuahua in Backyard, like many politicians facing the reality of neoliberal impunity, is confused to learn there is not a person, in a homologous position to his, overseeing the maquiladora industry: “A force as decisive as the transnational companies, a force as determining for the global economy, without any restraint. That is a problem.” His interlocutor makes it clear: “It’s called the Free Market” (142).32 (Drug trafficking represents an equally transnational force with a similar power to suppress government

Documentary Allies  147

control, and it also shares in the responsibility for the femicides.) The documentary La ciudad que mata a mujeres, shows, “through five documents related to femicide,” how Francisco Barrio and Patricio Martínez—a member of the PAN and a member of the PRI—and their respective prosecutors and police chiefs contributed to cutting off all lines of investigation that were leading to tying the serial murders of young girls and women with narcotraffic” (Petrich).33 And even though in the documentary the creators do not present explicit evidence to prove their theories, including that related to Sergio González, the panorama of corruption does not exclude the possibility that they could be true. Julia Monárrez Fragoso, a researcher at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, where the 2006 report about “systemic sexual femicide” (feminicidio sexual sistémico) was produced, affirms that “Ciudad Juárez is a paradigm and what happens there is not just related to the women who live there but to those who live in the rest of the country and the world” (Martínez).34 Berman agrees, and despite the fact that gesticulations continue to cover up what is happening in Juárez and impunity continues to be the order of the day, she is able to exhume the real and place it in a context where it no longer appears natural, inherent, or local. In the last scene, a world map extends the length of the screen and signals worldwide hotspots for violence against women and girls. This is not Borges’s map, but rather a referent that takes us from the fiction of the page or screen and places us firmly in the reality of the desert. The power of artistic allies, in the case in Backyard, is the power to make the theater of politics crumble in order to re-create a reality of flesh and bone. Rascón Banda’s La mujer que cayó del cielo also highlights the work of allies, and helps me to trace a connection to academia that I also take up in my conclusion. Several years ago I gave a talk on social activism in academia, focusing on a specific case that took place in Kansas: that of a Rarámuri (Tarahumara) woman, Rita Patino Quintero, who walked, as best as anyone can tell, from northern Mexico to Kansas, where she was incarcerated by authorities unable to determine her origin. In La mujer que cayó del cielo, Rascón Banda (1948–2008), in the style of documentary theater mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, stages the decade-plus time the woman spent in a mental hospital in Larned, Kansas, and ends the play with her return to Chihuahua. Patino Quintero knew very little Spanish, and, according to a Topeka newspaper, she “must have felt like someone from another planet when police found her rummaging through garbage for food in 1983 in . . . western Kansas. . . . Quintero would spend 12 years in Larned before a patient advocacy group, Kansas Advocacy & Protective

148  chap ter 5

Services Inc., discovered her true identity and helped repatriate her to Mexico in 1995” (Blankenship). Of course, the word repatriation implies that Patino Quintero was a fully incorporated citizen of Mexico before leaving the country, which she was not. This tragic example of injustice offers a way to further tease out some of the issues related to activism, privilege, and theater. Although Patino Quintero was freed from Kansas incarceration by socially committed allies, she was returned to a dismal scene, as narrated in the last lines of the play by the fictional Giner, the central figure in her release: Last Christmas I went to Camargo to visit my family. In the Chihuahua Herald I read an article about how the inmates of a local mental hospital spent their

Christmas Eve. There were photos of old men and women with lost looks in their eyes. I went to see them. The Psychiatric Hospital of Chihuahua is not Larned

Hospital in Kansas. Could this be what hell is like? If you really want to under-

stand a country, visit its insane asylums. There, in the middle of the abandonment, the filth, and the sadness, was Rita. Alone, absent, lost. (126)35

The help Patino Quintero received came too late; by all accounts she had been pumped with narcotics that left her unable to reenter society—the indigenous society she had escaped after murdering her husband, possibly in self-defense, and where she would surely be unwelcome. I won’t offer an analysis of the entire play, but taking a look at the roles of allies connected to academia offers insight into both the positive and negative effects of wielding privilege. It is clear that some volunteer programs through universities are designed primarily to further the growth of students, not to improve the community. Indeed, college towns can be overwhelmed with student volunteers who feel pressure to build their résumés. Yet there is no question that professors and students can make a difference in the lives of those who have relatively little power. Academics who work with the Innocence Project, for example, regularly help free wrongfully incarcerated prisoners. Still, artistic creations have made clear our capacity to accept the fencing in (or fencing out) of difference, especially when the poor or people of color are involved. A performance piece by the Columbia University professor Coco Fusco and fellow artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña called “Couple in the Cage: A Guatinaui Odyssey” exemplifies this ability to accept injustice. As with the Milgram experiment, which exposed the debilitating effects of authoritative voices on our ethical codes, Fusco and Gómez-Peña show how quickly we bend to the

Documentary Allies  149

conventions of museum curation—which while not on the level of complicity in World War II, nonetheless occupies a place on the spectrum of complicity. “Couple in the Cage,” in which the two artists performed inside four barred walls dressed as recently discovered Amerindians, was sadly instructive. Elisabeth Ginsberg writes: Exhibited in a cage, the couple performed “traditional tasks,” which ranged from sewing voodoo dolls to watching television. A donation box in front of the cage

indicated that for a small fee, the female Guatinaui would perform a traditional

dance (to rap music), the male Guatinaui would tell authentic Amerindian stories (in a made-up language), and they would both pose with visitors. At the Whitney

Museum in New York, sex was added to the spectacle when visitors were offered a peek at “authentic Guatinaui male genitals” for five dollars.

The documentary of the “exhibit” (performed in public spaces, from museums to public squares) was clearly a farce, and many people interviewed for the documentary saw it as one might expect: as a commentary on residual colonialism. Ginsberg continues: Aside from the authority provided by the various museum venues, everything on

display was blatantly theatrical and clichéed: the Guatinauis had their skulls measured, were fed bananas, and were described as “specimens,” among other things.

[. . .] Despite their intent to create an over-the-top satirical commentary on

Western concepts of the exotic, primitive Other, it turned out that a substantial portion of the audience believed in the authenticity of the Guatinauis.

In an article on the performance, Fusco, following Homi Bhabha, notes “how racial classification through stereotyping is a necessary component of colonialist discourse, as it justifies domination and masks the colonizer’s fear of the inability to always already know the Other” (153). The documentary also shows that performances can dupe spectators, many of whom (including schoolchildren) left museums and other spaces convinced by “official” guides that a new tribe had been discovered, one that, when the duo performed at the Field Museum in Chicago, really liked the TV “donated” by then mayor Richard Daley. While a crucial element of instruction might have been missing from the performance, and while many museum patrons complained about the inhumanity of the display, many others simply accepted that caged humans,

1 50  chap ter 5

displayed in their “native” attire and reminiscent of traveling “freak” shows and world’s fairs, was natural. In the Costa Rican version of La mujer que cayó del cielo that George Woodyard brought to the University of Kansas, as in all but one of the other stagings I have seen, the character Rita is center stage in a similar square cage with black bars and can be inspected from all four sides. Laura Kanost describes it this way: In the 2003 Lawrence, Kansas performance of this play, this “jaula” resembled a metal dog kennel or oversized birdcage, and the lighting cast a shadow of the bars

on the stage floor surrounding the cage, visually extending its dimensions so as to make it appear even more imposing. Certainly this structure is not literally a

realistic representation of the actual conditions in late twentieth-century United

States psychiatric hospitals, but it connotes the history of asylums and the oppression of mentally ill people that persists in other forms. (29)

This is much worse than a panoptical nightmare seen in prisons—the main character, based on a real woman, is a foreigner who does not fit the mold. At one point in the play, after she is apprehended, her doctors attempt to define her; this is part of the “treatment” process. They ask, in English and high school Spanish, her origin: “Are you apache? [. . .] Are you Philippines? [. . .] Are you Korea? [. . .] Are you Vietnam?” (97).36 They do try to communicate with her, as you will see in this basic-language-class/Waiting for Godot moment, which offers insight into the way language can serve to incarcerate the mind: doctor. rita.

Yes.

doctor. rita.

Yes.

Today is Monday. Do you understand? O.K. O.K. What day is today?

No. Say Monday. Say Monday. doctor. Oh, my God. rita. God? (102) doctor. rita.

When Rita “finally” understands a basic question in Spanish, “Where are you from?,” she is able to signal that she’s from above—she means the mountainous region of the Tarahumara; her reference is also to Tarahumara cosmology. At first, doctors think her reference is to Canada (up above). At another point a

Documentary Allies  1 51

character remembers “that film with Anthony Quinn” and decides that Rita is Eskimo. Finally, however, they decide that she thinks she is God—“from up above” (de allá arriba; 96–97). When she offers her two last names, the doctors conclude that she has two personalities: “You be two Ritas” (Osté ser dos Ritas; 98)! She finally fits textbook definitions that allow her to be categorized. Thus begins over a decade of medication—only this can contain the unknown “other,” the fear-inducing contradictions within us. Rascón Banda criticizes the clinical setting of the Larned mental hospital, the turn to cold, bitter Western medicine instead of a quest for compassion and understanding. This makes one think of the way Freud’s ideas were made clinical as they were translated to English. References to the soul, to humanity, to compassion, were omitted, and in many cases medicinal vocabulary took over. Bruno Bettelheim, in his book Freud and Man’s Soul, notes, “Despite [Freud’s] clear-cut assertion [that it was to be kept separate from the practice of medicine], psychoanalysis was perceived in the United States as a practice that ought to be the sole prerogative of physicians” ( 33). One could legitimately read this play, or most of it, as a criticism of the United States, our cold, tyrannical “transference” or “projection.” Or, more specifically, as an indictment of the U.S. mental health system, though Kanost sees the play as presenting both its failings and the potential for reform through international dialogue: “Whether through audience or class discussion sessions, or written exchanges in journalistic and critical settings, La mujer que cayó del cielo continues to catalyze international conversations on the subjects of mental illness, mental health care reform, ethnocentricity, and immigrant and indigenous rights” ( 34). These are valid, worthwhile readings, though the last lines of the play, spoken by the character Giner and cited above, give pause regarding the author’s purpose—Rita went from one nightmare to another. As mentioned in my introduction, Rascón Banda explained to me that he borrowed the line “if you want to really understand a country, visit its insane asylums” from Johann Kresnik, the Austrian choreographer who came to Mexico to direct the author’s play La Malinche, a marvelous production that escaped his authorial control and brought out the best and worst of Mexico’s critics. (As noted in my book on the theme of neoliberalism in Mexican theater, one of Mexico’s most renowned playwrights, Emilio Carballido, opined that the result was “a Nazi directing the Prince of  Wales” [un nazi dirigiendo al Príncipe de Gales; Staging 123]). Thus the play does reference the clinical coldness that Mexicans can encounter in the Midwest, and by extension the plight of migrants to the United States, but criticizes Mexico, too. Kanost writes,

1 52  chap ter 5

As a heterotopia, the space of this play simultaneously literalizes, reinforces, and partially destabilizes the culturally ingrained clichés that mental illness is an utter

lack of subjectivity or a pathology of language. A pervasive aspect of this mecha-

nism is the play’s reappropriation of the cliché use of madness and the asylum as metaphors for political turmoil. This association has long registered and perpetu-

ated the dehumanization of people with mental illnesses, but in La mujer que cayó del cielo, Rascón Banda reconfigures the trope by focusing on an individual whose

experience in the mental health care system was truly inextricable from her larger political context. Rita’s confinement in the psychiatric hospital can be read as a figure for the oppression of Mexican immigrants in the United States, as well as the marginalization of indigenous people within Mexico. ( 33)

In her discussion about mobility in the play, Kanost signals the role of Giner as “a composite of many real-life advocates who worked on her behalf ” who, like the other characters and decidedly unlike Rita, can move freely ( 30). And her incarceration is felt doubly upon her release, as the Mexican playwright Enrique Mijares explains: The doctors are right about one thing: Rita is a borderline of globalization; her sit-

uation is irreversible; she can’t go back to her own people in Porochi, the Rarámuri

would repudiate her; her presence in Mexico would lead her once again to the Chihuahua prison; she is a foreigner in her own country; nor can she stay in the

American Union because she doesn’t speak English, because she’s not Chicana, because she doesn’t have papers, because they would shut her right back up in the

insane asylum. [. . .] Rita finds herself suspended on a virtual line, on the edge of a

cultural abyss where ethnic minorities face canonical Western inertia, alienation, and asymmetry. (87)37

This reference is to the second-to-last scene of the play, when Rita contemplates the border from the El Paso side, looking into Ciudad Juárez and the state of Chihuahua. The options Mijares mentions above represent not the triumph of activist student and community volunteers, but rather a crucial reminder that the role of savior should be avoided: it represents a colonialist farce, as seen in the case of Rita and so many others. Stopping an injustice does not guarantee justice. Students and other activists are taking to the public sphere (of influence) more and more via the Internet, as in the previous chapter on 9 días de guerra en Facebook, where we see a “1960s plus” type of activism. They have formed

Documentary Allies  1 53

worldwide grassroots movements via Facebook and other platforms. My own students definitely relate grassroots organizing to social networking; to them, both create space for dialogues meant to further specific causes by appealing to individual needs. Social networking can be passive, no doubt, but students often report engaging in fruitful debates with friends (or friends of friends), even though individual online choices and algorithms tend to direct us toward likeminded people with whom debate is considered by some to be insubstantial (think of the Internet image of a group of volunteers handing cardboard Facebook “likes” to people in need of real-life support). The vast majority of protests and other forms of social action on college campuses and beyond are planned and promoted not with pamphlets but with smartphones. Given this new reality, it should not be surprising to see the positive reactions of my students to the role of student allies in the farmworker movement, and specifically as this activism relates to El Teatro Campesino. Chávez explains the conversation that reignited a long tradition, largely Mexican, of bringing theater to the people: Luis Valdez came with the students, was in the picket lines, and stayed for a while. One day he said something about a theater, how important it was, and asked if I thought it could be done. I said, “Yeah, let’s try it.” So he organized the original

El Teatro Campesino with four or five farm workers. They played for the first time at the regular Friday night Union meeting in Delano. Then people began

to look forward to the next performance, so the next week they had another one. Then they began to perform on the picket line whenever the occasion lent itself. They were very effective and helpful on many occasions. Eventually they per-

formed also on the campuses and in many cities, publicizing and raising funds for us. (Levy 198)

This organic movement speaks to the power of putting bodies in motion, of co-fictionalizing (sometimes barely) the lives of the underclass, and of creating links between universities and—in this case—farmworkers. Students view this connection with increased attention, especially because it involves bidirectional interaction, the back-and-forth between the fields and campuses that is a model of social activism despite the complex power dynamics involved in this type of linkage. The alliance between El Teatro Campesino and the farmworker movement, both of which included significant student partnerships, is a simple yet

1 5 4  chap ter 5

concrete example of the importance of allies in La Causa. Allied theater almost always involves inter-allies, many of whom are socially privileged. This privilege becomes evident, for example, when university students make their way into the community in order to bolster resumes, fulfill academic requirements, or learn more about the world around them. The words of César Chávez on Zoot Suit, which I quoted in chapter 3, bear repeating here: At the beginning I was warned not to take volunteers, but I was never afraid

of the students. People warned me, “Look what happened to the Civil Rights Movement.”

“Well,” I said, “sure that could happen to us, and if it does, we’ll find out why.

But to say, ‘No, we’re not going to get them’—never!”

Of course, there were problems. When we started the strike, many volunteers

were in and out. Some of the volunteers were for ending the Vietnam war above

all else, and that shocked the workers because they thought that was unpatriotic. Once, when there was a group more interested in ending the war, I let them have

a session with the farm workers. After a real battle, the volunteers came to me astounded. “But they support the war!” they said. “How come?” I told them farm workers are ordinary people, not saints. (Levy 197)

Translating this idea to Lawrence, Kansas, at a university that tends to be relatively liberal, is useful for explaining the dynamics of elite activism: my students, like those who worked with farmworkers in California, are often surprised to see that their generally progressive ideas about immigration are some of the very few ideas they have in common with the immigrant population they aim to serve. They thus become uncommon allies, learning slowly what it means to guide but also to be guided, working together despite potential or even probable differences related to gender roles, abortion rights, and religious views. The last line of the Chávez quotation can be read not as a denigration of farmworkers—who could possibly support immigrant rights and the Vietnam War at the same time?—but as a reminder that alignment of multiple ideas need not be the goal; one or two common ideas and the will to work together are what form the basis of strategic alliances. Undocumented immigrants in Kansas need not be saints, nor do the university students who translate legalese for them, speak English with them, and join forces with undocumented activists to oppose anti-immigrant legislation. What is necessary is to keep perspective. Too often we hear a progressive group claim a young person as “our dreamer”; as with the

Documentary Allies  1 55

civil rights movement and so many other examples where leadership is coopted or contested, it is crucial to continuously question our motives for volunteering. Yet this can be done, and indeed must be done, allowing for all participants to have a transformative experience, an idea that also relates to university students acting in plays, as we will see below. Volunteers from the university and the community (and of course there is often overlap) are, after all, human, and the connections they form are often anything but noble but almost always virtuous. With this in mind, Rascón Banda’s play and its connection to community and university allies is crucial for two reasons: the first is that universities can in some instances provide the base necessary for effecting social change and raising consciousness. The second reason, tightly related to Giner’s work on this case, evidences the degree to which only Anglo or wealthy students might deserve or need a curricular push to become an ally. On the one hand, it is clear that students of color generally have a deeper understanding of their own privilege, and lack thereof. On the other hand, socioeconomic status as well as individual experience plays an important role in the process. Thus despite the rich and legitimate potential for critical analysis, in this play what stands out for me is the power of students, specifically the flesh and blood Washburn student, himself born in Mexico, who became a main character in this play and who, along with others, got to know Rita and got her released; the student who set aside clinical distance, the uniform application of laws (including the laws of medicine), the status quo, to create critical distance, or the possibility of stepping back in order to get closer. Thus Mexican theater gives us this example—if by no means a clean model—of social justice, specifically related to the U.S. academy. Somewhere along the way the students learned about solidarity, and so we have a case of Mexican theater in Kansas, a case that serves to show the power of theater to bridge cultures, and to tell touching stories about migrations. As spectators and readers of this play and plays like it, students feel empathy when characters are humanized. But what about this example of a student who built a bridge of understanding to Rita? An article about the 2003 staging of La mujer que cayó del cielo at Washburn University makes clear the connection to academia: Rosario Giner Rey, a Topeka mental health technician, and her brother, Miguel Angel Giner Rey, told Banda of Quintero’s story after they both became involved in it while Miguel Angel Giner Rey was a master of social work student at Washburn University.

1 56  chap ter 5

He would become part of the volunteer group that helped secure Quintero’s

release and Banda builds a character, Giner (played by Cameron Keifer), around Miguel Angel Giner Rey. (Blankenship)

The explicit connection to Washburn makes clear a central question: Is it enough to provide an activity in which students try to put themselves in the position of migrants, and to have a very few of them do anything besides understand their plight? Is it enough to know, or should our students do? Writing on the teaching of literature from a social justice perspective, Kimberly Nance explains: “Like the more familiar linguistic translation, cultural translation is a matter of recasting the original text into a form that is expected to be more comprehensible to the reader.” We all ask students to identify, to think of a time when they felt they were being treated unjustly. But Nance questions this type of activity, noting that both students and teachers report emerging from the quest for personal analogies

of pain with some degree of catharsis and closure. [. . .] They have survived those

moments, and others in the classroom have helped to validate their responses. The event is over, and the students are congratulated. Not only that, they are also

assumed to have been somehow transformed, to have become better people for having read.

This cathartic closure is something Brecht hoped to avoid in the theater, and along these lines Nance suggests that we beware of a sense of closure for our students, a sense that action on their part, outside of class, is unnecessary. Indeed, she proposes not a coming together but a showing of difference, of the way students are not like the characters but rather live a position of privilege. She affirms, [By recognizing difference, a]s opposed to the former role of benevolent and sym-

pathetic quasi therapist, teachers [. . .] run the distinct risk of appearing to belittle the students’ own pain by pointing out their relative privilege. Not only does this

approach require the readers to bridge imaginatively the safe distance between themselves and the speakers; it should ideally leave them feeling not validated and spiritually purged but instead uneasy and obligated to act.

We empathize. But should we also emphasize—emphasize difference and action? This is a possibility in Rascón Banda’s play. In one line of the play Giner

Documentary Allies  1 57

tells us (as he told Rascón Banda) that his professor guided him, most explicitly, to a woman in Larned. The character explains that he, too, is from Chihuahua, and that he came to the United States perhaps because of the train cars that had “Kansas City, Mexico, and the West” written on them. He tells the audience— in an aside—that it was a “coincidence” that he learned about Rita while working as a teacher in Great Bend. He describes that in a course he was taking at the time, “the instructor Ted Hamman told us that his girlfriend Susan Bockrat had told him that in the psychiatric hospital in Larned there was a very strange woman. And Tony Mroz had told Susan about it, and had asked for her help to do something for this woman” (114).38 By the next scene the chain of events has progressed, and Giner makes contact with Rita. Translators are found—a professor in Arizona speaks English, Spanish, and Tarahumara—and Rita returns to Mexico. The details of a lawsuit, and who exactly received payment to compensate Rita, are unclear. Shortly before his death the author told me that a group of nuns had absconded with the money. The possibility is no less absurd than the story of Rita herself. Despite the lack of clarity, Rascón Banda offers an excellent example of writer allies who in turn highlight allegiances that engage or even create the public sphere of influence. The coincidences—in this case the coinciding of a student being open to new information at the very time it arises in an educational setting—and the connection to community activists, are the key to a web of progressive collusion that can have an impact on society. Marta Caminero-Santangelo, drawing on Nance in a discussion of testimonial literature, writes that “testimonio is reporting on current injustices which must be addressed, rather than simply educating readers about past injustices.” Referring to the cultural critic John Beverley, Caminero-Santangelo adds that “the urgency [of testimonio] comes from its ongoing occurrence.”  To make evident ongoing but repackaged occurrences by studying—and in some cases performing, as I discuss in the conclusion—plays that link explicitly to real life can do more than make us, and our students, feel good.

Conclusion

“A Veces el Pato Nada” Educational Allies and Tools for Change Pedagogy is the type of performance that is so common, so universally and historically threaded through the human experience that its every feature has been parodied, not least of all by people who have been students. —Ar t h u r J. S a b at i n i

A veces el pato nada, y a veces ni agua bebe. —P o p u l a r r e f r a i n

T

but it was a trip to Medellín, Colombia, that shook me from the cynical view that the social power of art is passé at best and at worst an escape valve to buttress the ever-regenerative status quo. My time in Medellín was expected to be one of those predictable trips to a theater festival: plays, street performances, and conversations with socially committed university students in their twenties and thirties, professors from a variety of countries, and committed, sometimes cynical local teatreros in their forties, fifties, and sixties. At one point we passed a bridge under which a dozen or so men, baking in the Andes sun, seemed almost dead—half-naked, marked by drug use and poverty. But minutes later we arrived at a library surrounded by working-class neighborhoods that had formerly suffered the typical blight of big-city crime and social decay. The neighborhood still appeared worn and the image of the homeless was fresh in our minds, yet the library was magnificent, in part because of its structural beauty but mostly because it was in use by dozens and dozens of poor and working-class paisas, as residents of the city are called, from teenagers to octogenarians, engaged in everything his book is about Mexico,

“A Veces el Pato Nada”  1 59

from watching movies and reading to drinking coffee and debating politics. The social regeneration of Medellín, always a complex work in progress, has been promoted through investment not only in the business sector but also in social programs, as is well known in Latin America. A Guardian article captures the spirit of this social urbanism: Once, Medellín was known for one thing and one thing only: barely two decades

ago, when cocaine king Pablo Escobar had a bounty on the heads of police officers

and was doing his level best to bring Colombia’s second city to its knees, it was the murder capital of the world. [. . .]

Key to the city’s progress have been a number of groundbreaking urban plan-

ning and public transport initiatives. These are part of an overall plan aimed at

helping to reduce crime and fight poverty by reclaiming for their residents slums

that sprang up around the city to house people displaced by Colombia’s brutal, decades-long civil war. By reconnecting the city’s poorest and toughest neigh-

bourhoods—the Comunas—with its regenerated centre, officials hoped not only to make residents safer but to give them a greater sense of pride and belonging. [. . .]

Problems, including petty crime and gang violence, remain, but generally the

strategy seems to be working. New schools and libraries, parks and public squares

have been built around the city. There is an immaculate new metro system. And

in the Comunas, often built on hillsides too steep for buses or cars, a network of lifts and cable cars now carry tens of thousands of people a day from Medellín’s mountaintop slums to the metro, cutting the journey time downtown—and par-

ticularly back home afterwards—to 45 minutes from as much as two-and-a-half hours. (Henley)

The experience in Medellín helped me see Ciudad Juárez, a city I knew from growing up in New Mexico, in a new light. A few years ago, I returned to Juárez to attend the Muestra Nacional de Teatro and was duly impressed by the arts complex and the number of theatergoers who were out and about late at night. Yet despite the vibrant performance scene in the city (including antiviolence marches, artistic representations of aggression and regeneration, cross-border performance art, etc.), it was hard to see a way to social prosperity that did not involve the traditional, valid argument that this was a supply and demand problem that could be ameliorated only by focusing on labor and drug trafficking. Still, the Medellín example, exaggeratedly optimistic as it may be, serves as a

160 conclusion

reminder that social interventions, both infrastructural and intellectual, can further the aspirations of the powerful but also empower the public, ideally increasing the number of people who are included in society as bona fide citizens. This change is brought about in part by building new libraries or theater complexes—and by the books and performances that they foster. It is tempting to hedge even more because the problems in Mexico and elsewhere seem insurmountable. How do people compete with billions of illicit narcotics dollars and arms that flow from the United States to Mexico, for example, and the insidious corruption and violence at all levels that this money brings with it? Equally important, how do people reconcile the displacement of families that can accompany social urbanism projects like those in Medellín? But things can and do change, sometimes enough to make us take note—sometimes things go our way, so to speak. This is an idea communicated brilliantly by the Mexican playwright Alejandro Ricaño through a truncated version of the popular refrain quoted above, “A veces el pato nada” (Sometimes the duck swims), which speaks to the possibility of abundance amid scarcity. I will address this possibility of social abundance, as well as the tools for enhancing civic engagement presented in the previous pages, after briefly proposing one more alliance—that of U.S. university professors, imperfect allies who engage, along with their students, with Latin American and Latina/o theater and performance. In my twenty plus years of teaching (in middle school and college), one of the most effective activities I have tried involves asking students to create a step-bystep plan for changing something in their community: a law they deem unfair or a school policy, for example. Students have created plans to change everything from university recycling policies to state immigration laws, and while implementation of these plans is optional (and sometimes far from immediately viable), students regularly report that they feel empowered when they break down a concept that seems unchangeable—natural, not historical—and decide to transform it. The process of denaturalization is of course central to this activity, and discussions of theater theory—Brecht, Boal, and so on—come into play. Yet even when these writers are not on the syllabus, students gravitate toward putting on a play, writing a skit (often comedic), passing out flyers, or staging a demonstration. As counterintuitive as it might seem, it is still integral to university culture in the United States to perform, to take to the streets—not in the way that my students’ counterparts might do in other parts of the world, perhaps, but with their own (in this case Midwestern) brilliant determination. The Black Lives Matter movement, which spread and is organized largely through

“A Veces el Pato Nada”  161

social media, for example, has been active on university campuses nationwide, invigorating active and previously inactive students alike. Students are particularly moved and impressed with class readings on and by César Chávez, whose early grassroots organizing—long conversations on porches, walking door to door, listening to the concerns of farmworkers in small living rooms, slowly building coalitions—resonates with their own experiences of the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections and other more recent experiences in politics, including the experience of one of my former students with registering voters in the aftermath of the 2014 Ferguson, Missouri, killing of an unarmed young black man by a police officer. Students see the parallels between Chávez’s work for La Causa and political canvassing in the wake of the Michael Brown killing (one in a string of killings of black children and men) and other forms of activism and community engagement. The important insider/outsider dichotomy related to volunteer work became evident in Ferguson as volunteers and politicians worked to empower community members: “A lot of people just didn’t realize that the people who impact their lives every day are directly elected,” said Shiron Hagens, 41, of St. Louis, who is not part of any formal group but has spent several days registering voters in Ferguson with her

mother and has pledged to come back here each Saturday. “The prosecutor—he’s

elected. People didn’t know that. The City Council—they’re elected. These are the

sorts of people who make decisions about hiring police chiefs. People didn’t know.” N.A.A.C.P. leaders are creating a door-to-door voter registration effort with

a jarring reminder as its theme: “Mike Brown Can’t Vote, but I Can.” Senator

Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, is working with others to hold a “candidate school” for people, including young black residents who say they want to serve on a city council or school board but need guidance on what a political campaign requires. (Davey)

In Ferguson, students from historically black colleges highlighted the class difference that almost always comes into play when considering university student involvement in community activism. There was, of course, a strong showing of local community activists—Ferguson residents on their own or through churches and other organizations. But news stories like the ones above emphasize the empowerment that can come from voices tied to universities or national organizations that buttress the ability to take a stand. Ideally, college graduates will return to their communities, as was the case with a protestor included in

162 conclusion

an NPR segment, who, on the day Jesse Jackson spoke about the need to register voters (“In Ferguson, if we go door-to-door—hear me now—and register 5,000 voters, you can take the whole town.”), told listeners: “People are going to be out here. The curfew hasn’t stopped us, the police acting a fool towards us, disrespecting us hasn’t stopped us. And I want them to know that, like, we’re not going to stop. Sorry, we apologize. Sorry not sorry (laughter)” (Meraji). The youthful voice, like so many others, also speaks of not expecting to be out on the streets—the idea of going door-to-door may have seemed part of a distant past one’s parents had experienced. Still, as the reporter Shereen Marisol Meraji reminds the listener, “Life has become so surreal in this neighborhood that perhaps it’s no surprise that the Reverend Jesse Jackson, seemingly out of nowhere, walks up to the group to offer some advice.”  There is a certain privilege involved in returning to your community with a college degree, and even a school like mine, the University of Kansas, sees a significant number of first-generation college students (over 10 percent). Thus while differences seem obvious and are indeed documentable, privilege takes many forms—as does the lack of privilege. Just as we ask whether performers are transformed in the process of presenting a play, even if the audience itself is not obviously or immediately changed or prompted to act, it is crucial to ask what lasting changes students from elite universities effect in underserved communities, and to what degree privileged students are genuinely transformed by these experiences. The desire for educational institutions to include social community-engagement activities is more and more pronounced. When one walks the campus of the Mexico City’s Universidad Iberoamericana, in addition to posters promoting internships there is ample promotion of service-learning trips to Chiapas and other underserved parts of the country. The university’s website advertises, as do many in the United States and other countries, opportunities for Mexican and international students, ranging from “green” initiatives to human rights (including migrant rights). One program recognizes explicitly the dramatic inequality in the colonia where the university is located: “The social responsibility program promotes interaction between the most disadvantaged communities, especially in Mexico City’s Santa Fe area, and the university’s students, teachers, researchers and people involved in other outreach areas. This program is permanently in the quest for equity, greater social justice and commitment of the community with those in need.” On the Spanish version of the site was a picture of a student with the text “It’s for me to change the world” (Lo mío es cambiar el mundo). At work here, first of all, is legitimate social commitment backed by a Jesuit tradition

“A Veces el Pato Nada”  163

in Latin America—albeit a social commitment that, as Ángel Rama writes in The Lettered City (La ciudad letrada), “sought above all to attend the needs of the white ‘youths born in this land, with facility and aptitude aplenty, for either good or ill’ ” (16). Rama quotes Juan Sánchez Baquero, who describes young men who “grow up amid the easy abundance of their parents’ houses, lulled by an excessively benign climate, and numbed by constant idleness (venom enough to destroy any great republic, as history teaches)” (17). Yet it is also possible to discern another trend in the ads that the Iberoamericana and so many other universities use, a trend that puts a premium on social engagement not solely for the good of the nation, so to speak, but to train the elite to better navigate a world marked by inequality. The results, of course, can at times be the same—when preparing and serving meals to the poor, whether for a résumé or because of religious/ethical conviction, the meals get served and hunger is stayed, if only for a time. In terms of long-term social change, however, it is worth considering the role privilege plays in the classroom and beyond. In her book Educating Activist Allies, Katy M. Swalwell looks to research that indicates that the privileged students are “unlikely to enter schools with a critical consciousness already formed” (22). This can also be the case with students of color, first-generation students, and students from poor families. The character Giner from La mujer que cayó del cielo, for example, was Mexican, and it may be that he needed a nudge from a professor to take a step toward activism. Another likely possibility is that Giner was eminently aware of inequality and simply needed information on which to act, in this case information about a woman unjustly incarcerated in Kansas. And it is, of course, the job of professors to remember that our students come from varied backgrounds and respond differently to the discussions they have in class, on campus, or in the community. bell hooks reminds us that while student populations may be more and more diverse, this diversity is not necessarily reflected among the professoriate, noting that “constructively confronting issues of class is not simply a task for those of us who came from working-class and poor backgrounds; it is a challenge for all professors” (150). This statement is easily related to race as well, not to mention the myriad other ways educators and our students experience privilege and the lack thereof. If we proceed as if the link between our work in the classroom and the influence of this work on students has an impact on society (sometimes negative but mostly positive), it becomes possible to explore the links that unite allies from different sectors of society. Of course I focus on examples that tend to be

16 4 conclusion

subversive and to question the status quo, though I have had a handful of students over the years develop outstanding plans that were anything but progressive. Just as students vary in their views, professors’ activities in the field of Latin American theater and performance studies vary greatly, from literary analysis or plays staged for other students in a given class to large-scale productions on campus and in the community. Two of many examples are the work professor Debra A. Castillo does with her group Teatrotaller at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and the activities of performance artist/hacktivist/University of California, San Diego professor Ricardo Dominguez: his Transborder Immigrant Tool, for instance, combines satellite guidance with poetry in what is an excellent example of art in action. The tool, a combination of poetry and technology, becomes a cross-border performance that gives poetry/GPS devices to migrants crossing the border from Mexico to the United States. Dominguez’s electronic civil disobedience has earned him headlines and headaches from his academic institution as well as the U.S. federal government; and when a colleague and I invited him to give a performance at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University, a small minority of students who attended complained that he brought inappropriate topics to the stage (the Zapatista movement and references to illegal drugs). Leila Nadir, in an interview with Dominguez, gives an excellent overview of the project. The artist speaks about the change from independent activist to academic activist: The major difference between the 2010 investigations of projects by Electronic

Disturbance Theater/b.a.n.g. lab and those that took place in the late 1990s was

the nature of the stage: in the 1990s we were an autonomous group of artists creating art projects online that activated responses from the Mexican government to

the Department of Defense. From the FBI to NSA [National Security Agency], these entities failed to establish any investigations on an international or national level, even though they really wanted to. In 2010, the stage was completely dif-

ferent: the Transborder Immigrant Tool and our Electronic Civil Disobedience performances were now being created and performed with the support of a large institution, the University of California and CALIT2 (a new-edge technology

research center) at UC San Diego. I was also a tenured professor [based] on the art-based research I had established in 2010.

Dominguez explains that in order for UCSD to drop the process to revoke his tenure, he had to agree not to perform another virtual sit-in at the office of the

“A Veces el Pato Nada”  165

UC president, and was then given a merit raise by UCSD. These telling actions indicate that blurred lines—alliances between academia and the community that exemplify outside theater, or the use of tools of the trade on a different stage—can cause disruptions in relatively static organizations. The combination of academia and activism, which would seem to be the norm, causes quite a stir, and it is this alliance that exemplifies the possibilities and limitations of working in theater and performance at elite universities. In interviews with Mexican sex workers, Castillo reflects on a key issue that can affect relations between academia and the community. She writes on the tendency to apply dominant mores and morality to other contexts, reminding the reader that alliances must be meaningful: “Accountability is a buzzword these days, but it also designates a commitment and an implicit contract” (“On the Line” 842). Castillo questions unequal alliances based on the inability to recognize difference (in laws, for example, since sex work is not always illegal in Mexico) or to listen to the people that a group is working to “rescue.” 1 Despite crucial employment limitations and discrimination (class, gender, ethnic), Castillo is clear that the choice to become a sex worker is not completely without agency, and that “[m]any women focus on sex work as a viable alternative that provides them with a better income, an efficient way to pay off debts, or a nest egg; as one woman says, ‘I always come and turn up here when there is a need, because I work and I take care of my people, because I don’t like anyone to loan me anything’ ” (840). The dialogic process between a nonacademic community member and a university professor or student represents a relationship that must account for similarities but also, importantly, differences. When students who have had a taste of performance studies head out into the community, as my service-­ learning students do, they are often surprised that the people they help—for example, when they work with immigrant groups in a service-learning course I teach—are conservative. This is a point Chávez drives home when speaking of allying the cause: “If we were nothing but farm workers in the Union now, just Mexican farm workers, we’d only have about 30 percent of all the ideas that we have. There would be no cross-fertilization, no growing. It’s beautiful to work with other groups, other ideas, and other customs. It’s like the wood is laminated” (Levy 197). While it is clear that the ideas of La Causa are organic in that they are developed by and represent farmworkers, his point is well taken: without difference the most innovative ideas would never come to fruition. In Castillo’s group Teatrotaller, students from a variety of backgrounds reach out to the campus and Ithaca communities with different performances, from

166 conclusion

Latina/o works to Peninsular “classics”; the latter was the case when I worked as stage manager in 1999 for Las mocedades del Cid, directed by a Dominican student, Colbert Alembert. The group has performed a few other Spanish plays, but for the most part they stick to plays from the Americas, for example the “actos” of Luis Valdez, in a celebration of the Teatro Campesino; El cepillo de dientes, by Chilean Jorge Díaz; Quíntuples, by Puerto Rican Luis Rafael Sánchez; Sabina Berman’s El suplicio del placer; Coser y cantar, by Cuban-American Dolores Prida; Johnny Tenorio, by Chicano Carlos Morton; and dozens more (“Past Productions”). As Castillo and her students looked for ways to connect more meaningfully with the local Latina/o community, they engaged in a variety of actions, including collaborative (collective creation) theater. Castillo writes: The students in the group were energized by their commitment to activism

around the Dream Act, and particularly found themselves inspired by the true life story of one of their classmates and a leader in the group, a DREAMer who

had been detained by ICE agents in Rochester one semester short of graduation

and nearly deported until the intervention of the Cornell administration saved his academic career and allowed him to return to school. Central to our discussions as well were increasing reports of surveillance of social media for immigration control purposes. Because many of the farmworkers in our area are increasingly

fearful and isolated in the current atmosphere and tend to put themselves in dan-

ger through indiscriminate use of social media like Facebook, a set of students did intensive research on immigrant rights. They created a spin off project: pedagog-

ical scripts, vetted by legal experts, to serve as the basis for short videos on topics identified by farmworker leaders as their priorities—a project that developed in tandem with the production of the comic devise drama. (“Devising”)

Teatrotaller’s multifaceted, collective approach to plays and performances, as well as Castillo’s dedication to dialogical outreach, is exemplary. As with Dominguez’s performances that outraged politicians and almost led to revocation of his tenure, Castillo’s group has challenged the centrality of university theaters, which are notorious for sidelining theater by and for people of color, though in recent years Castillo’s collaborations with the Department of Performing and Media Arts at Cornell have begun to grow. Castillo writes, “At its best, devise work is a flexible, yet structured, exploration of the unknown, and encourages risk-taking as well as deep reflection on what it means to make theater from scratch. It encourages students to think of knowledge as a collaborative and

“A Veces el Pato Nada”  167

contingent process rather than an objective quantum to be dispensed from a central authority.” 2 Through Teatrotaller and other community commitments, Castillo and her students produce meaningful parodies of pedagogical practices that erase the borders that outside theater demands. The Sabatini epigraph above—that every feature of pedagogy has been parodied—is a reminder that the best work we do often leads students to parody the ways we embody institutional practices. When we give them the freedom to do so, we are allies in the never-ending goal of proving—to them but also to ourselves—the value of university education. The tools of the trade of performance in these two cases—Castillo and Dominquez—show not the way educational institutions penetrate the walls of theater, but the reverse. The idea that universities influence society, which they clearly do, can also be turned on its head. Both Castillo and Dominguez make the university a stage for outside influence, and so point toward the possibility that theater and performance can break down barriers that inhibit civic engagement. This relates to the central questions I had when I set out to write this book: How do acting, writing, drama classes, and theater production impact civic engagement? What does theater offer beyond a reflection of the chaos that surrounds us? What are the lessons to be learned from politically committed performances, and how do these lessons (re)affirm a blueprint for social engagement? How does theater offer a route out of cynicism and a path to secular, social renewal? Perhaps the last question was misguided: as is evident in the Ricaño play I write about below, it may be our very cynicism that best allows us to engage meaningfully. In Mexico, there are times when this cynicism is precisely what leads people to face fear—of incarceration, of losing favor with the regime, of the justice system, of impunity, and, in the end, of powerlessness. In the preceding chapters, authors and producers tackle problems that seem insurmountable, and characters—whether based on real-life people or not—confront powerful forces that in many cases could obliterate them. The previous sections of this book point to a simple but important idea: there are specific artistic strategies that reflect and form a powerful set of tools to promote civic participation. As discussed in the introduction, in Flavio González Mello’s play 1822: El año que fuimos imperio, a deft playwright tackles current events by tracing the exploits of the character Mier, who uses humor to survive a dangerous role as an insider/ outsider. Humor is a key weapon, and particularly in the context of Mexico, it is wielded in a way that highlights the possibility (think of the example of Brozo

168 conclusion

the Clown) of questioning the status quo—and surviving—through the use of humor. In chapter 2, Federico Gamboa’s play La venganza de la gleba is an excellent example of negotiation through art: the author is able to criticize the Porfirio Díaz regime in a proto-Revolutionary play that exemplifies James C. Scott’s idea of the hidden transcript—a transcript that provides evidence that revolutionary ideas exist just below the surface of many interactions. Gamboa’s characters use dialogue—much like he did as a representative of Díaz—to win wars of words. Between humor and negotiation, these two plays present alliances that exemplify the idea of outside theater: dramatic humor and dialogue are stage tools that promote civic engagement. Chapter 3, on Zoot Suit, begins to emphasize more direct examples of civic engagement. The work teatrera Alma Martinez did to bring the play to life in Mexico City highlights changes in attitudes toward Mexicans in the United States, and, at the same time, brings to the fore examples of alliances with the Chicano community—those of the play’s author, Luis Valdez, those of Alma Martinez herself, and those of the characters—especially the controversial activist based on Alice McGrath. Luis Mario Moncada’s play 9 días de guerra en Facebook opens up a critical conversation about Internet activism. While many say that the Internet simply promotes faux activism, numerous worldwide examples show that this is not necessarily the case. Indeed, given the reaction of powerful intellectuals in Mexico to the online comments of Internet users, the power of individuals and their computers should not be underestimated. Internet dialogue—as with dialogue in cafés and classrooms and on street corners—leads to action. This was certainly the case with Esther Chávez Cano, one of the main characters in Backyard/ Traspatio by Sabina Berman. Her work in Ciudad Juárez is representative of the social engagement that can, and should, accompany social urbanism like that in Medellín. Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda’s La mujer que cayó del cielo underscores the link between activism and academia, and points toward the idea that university faculty—if we are willing to accept a bit of parodic criticism—can enable students to engage meaningfully in myriad communities, including their own. All these examples point to the possibility of guarded optimism, or, as Alejandro Ricaño’s play Más pequeños que el Guggenheim conveys, optimistic cynicism. The play has been a tremendous hit for Ricaño, a young playwright from Xalapa, a university town and theater hub east of Mexico City in the state of Veracruz. Unlike the unsuccessful characters in the (meta)play, who cannot bring a play to fruition, Ricaño has enjoyed significant success in Mexico and abroad for plays like Más pequeños que el Guggenheim, Timboctou, and Idiotas contemplando la nieve. One of the humorous and touching threads of Guggenheim

“A Veces el Pato Nada”  169

involves a truncated saying, “A veces el pato nada,” which the character Gorka will speak for the first time after learning that his friend Sunday, who has been freed from jail by his friends after he was arrested for an “indecent” act in a park, is gay: You told me that they arrested you for drinking/giving a blow job [chupando] in the park! sunday. That’s what I said! [. . .] gorka. Are you a faggot? sunday. Sometimes in the booty. gorka. So, a faggot. sunday. Homosexual. gorka. Faggot. Euphemisms are for retards. sunday. I’m a handicapped faggot. I can’t manage to love anyone. gorka.

(Crying overcomes him. He quickly holds it back.) Do you want a hug? sunday. What I want are some barbecue tacos. (Más 18) 3 gorka.

The characters in the play, including Gorka and Sunday, are preparing to stage a play about a group of frustrated artists (themselves, of course) and the trip Gorka and Sunday took to Spain.4 Now they are trying to put together funds to produce their play: they use a former grant application, cutting “exposition” and adding “play.”  They attach photographs from previous plays and, since this is a grant for young artists, will use a connection who can adjust their dates of birth (needless to say, they do not get funds from this source). Ricaño’s ability to pack information into relatively bare (and often potentially offensive) 5 language is one of the many attributes that makes him a leading playwright in Mexico—and that make the wordplay around the phrase “a veces el pato nada” so rich. Jacqueline Bixler writes about the meaning of the truncated phrase: In Más pequeños que el Guggenheim, the refrain, “A veces el pato nada,” always cut

short halfway through, comes to represent Sunday and Gorka’s life, dreams, and

even their play, all equally cut short. In the same way the Guggenheim Museum

comes to be understood as a metaphor for the First World, which makes Sunday and Gorka feel insignificant in front of this enormous shining building, a symbol of Art with a capital A and of a world that they cannot enter. (“Historias” vii) 6

170 conclusion

The ability to communicate, especially between Gorka and Sunday, is impressive—their awkward but effective exchanges and misunderstanding of social cues, plus, in particular, the meaning of the refrain “a veces el pato nada,” lead (eventually) to understanding: gorka.

Always? Yes. That is, I wasn’t born a faggot. But as long as I can remember.

sunday.

[. . .]

Occasionally, for holidays, in case of emergency. [. . .] It doesn’t matter. You’re a diabetic, I’m a fag. Each one with their illness. gorka. Yeah. Sometimes the duck swims. sunday.

(Silence.) I don’t get it. No? sunday. What does it mean? gorka. I don’t know. My father used to say it in dramatic moments. sunday. Sometimes the duck swims? gorka. Yes. sunday. Right . . . sunday. gorka.

(Pause.) I think it has to do, you know, with the idea that you should surprise yourself even by doing what you already do by nature.

gorka.

(Pause.) No, I don’t think that’s it. gorka. Yeah, me neither. sunday. Maybe it refers to how you always have another way to keep going. If your legs are screwed up, you swim. gorka. Or just that you have to vary the ways that you go down a path. sunday. Exactly. sunday.

(Silence.) gorka.

I always wanted a duck. (19–20) 7

The absurd dialogue is somehow always meaningful in the play. At one point a character, Jamblet (Hamlet), congratulates another on the death of a child

“A Veces el Pato Nada”  171

instead of offering condolences. Thus it may be absurd but it is not theater of the absurd. Indeed, Jamblet relays that his friend understood the sentiment— and the accompanying hug ( 39). In another display of communication, this time a clear misfire, the character Sunday finally learns what the phrase means: “Like the duck, I told them, whose legs get screwed up and swims. Until Nico got riled up and told me: sometimes the duck swims and sometimes it doesn’t even drink water. It’s a saying about abundance. Exactly, I wanted to say—your wife is abundant, it’s related . . .” (43).8 The scene in which the characters adjust a grant application, using their limited resources to work the system, relates to their ability to use language in much the same way by allowing a misunderstood phrase to contain multiple meanings, to have multiple uses. The idea that one needs to “to vary the ways that you go down a path” by adapting to circumstances (think again of de Certeau’s Walking in the City) serves as a useful metaphor for allies who adjust their approaches to different situations, often in uncharted waters, especially when it comes to the Internet. The refrain that underpins Ricaño’s play acknowledges scarcity but allows for abundance. Richard Schechner and Ben Highmore help both to hedge my bets and to supplement the conceptual underpinning of this book through Schechner’s well-known idea that not everything is performance but that everything can be studied as (if it were) performance; and Highmore’s equally useful idea, detailed in his book Ordinary Lives: Studies in the Everyday: “The path I take [. . .] is to pursue a ‘science of singularity’ (de Certeau 1984: ix), which means that the particular is studied as if it could contribute to a more general account of the world” (2, emphasis in original). I will add a third “as if ” to the mix: I write “as if ” literary criticism were—or better yet is—valuable.

Notes

Introduction 1. “Este espacio es para todos los teatreros en la lucha. / ¿Qué están esperando? / El arte es nuestra arma más poderosa.” 2. I originally learned of this performance in a talk by Julie Ward, a professor of Spanish at the University of Oklahoma, at the 34th International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association in 2015. 3. “no es un escape; es, al contrario, es confrontar lo que más has querido eludir, lo que no quisiste mirar, lo que quisiste no darte cuenta. Y el teatro de cabaret te obliga a decir, ‘Esto estás viviendo.’ ” 4. Bial adds that if we understand the term theater historiography to encompass the diverse

range of issues and methods deployed by historians of theater and performance, we can see that the critical intersection between these once separate

discourses is not desirable but inevitable. Consider Philip Auslander’s use-

ful distinction between theater as an “object-driven discipline” and performance studies as a “paradigm-driven discipline.”  Theater studies is defined

by the objects under consideration: if you are studying the history of a the-

ater event, site, or text, then you are, by definition, doing theater history, regardless of your methodology. Meanwhile, nearly any event, site, or text can be studied as performance, regardless of whether there is general agree-

ment to classify it as such. Which is to say that a scholar can take a “performance studies approach” to theater history, just as another can choose to focus their performance studies scholarship on the realm of performances recognized as theater. (284)

174  notes to pages 19–36

5. “[P]or la zona en la que se encuentra el Centro Cultural Carretera 45, trato de tener un acercamiento con los travestis, sexoservidores y sexoservidoras, con la finalidad de lograr, para principios del año próximo, hacer una puesta en escena en la cual confluya su realidad y la ficción teatral.” 6. “llegar al espectador ‘virgen,’ crear nuevos públicos e involucrar a la comunidad del barrio en distintas actividades artísticas y escénicas, explica Zúñiga.”

Chapter 1 1. “En realidad es un proyecto que había empezado a escribir varios años atrás, a principios de los noventa y que luego fui retomando a lo largo de esa década. El elemento que le faltaba me lo dio el año 2000 cuando vino el momento del cambio político en el país, la salida del PRI y las elecciones donde finalmente ganó Vicente Fox.” 2. “la ‘cruda’ después de la consumación de la Independencia. Los tres años que lleva en cartelera la obra han coincidido, hasta cierto punto, con lo que ocurrió en ese otro proceso de transición; las cosas no cambian tan espectacularmente como uno esperaría en el momento del clímax.” 3. “El panista Vicente Fox se las arregló para irritar tanto a católicos como a no católicos, a religiosos y a laicos, a conservadores y a liberales, con su decisión de ondear un estandarte de la Virgen de Guadalupe en el acto de campaña que llevó a cabo el 10 de septiembre en la ciudad de León, Guanajuato. En México existe, por supuesto, una larga tradición de uso político de la imagen de la Virgen de Guadalupe. A falta de otros símbolos nacionales, el cura Miguel Hidalgo utilizó una imagen de la Virgen de Guadalupe para atraer el apoyo de indios y mestizos al comenzar su levantamiento en contra de las autoridades virreinales en 1810. El propio Francisco I. Madero también emplea a la Virgen como símbolo de unidad en su cruzada democrática en contra de Porfirio Díaz. La gran pregunta es si hoy la sociedad mexicana puede aceptar esta imagen sacra como bandera de un movimiento político.” 4. Another play written and directed by González Mello, Lascuráin, o la brevedad del poder, interrogates temporal boundaries. The satire takes place during the forty-five minutes when the lead character, based on the Mexican president Pedro Lascuráin, who very briefly held office in 1913, is corrupted by power— at least as González Mello imagines the short reign. The critical portrayal of a presidential placeholder between the betrayed Francisco I. Madero and the soon-to-take-power Victoriano Huerta was staged outside the National

notes to page 37  175

Palace in 2005 and again a half-decade later, but, similar to the situation with 1822: El año que fuimos imperio, “[a]s we were acting [in 2005], outside things were heating up, they had just removed Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s immunity from prosecution.”  The production remains relevant since it portrays the Mexican presidentialism that has determined the political and economic course of this

country for the last 150 years, he explained. “I didn’t change anything to talk about what is going on currently. There are passages that in 2005 really fit

Fox’s government, and now the plot is also pertinent, since it demonstrates

a repeated conduct in the behavior of Mexican politicians.” (Balerini Casal) [“Mientras actuábamos [en 2005], afuera las cosas estaban candentes, aca-

baban de desaforar a Andrés Manuel López Obrador.” El montaje sigue vigente ya que retrata el presidencialismo mexicano que ha determinado

el rumbo de este país política y económicamente en los últimos 150 años, explicó. “No cambié nada para hablar de lo que pasa actualmente. Hay pas-

ajes que en 2005 le venían muy bien al gobierno de Fox, y en estos momentos la trama también es pertinente, pues demuestra una conducta reiterada en el actuar de los políticos mexicanos.”]

5. A New York Times article says that the government of Felipe Calderón, as part of the political theatrics employed by all political parties, likely subsidized (and at the very least facilitated, by offering extensive access to high-level police facilities) the production of a TV show that glamorized a group of antinarcotics agents. Clearly people view acting, art, as retaining the ability to play a central role in politics. In this case the artistry is not new: [Secretary of Public Security] Mr. García Luna does enjoy the theatrical side

of his job. In one famous case in 2005, when he was the federal police chief, he admitted to staging the arrest of an alleged kidnapping ring so morning news broadcasts could show a “live” police action. And after the arrest last

year of a top cartel operator, Edgar Valdez Villarreal, known as La Barbie, the public security ministry circulated DVDs of the interrogation. It made for riveting television but did nothing to help the legal investigation. (Malkin)

6. Adam Versényi also writes of the double role of the actor: The festival of Quetzalcóatl presents us with a type of experience, the sacred rite, that the modern theatre has explored from Artaud to Growtoski. It is

176  notes to pages 38–39

the seed of, though by no means the same as, one of the recurring fascinations of twentieth-century theatrical technique: the continuing explorations

of the duality inherent in acting itself, where the person portraying a role

can either ask us to enter into the fiction of the actor’s character with him, or can present that character to us as a fabrication, commenting upon it as he or she does so. (10–11)

7. iturbide. Yo, como Jorge Washington, sólo aspiro a darle la libertad a mi país, y retirarme a la vida privada. mier. Bueno, pues la libertad ya se la dió. ¿Qué lo detiene? 8. iturbide. ¡Hasta que se me hace conocerlo, Fray Servando! mier. “Padre Mier,” por favor. Me secularicé hace veinte años. iturbide. Déjeme decirle que desde que leí sus escritos lo admiré profundamente. mier. ¿Usted ha leído mis libros? iturbide. Por supuesto. Cualquiera que se precie de estar interesado en su Patria tiene que haberlo hecho. mier. ¡Vaya! ¿Y cuáles leyó, General? iturbide. ¿Eh? Pues . . . ése, donde habla de . . . la libertad, y . . . y ése otro, de la independencia, ¿no? 9. Teresa de Mier was born in Mexico (the city of Monterrey) and in 1763 entered the Dominican order. While his counterhistory about the Virgin of Guadalupe, delivered in front of the clerical crème de la crème of Mexican society, was clearly his most impressive, iconoclastic act, Mier was also a prolific writer and something of an escape artist who spent time in a variety of prisons in France, Spain, and Mexico. 10. Enrique Krauze details Teresa de Mier’s assertion: The seed of nationalism bore its first political fruit toward the end of the

eighteenth century, when Fray Servando Teresa de Mier produced his theo-

logical conjectures geared toward claiming a creole right—based on their

native birth—to the political and economic power then monopolized by fifteen thousand Spaniards in a country of six million. Clavijero had compared the Aztec past with the Greek and Roman world. In his famous ser-

mon delivered at the Colegiata of Guadalupe [ . . . ], Fray Servando went

even further. Considering himself a direct heir of the mendicant friars and

inspired particularly by Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, he built a mythological

notes to page 40  17 7

bridge linking the creoles to the Aztecs and denying the divine rights of the Spanish Crown after the Conquest. Fray Servando asserted that the root of

the Náhuatl word mexi was the same as the Hebrew word for the Messiah. As some sixteenth-century scholars had maintained, the ancient Mexicans

might be none other than one of the lost tribes of Israel. And Quetzalcóatl, who had visited and instructed the Indians and then gone away again—

Servando asserted—must have been the apostle Thomas [ . . . ]. From claims like this, it was only a small political distance to the demand for independence. (81–82)

11.

Es una pequeña formalidad. Sólo tienes que decir que te arrepientes de haber negado la existencia de la Virgen de Guadalupe. mier. ¡Yo nunca negué su existencia! Lo que negué fue la leyenda de las apariciones a Juan Diego, nada más. gómez farías. ¡Nada más! mier. En mi sermón demostré que mucho antes de la Conquista, la Virgen ya era venerada por los antiguos mexicanos, y que la imagen no está impresa en el ayate de Juan Diego, sino en la capa de Santo Tomás Apóstol, que vino a predicar en estas tierras en el primer siglo de nuestra era y fue conocido con el nombre de Quetzalcóatl. gómez farías. ¡Qué disparate! mier. ¡Al contrario! Disparate hubiera sido defender esa fábula de las apariciones, tan inverosímil y llena de incongruencias, que de ella se agarraban los españoles para poner en duda continuamente la existencia de la Guadalupana. Yo, en cambio, quise brindar al milagro guadalupano un fundamento histórico que callara para siempre a los que pretenden escatimarnos la gloria de haber sido señalados por la madre de Dios como sus especiales protegidos. ¿Eso es negar su existencia? [ . . . ] ramos arizpe. Es un asunto delicado, Servando. El Congreso acaba de nombrar a la Virgen de Guadalupe Patrona y Protectora del Imperio. ¿Qué pierdes reconociéndola tú también? Acuérdate que uno de los dos verbos de la política es ceder . . . mier. ¿Y el otro? ramos arizpe. Esperar. mier. Pues ya llevamos tres horas haciendo política aquí. ¿Por qué no nos vamos? ramos arizpe.

178  notes to pages 40–41

12. What follows contextualizes the nation versus state power negotiations: From its inception, the Second Constituent Congress faced the thorny

question of the limitations placed on the delegates by the provinces of Jalisco, Zacatecas, Guanajuato, and Yucatán. [ . . . ]

Since the provinces, most of which now called themselves states, had

determined that Mexico must have a federal republic, debate in the congress

focused on the critical issue of who was sovereign: the nation or the states. On this question the delegates were divided into four factions. Extreme defenders of states’ rights [ . . . ] argued that only the states possessed sov-

ereignty, a portion of which they collectively ceded to the union in order

to form a national government. [ . . . ] Their opponents, men such as Ser-

vando Teresa de Mier [ . . . ] believed that only the nation was sovereign.

[ . . . ] Midway between these extremes stood those who, like Ramos Arizpe,

believed that the national government and the states must share sovereignty. (Rodríguez O. 77–78)

13. “La seriedad del asunto está aliviada por el típico humor servandino.” 14. “El recado del diputado Calvillo es una mentira infame y vil, pues esta mañana al pasar por la calle del Apartado yo mismo pude constatar que no estaba enfermo, sino borracho, armando escándalo y acompañado por tres señoras que no merecen ese nombre. En virtud de lo cual, propongo que se desafore al diputado Calvillo por haber dado muestras contundentes de su disipación y poco recato, y por haber intentado engañar a este Soberano Congreso.” 15. “¡Conciudadanos! Protesto enérgicamente por las calumnias del diputado Torrejas, y solicito de la manera más enérgica que no sea puesta a votación su insidiosa propuesta, pues sentaría el pésimo precedente de hacer que prevalezcan sobre el fuero de un representante de la Nación los chismes inventados por cualquier hijo de vecino; y más aun: por cualquier hijo ilegítimo de vecino, pues todos estamos al tanto del bastardo origen de su apellido, diputado Torrejas.” 16. “Se somete a votación la propuesta de no someter a votación la propuesta de desaforar al diputado Calvillo.” 17. “Se ha difundido una versión en el sentido de que esa vez yo habría negado la existencia de la Virgen de Guadalupe. Pues bien . . . he de decirles que . . . (Carraspea. Mira con incomodidad la enorme imagen a sus espaldas) . . . que niego haber afirmado dicha negación, y en este acto afirmo mi negativa rotunda a afirmar nada de lo que hubiera negado. Es todo.”

notes to pages 41–46  179

18. “Con la canonización de Juan Diego y las publicaciones recientes sobre el fenómeno guadalupano (como fenómeno que ha cruzado fronteras físicas, lingüísticas y culturales), vemos cómo los elementos del debate original continúan siendo los mismos.” 19. Timothy G. Compton, in his summary of the performance for the Latin American Theatre Review, writes: All of the actors performed marvelously, but special commendations are in order for Mario Iván Martínez for his portrayal of the regally two-

faced Iturbide, Hernán del Riego for an unforgettable version of Guadalupe Victoria completely demented after hiding in the jungle, Mario

Zaragoza for his wicked embodiment of a contemptible early congress-

man and his inspired portrayal of a guide in the jungle, and Héctor Ortega

for injecting grace and humor into the role of Padre Mier even as he showed his great dignity and integrity. As did La prisionera, 1822 proved that intelligent, relevant theatre can be artistic, receive strong reviews, and attract strong audiences (without any nudity, foul language, or cheap humor). (106)

20. mier. Señor Gobernador, no le otorgará más crédito a los chismes de este limpiarretretes que a la palabra de don Servando Teresa de Mier, Noriega, Guerra y Fernán-González, doctor en sagrada teología por la Real y Pontificia Universidad de México; protonotario apostólico y prelado doméstico del Sumo Pontífice; caballero hijodalgo de casa y solar conocido descendiente de los primeros conquistadores e hijo de quien fuera Gobernador del Nuevo Reino de León. dávil a . A ver los títulos. mier. Se los entregué a mis jueces, junto con mis escritos y el resto de mis pertenencias. Todo debe constar en autos. dávil a . (Revuelve los papeles de su escritorio y extrae un pliego, que revisa) Aquí lo único que dice es que con usted hay que andarse con mucho cuidado, porque al menor descuido está intrigando . . . (Lee por encima) “Crimen de lesa majestad . . . apostasía . . . escritos invitando a la sedición . . . prácticas masónicas . . . concesión no autorizada de indulgencias . . . piratería . . .” ¡Ah, aquí está! “Fuga e intento de fuga de diferentes prisiones civiles y eclesiásticas, con un total de catorce reincidencias . . .” (Moja su pluma en el tintero y enmienda el documento) “     Y con ésta, ya son quince . . .”

180  notes to pages 46–48

21. “Yo creo que todavía no hemos rescatado lo suficiente a Fray Servando; nada más hay por ahí una calle con su nombre [ . . . ]. Es un apasionado por la libertad; éste es un personaje que quise representar y me encontré con una maravilla de obra, escrita por Flavio González Mello. [ . . . ] Estuvimos tres años y me entusiasmó el personaje porque es el nacimiento de la República en una oposición total al imperio de Iturbide, para construir una patria que no tuviera como principio el colonialismo y menos el autoritarismo.” 22. iturbide. ¿Quién, quién tendría los méritos suficientes para heredar el solio de Moctezuma, el último emperador azteca? mier. Querrá decir Cuauhtémoc . . . iturbide. ¿Eh? . . . Sí, perdón: Cuauhtémoc . . . ¿Quién podría ocupar tan grave sitio? . . . Guerrero, a pesar de su nula educación, estoy seguro que sería un espléndido gobernante; pero creo que ninguno de nosotros ve a un mulato sentado en el trono de México, ¿o sí? . . . Bravo es un patriota intachable, pero sabemos que la corona le quedaría grande; y además, con sus múltiples enfermedades no creo que nos dure mucho . . . ¿Quién, entonces? Si el Rey de España nos desaira, el Congreso tiene una tarea harto difícil que resolver. Pero aun así, don Valentín, don Miguel, padre Mier, convendría que ya no postergaran más la discusión del asunto, porque se rumora que en este mismo momento, aquéllos a quienes ofrecimos el cetro fraguan con la Santa Alianza una expedición para reconquistarnos. Y nada ayudaría más a sus planes que encontrar al Imperio sin cabeza coronada. Es necesario que la nave mexicana tenga quién la conduzca en las tormentas que se avecinan. mier. Le faltó mencionar al candidato más importante de todos, General. iturbide. (Con falsa modestia) ¿Quién, padre? mier. Don Guadalupe Victoria. 23. mier. Lo que procede es turnar la propuesta a las legislaturas de los estados, para que cada uno se pronuncie y de este modo la decisión final exprese realmente el sentir de toda la Nación, y no la de un puñado de comparsas a los que difícilmente podemos llamar “el pueblo.” (Por el ingreso de público entran varios léperos , atropellando al ujier que intentaba contenerlos, y ocupan la gradería superior del teatro lanzando vivas a Agustín Primero. Los diputados se ponen de pie para ver mejor el espectáculo. Durante un momento todo es confusión) mier.

¡Señor Presidente! Solicito que haga desalojar las graderías.

notes to page 49  181

(Los léperos le responden con una rechifla) ¡Sin más hombres que los que tengo no puedo hacer nada, Su Señoría! Entonces exijo que la sesión se suspenda hasta que el Congreso se haya mudado a un recinto donde pueda sesionar en secreto. gómez farías. No veo por qué tendríamos que andar escondiéndonos. Yo, al menos, no tengo nada que ocultarle a la Nación. ¿Usted sí, padre? mier. Insisto en que no ventilemos la discusión frente al leperaje, que es tan fácilmente manipulable. ujier. mier.

(Los léperos le vuelven a responder con una rechifla) ¡Señor presidente! Ya fue mucho para moción, ¿no? Éste quiere hacer discurso. mier. Le recuerdo que yo estaba en uso de la palabra cuando todo este sainete empezó. gómez farías. ¡El asunto ya está suficientemente discutido! ¡Que se vote! secretario. (desesperado) ¡Se suplica a los señores diputados que tengan la bondad de hablar un poco más despacio, que no me da tiempo de escribir todo lo que dicen! gómez farías.

(Un murmullo se apodera de la sala: por el ingreso de público acaba de entrar iturbide , acompañado por marcha y un piquete de soldados . Los léperos vuelven a corear vivas a Agustín Primero. iturbide sube a la tribuna.) 24. “La Iglesia me prohibe [sic] asistir a las comedias.” 25. “Entre los hombres no se necesitan sino farsas porque todo es una comedia. Seamos realistas, General . . .” 26. In an interview with Katia de la Rosa, González Mello explains: The historical genre is one of the most often-sought genres in Mexican theater even though sometimes it is left to the side a bit. Then it gets taken back

up because there’s a tradition to it, after all, with Usigli, Magaña, Ibargüen-

goitia—that last one gives historical theater a new perspective in El atentado, la conspiración vendida—and also with what I consider my generation. David Olguín is constantly preoccupied with historical themes. Of course Ignacio Solares, who has that marvelous political-historical triptych: El jefe máximo.

That tradition has never ceased to be a theme. There are people who will

never get excited about it and won’t write it, but it hasn’t been shut down. It’s

been shut down in cinema, for example. There I can say that because of an

absurd prejudice, in the sense that it’s very expensive to do historical films,

182  notes to pages 50–51

the subject of History has been almost completely exiled from national

cinema and, the few times that it is addressed, it is from an unfortunate

perspective. In theater I think it would be difficult for historical themes to

disappear. Shakespeare resorted to them because they are a trough of situations, of characters, a natural spring. 1822 el año que fuimos imperio is a more

political than historical play. That’s why it connects with the audience, that topic links History with the present day. (“1822” 78)

[El género histórico es uno de los géneros más socorridos del teatro mexi-

cano aunque por momentos se deja un poco de lado. Luego se retoma porque hay una tradición al respecto, desde luego con Usigli, Magaña, Ibargüen-

goitia—este último le da una perspectiva diferente al teatro histórico en El atentado, la conspiración vendida—y también con la que considero mi

generación. David Olguín tiene una constante preocupación por los temas

históricos. Por supuesto Ignacio Solares, que tiene este tríptico histórico político maravilloso: El jefe máximo.

Esa tradición nunca ha dejado de ser un tema. Hay gente a la que jamás

le entusiasmará y no lo escribirá, pero no ha quedado clausurado. Ha quedado clausurado en el cine, por ejemplo. Ahí sí te puedo decir que por un

prejuicio absurdo, en términos de que es muy caro hacer películas históricas,

el tema de la Historia quedó prácticamente desterrado del cine nacional y, las pocas veces que se aborda, es desde una perspectiva poco afortunada. En

el teatro difícilmente creo que desaparezcan los temas históricos. Shake-

speare acudía a ellos porque son un abrevadero de situaciones, de personajes, una fuente natural. 1822 el año que fuimos imperio es una obra más política que

histórica. Por eso se conecta con el público, esa temática une la Historia con la actualidad.]

27. “MIER y RAMOS ARIZPE caminan dificultosamente entre la vegetación; un GUÍA indio les va abriendo paso con su machete; atrás, un par de INDIOS , antorcha en mano, vienen cargando las provisiones. Todos se detienen a descansar, exhaustos. RAMOS ARIZPE se la pasa matando mosquitos y rascándose las ronchas que cubren su cuerpo.” 28.

¿Y cómo sabe que es de español? Porque el pie tiene forma de zapato.

ramos arizpe. guía .

29. victoria . ¡Ndependeciomuert, ndependenciomuert! mier. “Independencia” . . .

notes to pages 51–53  183

¡Novoantregar ralistjoeput! ¡Ndependeciomuert! . . . “Independencia . . . ¿o muerte?” victoria . ¡Svaientesnosesinan! mier. . . . “Los valientes . . .” victoria . ¡Svaientesnosesinan! mier. . . . “Los valientes no asesinan” . . . victoria . ¡Lapatresprimer! mier. . . . “La patria es primero” . . . victoria . ¡Iaméxico! ¡Iaméxico! ¡Iaméxico! victoria . mier.

30. “¡Vendan! ¡Vendan Texas, y si pueden, también lo demás! Hay que aprovechar que los estados todavía no se han separado de nosotros. Con ese disparate del federalismo, no nos queda mucho tiempo. ¡A vender! ¡Pronto! ¡Rematen todo!” 31. victoria . ¿Qué opinan? ramos arizpe. Yo creo que es un plan espléndido. victoria . (a mier) ¿Y usted? mier. (observando el documento) Sí, bueno . . . convendría darle una buena corregidita . . . “Soberanía” no se escribe con “z,” brigadier. Y “América” va sin “h.” santa anna . ¿De veras? victoria . ¿Pero . . . piensa que debo firmar? mier. . . . Sin duda. Y cuanto antes, mejor. victoria . (señala a Santa Anna) Pero él también era realista. mier. General . . . creo que el fin superior que perseguimos amerita que olvidemos esas pasadas diferencias. victoria . Está bien. Todo sea por la . . . la . . . ¿cómo se llama, esto . . . lo que estamos intentando salvar . . . ? mier. Pellejo, don Lupe. 32. “Pues tu nombre es tan ridículo como tu victoria, y tan falso como las leyendas de tu Guadalupe.” 33. “Ahora los habitantes de estas tierras se llaman ‘ciudadanos,’ pero soportan los mismos vicios y la misma opresión que cuando eran súbditos de la corona . . . La diferencia entre ‘México’ y ‘Nueva España’ es la misma que hay entre Guadalupe Victoria y José Miguel Fernández . . .” 34. “A los mexicanos les heredo una patria independiente y republicana, aunque infestada de parásitos y a punto de desmembrarse, para que se arreglen con ella lo mejor que puedan [ . . . ] (Da un brinco y desaparece en la fosa que estuvo cavando. Obscuro lento).”

184  notes to pages 55–59

Chapter 2 I would like to acknowledge the steadfast support of  W illiam Acree and Juan Carlos González Espitia throughout the writing and editing of this chapter. 1. “Gamboa no es ni puede ser un crítico radical; es un porfiriano al grado de que cuando el régimen desaparece él suspende su trabajo de novelista. [ . . . ] Necesita la sombra paternal y a la vez demoniaca de don Porfirio.” 2. “Sólo leo en castellano, y eso con dificultades grandísimas, los artículos de diario en que hablan de mí.” 3. “necesitaba otro Zola muy distinto, el que yo cariñosamente teníame engendrado en mi propio cerebro.” 4. “es una pieza de tesis. ¿Socialista? Un poco. Misericordiosa sobre todo.” 5. While this quotation is from El teatro en México durante el porfirismo, the majority of it can be found in Pacheco, where I first encountered both the quotation and the documentation for the review itself. Pacheco affirms that the review was probably written by Luis G. Urbina. De la Maza places a question mark after the name in his text. A previous review that is attributed without question to Urbina repeats some of the exact language found in the review I have quoted, leading me to concur that Urbina was the author of both. 6. The term appears in Gamboa’s work (including Venganza) well before Mariano Azuela’s homonymic novel of the Mexican Revolution was first published in El Paso del Norte, as María Guadalupe García Barragán points out (22). 7. For the theater historian Antonio Magaña Esquivel, for example, “La venganza de la gleba represents nothing more than ‘tribulaciones sentimentales’ [sentimental tribulations]” (21). For María Guadalupe García Barragán, “it is not a naturalist play; it deals with a typically romantic theme [ . . . ]: the love that becomes impossible when two lovers—lovers in the literary sense of the word—discover that they are siblings” (21) [“no es una obra naturalista; se trata de un drama de argumento típicamente romántico [ . . . ]: el amor que deviene imposible cuando los amantes—amantes en sentido literario—descubren que son hermanos”]. 8. “al menos en el vocabulario de la derecha mexicana.” 9. “Gamboa no parece haber pensado tanto en la venganza de los humillados y ofendidos como en el desquite de la madre tierra.” 10. “Imposible ir hoy. [ . . . ] Yo triunfante, haciéndole honor al apellido.” 11. “Gamboa pasa por las haciendas como un novelista ingles viajaría por la India. [ . . . ] Novelista de una ciudad que ejerce su imperio sobre el campo, Gamboa ve en él la antigua barbarie opuesta a la civilización urbana.”

notes to pages 59–63  185

12. For more on the Jockey Club, see Beezley. Referring to social clubs, Scott notes, “The seclusion available to elites not only affords them a place to relax from the formal requirements of their role but also minimizes the chance that familiarity will breed contempt or, at least, diminish the impression their ritually managed appearances create” (13). 13. “los que quieren que los de abajo suban a donde ahora se hallan los de arriba.” 14. “Pues ése es otro disparate, Joaquín, ¿cómo había yo de querer eso si yo no estoy ni con unos ni con otros, y para lo que me queda de vida lo mismo me pega que éstos suban o aquellos bajen? [ . . . ] Lo que yo decía era que los amos debían preocuparse más de lo que generalmente se preocupan de las gentes que les dan su trabajo [ . . . ]” 15. “[L]os que trabajamos la tierra, los que la regamos con nuestro sudor y con nuestras lágrimas, los que con el arado le destrozamos sus entrañas para que todos comamos, nosotros los de los campos y ustedes los de las ciudades . . . [N]osotros no somos bandidos, somos guerrilleros [ . . . ], revolucionarios, precisamente para defenderla de los de afuera o de los de adentro ¡es igual! [ . . . ] ¿Esto qué tiene que ver con los ricos, y la religión, y los gobiernos? . . . ¡Con los gobiernos malos, si acaso! . . .” 16. “[e] l autor, como miembro del gobierno de Porfirio Díaz sabía que un discurso netamente revolucionario podría traerle lamentables consequencias.” 17. “en La venganza de la gleba [ . . . ] lo que [Gamboa] está tratando no es de instigar al pueblo para que se rebele a través de un mensaje subversivo, sino por el contrario, está promulgando porque se evite el caos social que significaría una revolución, ya que ésta traería [ . . . ] otra dictadura, por el fatalismo étnico al que según él está sometido el mexicano.” 18. don francisco. ¿Quién está ahí? marcos. Somos nosotros, señor don Pancho, ¡buenas noches dé Dios! (Quitándose el sombrero.) don francisco. (Quitándose el suyo al escuchar el divino Nombre.) Buenas noches, Marcos, ¿con quién conversas? . . . marcos. Con Loreto, patrón, [ . . . ] ¿mandaba usté algo? [ . . . ] don francisco. [ . . . ] ¿Ya sabes la noticia que mañana llegan los amos? . . . ¿que tienes que venir a saludarlos cuando vengamos todos los que aquí comemos su pan? . . . marcos. Yo no podré estar, señor don Pancho, porque mis animalitos, ¡con perdón de usté!, no saben de eso y no se aguantan un día sin comer . . . yo

186  notes to pages 6 4–66

m’iré al monte, si Dios quiere, como siempre, en la mañanita, y su mercé les dirá a los amos que su mercé ve que yo no sé hablar . . . don francisco. ¿Por qué no haces que el ganado te lo arreen los pastores y tú te juntas con los demás, tú que eres de a caballo, para la cabalgata que ha de ir a encontrarlos al tren? . . . anda! y te dejo montar mi “Apache,” con silla nueva . . . marcos. Si su mercé lo manda . . . pero yo no sé hablar, don Pancho! . . . y luego, que tengo dos vacas malas [ . . . ] y sólo yo las curo . . . don francisco. Pero, hombre, no seas terco, si no se trata de hablar; y las vacas, puedes curarlas al regreso . . . ¿quieres o no quieres ir? . . . loreto. (Bajo a Marcos.) Anda hombre, ve! . . . marcos. (Decidido.) Pues si su mercé no me lo manda, yo mejor me voy con mis vacas y mis toros, don Pancho . . . yo no sé hablar . . . don francisco. (Volviéndose benévolo a Joaquín.) Si le digo a usté que es para matarlos o dejarlos, Joaquín, ni a tiros entienden! [ . . . ] marcos. (Tirando del rebozo a Loreto.) Pus entonces, patrón, con licencia, y que su mercé descanse . . . buenas noches, don Joaquín! . . . [ . . . ] Salen Loreto y Marcos. ¡Caramba! señor don Pancho, y qué paciencia tiene usted con estos brutos . . . don francisco. (Reaccionando, dentro de su naturaleza al fin campesina, contra el duro calificativo del hombre de la ciudad.) No, no Joaquinito, no son tan brutos, el hombre tiene sus motivos . . . digo yo (al notar la extrañeza de Joaquín) que tendrá sus motivos, sino que son así; reconcentrados, tragándose sus gustos y sus penas, sobre todo si de los amos se trata . . . quiero decir (atascándose su propio discurso) si temen que los amos no tomen a bien lo que hacen o lo que piensan, sí señor, hasta lo que piensan! que el respeto que hace nacer la tierra por el amo de ella y de uno comprende hasta el pensamiento . . . joaquín.

19. “yo, nacido aquí, aquí mismito, en esta hacienda, aunque por fortuna en más alta escala [ . . . ] sé de lo que usté sabe y de lo que ignora.” 20. For other instances of elites seeking hidden truths, see González Espitia’s comment on Claudio de Alas’s novel La herencia de la sangre in Building Nineteenth-­Century Latin America. 21. “¿tendré que recordar a usted que yo soy el amo?”

notes to pages 67–7 7  187

22. “La venganza de la gleba nos muestra cómo es posible llevar al tablado vida nuestra, sangre nuestra, costumbres y pasiones nacionales [ . . . ]. [S]us peones hablan como nuestros campesinos, en una especie de caló en que las palabras castellanas tienen dejos arcaicos—ecos coloniales—y alteraciones fonéticas propias de un pueblo que tiene siglos de no oír hablar correctamente el idioma que le enseñaron los conquistadores.” 23. bl anca . Tonto, tonto, ¿no te he dicho que yo con mi abuelito consigo todo lo que quiero, todo, todo? [ . . . ] Y verás, ahí verás cómo él consiente en que me case contigo! . . . ( Juvenil.) Y figúrate la cara que pondrán los de aquí el día que nos casemos! . . . la cara de Loreto, y la de Marcos! . . . ¿no te da gusto? damián. (Sombrío.) ¡No! no me da gusto, porque se mi hace imposible! . . . mi padre me lo ha dicho, hartas veces: “los amos nos creen diferentes d’ellos y nos carculan pa todo pior que los animales” [ . . . ] bl anca . ¿Y si somos diferentes, por qué nos queremos? [ . . . ] damián. (Pensativo.) Yo no sé . . . será porque al querer no hay quien lo mande [ . . . ]. Hay cosas que nadie manda! . . . que son libres! . . . 24. “porque lo que impide la unión de los hermanos, que al enamorarse un del otro no saben lo que son, es la consanguinidad y no la diferencia social.” 25. “En cuanto se oye la voz de Beatriz, Damián, por respeto hereditario y secular, instintivamente se descubre y aparta de Blanca, que, en cambio, no se inmuta, inocente y pura.” 26. “El verdadero naturalismo incisivo, sin atenuantes, no podía prosperar en una expresión literaria en que el autor trata paternalmente a sus criaturas y a su público.” 27. “Respecto del desempeño del drama, podemos asegurar que agradó, Aunque á veces se notó cierta monotonía en su declamación . . . “Para nosotros es una gran satisfacción el triunfo del Sr. Gamboa, y agradecemos al cronista de ‘El Imparcial’ las afectuosas frases que le dedica. “Decimos esto porque el autor de ‘La Venganza de la Gleba’ comenzó á esgrimir sus primeras armas literarias, en las columnas del ‘Diario del Hogar,’ allá por los años de 1885 á 1886.” 28. “ti acuerdes de que somos pobres trabajadores, muy pobres, sin naiden que no quiera ¡sólo Dios! . . . y tú te conformarás [ . . . ], como nos hemos conformado siempre.” 29. “no hay ni pizca de conciencia en ningún código del mundo!” 30. “Écrire une pièce est un effort altruiste.”

188  notes to pages 109–1 1 2

Chapter 4 1. “En obras anteriores como Superhéroes en la aldea global (1993–95), o en James Joyce. Carta al artista adolescente (1994), que escribiera con Martín Acosta, ya daba muestra de su apego a citar corrientes icónicas mundializadas explorando su efecto tanto en las culturas nacionales como en las identidades individuales. Ahora, en la obra que presentamos aquí, 9 días de guerra en Facebook, entra de lleno en la llamada ‘aldea global,’ que preconizaba Marshall McLuhan, cuando gran parte del universo estuviera conectada a través de la tecnología mediática y adquiriera ésta un poder único en la vida diaria. “Por otra parte, cuando ya pensábamos que el ‘teatro documento’ (como indica el subtítulo de la obra), en el mejor sentido de la palabra, era una cosa del pasado, Moncada le vuelve a dar una vuelta a la tuerca brindándole un novedoso tratamiento en el que ambiciosamente pone sobre el tapete dos temas ineludibles del momento que vivimos: el alcance e impacto del ‘Social Network’ (también conocido como Facebook) en nuestras vidas cotidianas y el conflicto israelí-palestino.” 2. “Se trata realmente de una colcha de retazos de textos escritos por varias personas, a partir del ‘día siete de la invasión a Gaza’ de parte del ejército israelita, recogidos por el Moderador/Dramaturgo, en el que entran toda clase de ‘regalos’: verdaderos collages, en el sentido posmodernista del mismo, compuestos por poemas, fotografías, anuncios comerciales, portales de instituciones, sitios web de referencias de datos, archivos, etc. La interacción que se establece entre los diferentes ‘hilos’ comunicativos, los ‘muros’ personales y los ‘chat rooms’ que permiten al usuario llevar varias comunicaciones a la vez con diferentes interlocutores y pasar de lo general, y supuestamente debatible, a lo absolutamente personal e intimista, se resuelve en el montaje por medio de pizarras al fondo del escenario. Por otra parte, la puesta en escena, con los personajes entrando y saliendo en ropa interior—pues los mensajes en su gran mayoría fueron colgados en horas nocturnas, o temprano en la mañana—en el seno de sus hogares mientras varios de ellos y ellas, por ejemplo, cumplían con las necesidades higiénicas de rigor, colocaba al público en calidad de voyerista indolente; de ahí la sorpresa cuando se rompen las reglas del juego y pasa a ser parte de la acción.” 3. “Ya está allí Luis Mario Moncada, quien como actor interpreta al Moderador, acompañado de un par de actrices y se dirige al público para informarle que los parlamentos fueron dados como tales en la discusión en la red. Poco a poco van

notes to pages 1 1 2–1 18  189

apareciendo actrices y actores que realizan tareas tan cotidianas como lavarse los dientes y otras mientras escriben en sus computadoras.” 4. “En el montaje de la obra, dirigido por Martín Acosta [ . . . ] se interrumpe la acción en un momento dado para preguntarle al público, obviamente desprevenido, lo que opinaban sobre el asunto. Este ‘intermedio’ puso de manifiesto, en esta ocasión puesto que puede variar en cada instancia en que se presente la obra, el fuerte contraste entre su escasa comprensión del conflicto y la de los ‘expertos’ de ambas partes, que se estaban bombardeando a través del Facebook en la obra.” 5. The Moderator accuses another character of trying to paper over a previous comment, using evidence that would not be available in an oral conversation: “Matías, no! That’s not how you put it in your first comment and you can’t embellish now what is perfectly recorded. If you go back you’ll see that you said ‘cheap and efectista’ nothing more; the explanations came much later. Don’t come around trying to make yourself look right after the nonsense that you wrote at the beginning” (107). [¡Matías, no! No fue así como lo pusiste en tu primer comentario y no quieras maquillar ahora lo que está perfectamente registrado. Si vuelves atrás verás que dijiste ‘barato y efectista’ sin más; las explicaciones vinieron mucho después. No vengas a hacerte el correcto después de la barbaridad que escribiste al principio.] 6. “El realismo sondea, en consecuencia, no tanto los envites palestinoisraelíes, sino la globalización de las miradas a través de la web. Al respecto, la lectura de 9 días genera algunas preguntas. ¿Es la globalización de la comunicación—esa posibilidad para interactuar casi ilimitadamente que brindan los mass media a todos sus participantes—el utópico lugar del diálogo? O por el contrario ¿representa el grado más elevado del caos, cuyos niveles de histeria son morigerados por el teclado y la pantalla? Tales preguntas—y sus respuestas—han sido abordadas no sólo en la literatura sino también en la filosofía y la crítica de la cultura y con ellas dialoga el autor indirectamente.” 7. ariel . No, no estamos en ninguna competencia. ¿Cuál es el fondo del discurso? ¿Buscar culpables? Hasta donde sé nunca alguien ha logrado resolver un conflicto, ni siquiera de parejas, alegando sólo las culpas . . . Lo que se precisa es la comprensión del problema y el dolor ajeno. Pero temo que en el medio oriente la voluntad de todas las partes está cruzada por una serie de fuerzas que hacen del comprender una tarea casi imposible. ¿Comprender que mi familia ha perdido a la mitad de sus miembros por una bomba, ya sea tirada desde un avión, o del vientre de una persona que se inmola en ese

190  notes to pages 1 19–1 21

acto? Todo es un horror. Y como en todos estos argumentos, la espiral de culpas nunca termina. Por eso se precisa llevar el dialogo, al menos entre nosotros, por un camino de mayor “comprensión.” moderador. Algún efecto deben haber causado las palabras de Ariel porque durante unos minutos se procedió a una reflexión silenciosa . . . Hasta que Rosalinda irrumpió de nuevo. rosalinda . “We are the world, we are the children . . . Lalalalalalalalalalala!” 8. “La novedad en este caso estriba en que las redes sociales (sobre todo Twitter) desafían las distinciones tradicionales entre lo público y lo privado y se ofrecen como espacios mitad públicos y mitad privados que millones de usuarios pueden ocupar para charlar con amigos, expresar opiniones políticas o interpelar a intelectuales públicos sin necesidad de cambiar de hábitos lingüísticos o códigos de conducta ni de reprimir ciertas prácticas cuando hablan de una u otra cosa con unos u otros interlocutores. De hecho, la mera existencia de este sujeto endémico del siglo XXI, el usuario de las redes sociales, representa ya un desafío a esa vieja repartición de las labores que desprendía al intelectual de su público: el tuitero lee y escribe, es público y partícipe, interviene en la formación de opinión pública a pesar de que no demanda la categoría de intelectual ni maneja los registros y hábitos antes acostumbrados en la plaza pública. De algún modo es como si, a través de las redes sociales, el público se insubordinara: de pronto abandona la pasividad que se le había asignado, habla y escribe y, por momentos, incluso interpela a aquellos que antes aseguraban expresarlo y representarlo.” 9. “Un estudio más extenso sobre el rol de los intelectuales en la pasada jornada electoral debería reparar en la ya obvia centralidad de las publicaciones digitales (Animal Político, ADN Político y Sin embargo, por ejemplo), en el extendido y, en el caso mexicano, novedoso hábito de los votos razonados (esos muchos textos con los que escritores y periodistas, normalmente jóvenes, manifestaron el sentido de su voto) y, especialmente, en la irrupción del movimiento cívico-estudiantil #YoSoy132. Entre otras cosas, los integrantes de este movimiento desplazaron la atención del marco de la deliberación hacia el de la movilización, se abstuvieron de formular un discurso político preciso que pudiera ser reescrito o desarmado en los medios de comunicación tradicionales y, en vez de apelar a los intelectuales, desdeñaron los servicios de mediación que estos prestan y se presentaron a sí mismos, en las calles y en las redes digitales (a lo que, de paso, no pocos intelectuales reaccionaron de un modo que ya va siendo común ante las recientes insurgencias ciudadanas en distintas partes del

notes to pages 1 21–1 23  191

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

mundo: incitando al discurso, reclamando al movimiento que fijara enunciados y volviera al ámbito de deliberación donde ellos, los intelectuales, tienen competencia).” “lo cierto es que la discusión en esos medios representa un nuevo desafío para el intelectual letrado, tanto o más severo que el que enfrentó en la década de los noventa con los procesos de liberalización económica. En principio, la emergencia de las redes sociales supone una ampliación y dispersión inusitada del espacio de la opinión pública. Además, la participación de millones de ciudadanos en esos medios demuestra que, como ya se sabía, los ciudadanos pueden pensar, hablar y opinar sin la mediación de las élites letradas y, más importante, que de un tiempo para acá pueden publicitar sus opiniones sin tener que recurrir a los medios que los intelectuales administran.” “[e] l ciberespacio mexicano ha contraído un virus: Alejandro Rossi lo llamó ‘corrupción semántica.’ La indignación política se desfoga en una violencia verbal incompatible con los instrumentos propios de la racionalidad: la argumentación, la fundamentación, la persuasión, la coherencia, la claridad.” “El texto concluye como empezó: activando el ideologema de una supuesta pureza del lenguaje (ideologema que ya ciertos lingüistas han identificado al interior de discursos que temen a la irrupción de nuevos hablantes) y advirtiendo que el ‘mayor peligro es la degradación de la palabra pública.’ ” “Está muy bien instalada la red de insultantes que sirve a Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Apenas les molesta algo, empiezan a aparecer tuiteros anónimos, inventados, camuflados, repetidos y vueltos a inventar, para crear la impresión de que hay una oleada de opinión en contra del sacrílego en turno[, . . . ] tuiteros de consigna que no pueden decir su nombre, a los que todo se les va en seudónimos idiotas y autorretratos cursis.” “Ustedes en su mayoría son cultos, sin embargo, la gente en la calle no tiene la capacidad de separar a buenos y malos, o más bien comprender que en cada bando siempre hay buenos y malos y que no se debe generalizar. Se siente muy feo que muera gente, es cierto; pero si ya estás al mando del Ministerio de Defensa tienes que pensar el mensaje que mandas. No puedes mandar un mensaje de debilidad y que entonces te ataquen por todos los flancos . . .” “traza una distinción entre lo que llama ‘espacios de diálogo donde la expresión importa’ (el parlamento, la prensa, los tribunales, los salón de clase) y los espacios digitales donde, mal que bien, más de diez millones de mexicanos se expresan. Al final, refiriéndose ya no solo a los espacios para los comentarios en el diario en que publicaba sino, en general, a la discusión en internet, desliza

192  notes to page 1 23

esa dicotomía de civilización y barbarie que articuló buena parte del pensamiento latinoamericano del siglo XIX y primera mitad del XX . . .” 16. “[p]or lo general, sin embargo, las intervenciones en Twitter que interpelaron directamente a los intelectuales estuvieron libres de todo odio racial, religioso o de género y tendieron a discutir, a veces rijosamente, asuntos de interés público, entre otros la autoridad moral de los intelectuales y las relaciones entre la élite intelectual y las élites políticas y económicas. Dicho de otro modo, esas intervenciones no fueron meros estallidos espontáneos y viscerales, explicables por el simple fragor de la campaña electoral, sino expresiones de un fenómeno en marcha: el conflictivo reacomodo de la esfera pública mexicana.” 17. In August 2015, Mexico debated a law to prevent Internet abuse. While the intention of such laws is often to protect people from hate speech, the Mexican newsmagazine Proceso—which since its founding has experienced censorship at every turn, including the recent murder of one of its photojournalists, Rubén Espinosa (discussed below)—quoted an Argentine activist’s sobering reminder that such laws can be used by the government to further stifle debate: Ramiro Álvarez Ugarte, of the Association for Civil Rights, believes that

the proliferation of insults in online forums has to do with the fact that the conditions for public debate in Argentina are very poor. [ ...] He argues: “The space of democratic discussion is always more or less

chaotic, more or less civilized, but looking for a law to regulate the form and

particularly the manner of that debate is extremely problematic. Historically, all attempts of that kind have generated acts of censorship and silencing. The commitment that our Constitution makes for liberty of expression

is a commitment towards the most open and robust debate possible, even when that’s not very civilized.” (Olaso)

[Ramiro Álvarez Ugarte, de la Asociación por los Derechos Civiles, cree

que la proliferación de insultos en los foros tiene que ver con que las condiciones de debate público en Argentina son bastante pobres. ( ...) Argumenta: “El espacio de discusión democrático siempre es más o

menos caótico, más o menos civilizado, pero buscar que sea el derecho el que regule la forma y particularmente los modos de ese debate es suma-

mente problemático. Históricamente, todos los intentos en ese sentido han

generado actividades de censura y silenciamiento. La apuesta que nuestra

notes to pages 1 24–1 27  193

Constitución hace en favor de la libertad de expresión es una apuesta hacia

un debate lo más abierto y robusto posible, incluso cuando es poco civilizado.”]

18. In the United States the topic of Internet culture has focused on what might be called vigilante censorship. Sanneh writes: In 2012, [ Jeremy Waldron] published “The Harm in Hate Speech,” a pow-

erful little book that seeks to dismantle familiar defenses of the right to indefensible speech. Waldron is unimpressed by the “liberal bravado” of free-speech advocates who say, “I hate what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” In his view, the people who say this rarely feel

threatened by the speech they say they hate. Unfettered political expression

came to seem like a bedrock American value only in the twentieth century, when the government no longer feared radical pamphleteers.

19. A common example of the alienation effect is Brecht’s play Mother Courage and Her Children—not for fulfilling Brecht’s desire to show the lead character as making poor decisions, but for highlighting for the audience the flaws in the sociohistorical context in which she made her decisions. 20. “Generalmente uno lanza mensajes y se echa a dormir esperando encontrarse al día siguiente con una pequeña sorpresa . . . Cuando volvió a conectarse, 11 horas más tarde, ahí estaba su sorpresa: en el hilo había un centenar de comentarios que se habían convertido en un auténtico debate.” 21. “Hoy / cualquier habitante de la tierra / sabe mucho más del infierno / que esos tres poetas juntos.” 22. “¿Cómo te explicaré? / ¡Si no tienes imaginación! / Tú . . . no tienes imaginación, / acuérdate que en tu ‘Infierno’ / no hay un niño siquiera . . . / Y ese que ves ahí . . . Está solo.” 23. “Ante un mundo poco sensible al dolor es necesario buscar el efectismo. La foto es efectista en la medida en que quise dar un efecto a la nota, y por lo que veo no me salió tan mal. Así pues, reconozco que la foto es efectista. Va un abrazo, pues—a pesar de todo—en ningún momento he pensado que seas una mala persona . . .” 24. “Efectivamente, él había puesto un poema en el muro para suscitar una reflexión, pero ni en sus mejores sueños de bloguero había imaginado que un post suyo iba a generar esta ola de comentarios. Él, que de alguna manera era el causante de este agitado debate, estaba siendo convocado a participar: y así habló él al foro de discusión . . .”

194  notes to pages 1 27–1 34

25. “Para tu información, sí conozco la zona y el conflicto. No pude entrar a Israel, pero tuve el honor de conocer a un amigo de Rachel Corrie en Jordania. Para los que no sepan, un buldózer israelí le pasó encima mientras ella intentaba defender la casa de una familia palestina que sería demolida . . .” 26. “De momento me retiro, amigos, pero todo mundo puede opinar aquí, no he borrado un solo comentario y mis intervenciones sólo han sido para puntualizar y recalcar mi opinión. (Al público) Después de lo dicho, Moderador escribió en su muro, a manera de despedida: “Moderador cumple mañana un año de matrimonio con su amada Lucrecia. Lamenta dejarlos un par de días. Besos, abrazos y la consabida rosa blanca de Martí       ” . . . Los disparos siguieron en su ausencia, mientras, ustedes imagínenselo, él trataba de aprovechar un fin de semana de placer.” 27. Beatriz Rizk explains, The confrontation between the global and historical singularity is producing discourses that if, on the one hand, are signaling the tendential and

contradictory quality of all identities that are taken for granted, on the other hand, they are inserting a culture of the “other,” with symbols and models

from outside, with which they are putting a strain on the existing culture, since it is obvious that everyday utopias can no longer be forged either in the traditional geopolitical space or in their respective cultural identities. (89)

[La confrontación entre lo global y la singularidad histórica está produciendo discursos que si, por un lado, están señalando lo tendencial y contradic-

torio de toda identidad dada por hecha, por otro, se va insertando una cultura “otra,” con símbolos y modelos que vienen de afuera, con que se va tensionando lo propio pues es obvio que las utopías cotidianas ya no se forjan en el espacio geopolítico tradicional ni en sus respectivas identidades culturales.]

Chapter 5 1. “No pide obras convencionales, él quiere que se experimente con el tiempo, con los sonidos, con las luces, con los escenarios paralelos. Y también que las obras sean cerradas, que no sean abiertas. Tengo el defecto de que mis obras todas son abiertas y se prestan a múltiples interpretaciones, entonces los directores abusan de esa libertad y a veces traicionan las obras.” 2. “Una década de impunidad y misoginia se ha cumplido, y las heridas producto de la violencia de género y del feminicidio no cicatrizan, al contrario,

notes to pages 1 34–1 39  195

la mayoría se infectan y pudren el tejido social. Aquí, en zonas de contagio, bullen a la más alta temperatura el poder político y económico, el narcotráfico, la violencia de género, la codicia y la incompetencia absoluta en las investigaciones criminales. No hace falta ningún comentario adicional, tan solo hacer conciencia sobre la descomposición social y el colapso de las instituciones de justicia que favorecen un paraíso de impunidad.” 3. “una cultura sin violencia basada en la equidad y el respeto a la integridad física, emocional y sexual de las mujeres, niñas y niños de nuestra comunidad.” 4. In El Diario de Juárez, Juan de Dios Olivas writes that “a fraction of the cotton field, where just a little over five years ago the bodies of eight assassinated women were found, will be used to construct a hotel and commercial venues.” He quotes the owner of Camacho y Compañía, Javier Camacho, who bought the land: “It’s not forgotten, it’s sad what happened, but nothing is gained by crosses.” [una fracción del campo algodonero, donde hace poco más de cinco años se encontraron los cuerpos de ocho mujeres asesinadas, será utilizada para construir un hotel y locales comerciales. / No se olvida, es triste lo que pasó, pero no se gana nada con las cruces.] 5. “Fui varias veces a Ciudad Juárez a conocer los lugares tristemente del asunto de las muertas—Lomas de Poleo, la Colonia Napra, el terreno baldío que se llama Ocho Cruces. Fui también a centros de derechos humanos. Vi los archivos de Ester Chávez, que fue la primera persona que empezó a ponerle nombre a lo que estaba sucediendo.” 6. “Creo que lo que agrega Backyard es una visión esférica del asunto. Generalmente se habla del asunto de las muertas de Ciudad Juárez a nivel del acto mismo de la violación y la muerte de las mujeres, como si no tuviera nada que ver con el gobierno de Juárez, el gobierno de México, las transnacionales, las maquiladoras y finalmente el gobierno de Estados Unidos. Y todavía más, el neoliberalismo del planeta?” 7. “Hay un Gobierno que sólo simula ser Gobierno.” 8. “Yo simulo. Tú simulas. El gobernador simula. [ . . . ] Yo simulo que me enojo. Tú simulas que te indignas. El Gobierno simula que Gobierna. Todos simulamos que nos horrorizamos. Pero los únicos que hacen algo en serio, definitivo, son los asesinos.” 9. “Puede que yo no sea el gran César Rubio. Pero ¿quién eres tú? ¿Quién es cada uno en México? Dondequiera encuentras impostores, impersonadores, simuladores; asesinos disfrazados de héroes, burgueses disfrazados de líderes; ladrones disfrazados de diputados, ministros disfrazados de sabios, caciques

196  notes to pages 140–142

disfrazados de demócratas, charlatanes disfrazados de licenciados, demagogos disfrazados de hombres. ¿Quién les pide cuentas? Todos son unos gesticuladores hipócritas.” 10. adams. Varias marcas, entre ellas Ford, están considerando con seriedad abandonar Juárez. Y le muestro por qué. (Saca una libreta y una pluma de su saco. Hace números.) Una hora de una obrera mexicana vale 1.05 dólares. Agregue los impuestos . . . gobernador. Que son muy bajos. adams. Pero agréguelos. Y agregue los costos de las protecciones al ambiente que el Gobierno mexicano exige . . . gobernador. Que son mínimas. adams. . . . y el precio de una hora de una mujer mexicana es de 1.15 dólares.

11. “Nos dabas mil dólares por mujer muerta. En eso quedamos y así se hizo, Sultán.” 12. “Cada mes te voy a aplicar una pruebita para ver si estás embarazada. Si estás embarazada pierdes tu trabajo. ¿Entendiste Juana?” 13. “amplia como el campus de una universidad mediana.” 14. “Traté de entender lo que era, para una joven mujer que viene de un pueblo campesino, ir a Ciudad Juárez y trabajar en una maquiladora.” 15. “se balancea entre montañas azules y un río café.” 16. locutor (V.O.): No salgas de noche. No salgas de tu casa de noche. [ . . . ] Pero si sales no salgas sola [ . . . ] Y si sales sola de noche, por lo menos no vistas provocativamente. [ . . . ] Y si sufrieras un ataque sexual porque saliste sola y vestida provocativamente . . . [ . . . ] Provócate el vómito, lo más posible es que el agresor sienta asco y huya. En la tele se rotula la frase: El Gobierno de Chihuahua contra las muertes de mujeres.

17. “No hagas esto, no hagas aquello; no salgas, cúbrete como monja, no vivas: el Gobierno de Chihuahua contra las mujeres. [ . . . ] Y si están solas en la noche porque salieron del trabajo en el tercer turno, que las maten. Y si son jóvenes y bonitas, que las maten. Y si te atacan sexualmente tú vomita, así a voluntad: tú vomita, nosotros estamos ocupados recolectando impuestos . . .” 18. Sadly and ironically, it is Cutberto who explains, in his own way, the reason—fair or not—that we tend to emphasize the deaths of women and girls in Ciudad Juárez and not those of men: “I’m telling you that the guys are narcos who die in the crossfire of fights and the dead women didn’t have a weapon to defend themselves” (149). [Digo que los cuates son narcos que

notes to pages 143–14 4  197

mueren en broncas de fuego cruzado y las mujeres muertas no tenían arma pa defenderse.]

19. “No obstante esta variedad, se destacan algunas constantes: el gusto por el humor negro y la ironía; la desconfianza ante todo discurso oficial; la subversión postmoderna de la historia oficial de México; el interés en la identidad personal y nacional; la necesidad de rebasar los límites tanto sexuales como teatrales; y la profunda conciencia del carácter intrínsecamente dramático de la historia y la política mexicanas.” 20. “Es lo único que yo he escrito en mi vida que casi no tiene humor. Es más, creo que el humor que hay se desprende de las ganas de vivir de los personajes jóvenes. Uno se ríe del candor y del entusiasmo . . . del gusto que ellos sienten de vivir. Casi me sorprende que sea mío, porque no tiene para nada los recursos que me encanta usar. Aquí todo eso hubiera sido escaparse del tema.” 21. “Oh pus yo también sé hacer mis katas. Mira ésta es la kata de . . . de . . . Se ha quedado con el torso desnudo sin terminar la frase.” 22. juana . Ven. (Él va, se sienta junto a ella en el catre.) ¿Me besas? cutberto. Es que . . . Debíamos hablar antes con tu papá. JUANA . Pero está en Oxolotán, Cutberto. Y no tiene teléfono. 23. juana . Tons eres de Oaxaca. cutberto. De Tepejuco, Oaxaca. juana . ¡N’ombre! cutberto. ¿N’ombre por qué? juana . ¡Qué coincidencia digo! cutberto. ¡¿Tú eres de Oaxaca?! juana . Noooooooo. (Se ríen. De veras les gusta gustarse tanto.) Pero soy de Oxolotán en Tabasco. 24. “las parejas bailan a la norteña: las mujeres en vaqueros con el pubis sobre las caderas de ellos, también en vaqueros; y los ojos de todos neutrales, como si no pasara toda la corriente erótica que pasa en el frotamiento de pubis y piernas.” 25. “Era un peligro del tema y además he leído varios textos donde está sexualizada la violencia. Pero [Backyard] está estructurado de manera que sea imposible sentir placer ante la violencia. Las escenas de violencia suceden de tal manera en que más bien espero que el espectador sienta horror. El único acto de violencia mortal que sucede en la pantalla, el único, sucede cuando conocemos ya muy de cerca al personaje. [ . . . ] No veo cómo alguien puede romper la identidad con Juanita tan tarde en la película.”

198  notes to pages 145–148

26. “Juárez hay mujeres violadas y asesinadas cada mes: eso no es noticia.”

27. “una casa hecha con pedacería de un espectacular de Coca Cola [ . . . que e] staría en el Museo Guggenheim de NY, en calidad de arte conceptual, si no estuviera en el rincón más pobre del Planeta.” 28. “Las coincidencias / de esta obra de ficción / con hechos y personas reales / son propositiva.” 29. “Es una tragedia,” / “Ahora, no es una tragedia donde volvemos al status quo inicial de ‘quién sabe qué está pasando.’ Creo que al final uno dice ‘ya entendí lo que está pasando.’ Porque si no, no tendría sentido. Sabiendo lo que está sucediendo sí hay solución. Detesto la actitud de que no hay solución para esto. No hay una solución; hay muchas.” 30. “[f ]abricación de culpables, confesiones bajo tortura, chivos expiatorios, testimonios inventados y pistas falsas, todas estas operaciones en las que participaron directamente gobernadores, procuradores, comandantes de las distintas corporaciones policiacas, agentes del Ministerio Público y hasta la fiscal especial nombrada por la Presidencia de la República.” 31. “Hoy en el día Internacional de la Mujer quisiera que mi esposa anunciara las enérgicas medidas que desde el Gobierno de México estamos tomando respecto al feminicidio de Juárez.” “Gracias, Vicente. Para empezar vamos a iniciar una decidida campaña de anuncios de televisión.” 32. “Una fuerza tan determinante como las transnacionales, una fuerza tan determinante de la economía del mundo, sin una sujeción. Ese es un problema.” / “Se llama Libre Mercado.” 33. “mediante cinco expedientes ligados al feminicidio, cómo Francisco Barrio y Patricio Martínez—un panista y un priísta—, y sus respectivos procuradores y jefes policiacos, contribuyeron a cortar todas las líneas de investigación que conducían a vincular los asesinatos seriales de niñas y mujeres con el narcotráfico.” 34. “Ciudad Juárez es un paradigma y lo que sucede ahí tiene que ver no sólo con las mujeres que viven ahí sino para las del resto del país y del mundo.” 35. “La Navidad pasada fui a Camargo a visitar a mi familia. En el Heraldo de Chihuahua leí un gran reportaje acerca de cómo pasaron su Nochebuena los internos del manicomio local. Venían fotos de viejos y viejas de mirada extraviada. Fui a verlos. El Psiquiátrico de Chihuahua no es el Hospital Larned de Kansas. ¿Así será el infierno? Si quieres conocer realmente un país, visita sus manicomios. Ahí, en medio del abandono, la suciedad y la tristeza, estaba Rita. Sola, ausente, perdida.”

notes to pages 1 50–169  199

36. “Es osté apache? [ . . . ] Es osté Filipinas? [ . . . ] Es osté Corea? [ . . . ] Es osté Viet Nam?” 37. “En algo tienen razón los doctores: Rita es una borderline de la globalización; su situación es irreversible; no puede regresar con los suyos a Porochi, los rarámuri la repudiarían; su presencia en México la conduciría de nuevo a la cárcel de Chihuahua; es una extranjera en su propio país; tampoco puede quedarse en la Unión Americana porque no habla inglés, porque no es chicana, porque no tiene papeles, porque volverían a encerrarla en el manicomio. [ . . . ] Rita se encuentra suspendida en una línea virtual, en el borde de un abismo cultural donde las minorías étnicas se enfrentan a la inercia canónica occidental, al desarraigo y la asimetría.” 38. “Kansas City, México y Oriente”; “el instructor Ted Hamman nos dijo que su novia Susan Bockrat le había dicho que en el hospital siquiátrico en Larned estaba una mujer muy rara. Y a Susan se lo había contado Tory Mroz, que le había pedido ayuda para hacer algo por esta mujer.”

Conclusion 1. Castillo notes, “Trafficking analysis [in U.S. academia] generally focuses on rescue of the women—a moral good—while paying much less attention to the reprehensible role played by the First World clients who purchase these services, men only slightly less exploitative than the traffickers” (“On the Line” 841). 2. Castillo explains that “devising” includes both the collective creation of scripts (in practice, often based on ethnographic material, or on adaptations of narrative texts or of classical plays), as well as the collective development of performances through the extensive use of improvisational body work, often taking the form of nonvocal explorations of directorial prompts. 3. gorka . ¡Me dijiste que te habían agarrado chupando en el parque! sunday. ¡Eso dije! [ . . . ] gorka . ¿Eres puto? sunday. Ocasionalmente de la colita. gorka . O sea puto. sunday. Homosexual. gorka . Puto. Los eufemismos son para los discapacitados. sunday. Soy un puto discapacitado. No logro amar a nadie. (Le gana el llanto. Lo contiene en seguida.)

200  notes to pages 169–170

gorka .

¿Quieres que te dé un abrazo? Lo que quiero son unos tacos de barbacoa.

sunday.

4. Bixler signals the autobiographical nature of Ricaño’s work: “Guggenheim, for example is a distorted autobiography about his trip to Spain, where he started to write a play that he didn’t finish until returning to Xalapa and starting to rehearse with his small theater troupe” (viii). [Guggenheim, por ejemplo, es una autobiografía trastocada de su viaje a España, donde empezó a escribir una obra que no terminó hasta que volvió a Xalapa y empezó a ensayar con su pequeña tropa teatral.] 5. Ricaño defends the potentially offensive language in the play: No, not at all. Every time that I see spectators, not just over 30, but over

50, I worry that, more that the language, the themes will seem frivolous to

them. But when I catch a glimpse of them in the middle of the performance

I always find them dying of laughter, even more than some young people. Xalapa is a very small place and the cultural environment even more so, so a

lot of people start to find me and up to now they’ve only congratulated me, no one has slapped me or crossed themselves in front of me. Although I suppose I must have offended someone, but that’s not to do with age, it has to do above all with education. (“Del humor” 151)

[No, en lo absoluto. Siempre que veo espectadores, no mayores de 30 años, sino de 50, me preocupa que, más que el lenguaje, los temas les parezcan

frívolos. Pero cuando los espío a media función los encuentro muertos de risa, incluso más que a algunos jóvenes. Xalapa es un lugar muy pequeño y el medio cultural más, así es que muchos señores comienzan a ubicarme y

hasta ahora sólo me han felicitado, nadie me ha abofeteado o se ha persignado frente a mí.]

6. “En Más pequeños que el Guggenheim, el refrán, ‘A veces el pato nada,’ cortado siempre a la mitad, llega a representar la vida, las ilusiones y hasta la obra teatral de Sunday y Gorka, todas igualmente truncadas. De la misma manera el museo Guggenheim se llega a entender como metáfora del primer mundo, lo cual hace que Sunday y Gorka se sientan insignificantes frente a este enorme edificio reluciente, símbolo del Arte con mayúscula y de un mundo al que no pueden entrar.” 7. gorka . ¿Desde siempre? sunday. Sí. O sea, no nací puto. Pero desde que recuerdo.

notes to page 171  201

[ . . . ]

Ocasionalmente, días feriados, casos de emergencia. [ . . . ] Es un hecho sin importancia. Tú eres diabético, yo puto. Cada cual con su enfermedad. gorka . Pues sí. A veces el pato nada. sunday.

(Silencio.) No entiendo. gorka . ¿No? sunday. ¿Qué quiere decir? gorka . No sé. Lo decía mi padre en momentos dramáticos. sunday. ¿A veces el pato nada? gorka . Sí. sunday. Ya . . . sunday.

(Pausa.) Creo que tiene que ver, sabes, con que uno debe sorprenderse incluso por hacer lo que por naturaleza ya hace.

gorka .

(Pausa.) No, no creo que sea eso. gorka . Sí, yo tampoco. sunday. Quizás se refiera a que uno siempre tiene otra opción para seguir andando. Si te jodes las patitas, nadas. gorka . O simplemente que hay que variar en el modo de recorrer un camino. sunday. Eso. sunday.

(Silencio.) gorka .

Yo siempre quise tener un pato.

8. “Como el pato, les dije, que se jode las patitas y nada. Hasta que el Nico se encabronó y me dijo: a veces el pato nada y a veces ni agua bebe. Es un dicho sobre la abundancia. Por eso, quise componer—tu mujer es abundante, hay relación . . .”

Works Cited

“131 Alumnos de la Ibero responden.” YouTube. 14 May 2012. Web. 19 Dec. 2015. Albin-Najera, Susie. “Response to ‘Zoot Suit’ in Mexico City Overwhelmingly Positive.”  The MEXICO Report. The MEXICO Report, 5 June 2010. Web. 24 Dec. 2015. Amnesty International. Muertes Intolerables: Diez años de desapariciones y asesinatos de mujeres en Ciudad Juárez y Chihuahua. 10 Aug. 2003. Web. 21 Dec. 2015. Arias, Santa. “De Fray Servando Teresa de Mier a Juan Bautista Muñoz: La disputa guadalupana en vísperas de la independencia.” Revista Iberoamericana 74.222 (2008): 6–13. Print. Armbruster-Sandoval, Ralph. “The Life of the Party: Alice McGrath, Multiracial Coalitions, and the Struggle for Social Justice.” Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies 36.1 (Spring 2011): 69–98. Print. Associated Press. “Soldier Who Killed 16 Afghans Says He Was ‘Consumed by War.’ ” New York Times. The New York Times Company, 7 June 2015. Web. 19 Dec. 2015. Balerini Casal, Emiliano. “Lascuráin o la brevedad del poder, retrato del presidencialismo.” Milenio. 24 Sept. 2010. Web. 8 Nov. 2012. Barajas Durán, Rafael (el Fisgón). El país de “El Llorón de Icamole”: Caricatura mexicana de combate y libertad de imprenta durante los gobiernos de Porfirio Díaz y Manuel González (1877–1884). Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2007. Print. Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995. Print.

204  works cited

Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Trans. Sheila Faria Glaser. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994. Print. Bay-Cheng, Sarah. “Theatre History and Digital Historiography.”  Theater Historiography: Critical Interventions. Ed. Henry Bial and Scott Magelssen. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010. 125–36. Print. Beezley, William H. Judas at the Jockey Club and Other Episodes of Porfirian Mexico. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987. Print. Berman, Sabina. Backyard. Gestos: Teoría y Práctica del Teatro Hispánico 20.39 (April 2005): 107–81. Print. ———. Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda. Las fronteras míticas del teatro mexicano. Ed. Stuart A. Day. Lawrence, KS: LATR Books, 2009. 14–53. Print. ———. Personal interview. Best, Steven, and Douglas Kellner. Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations. New York: Guilford, 1991. Print. Bettelheim, Bruno. Freud and Man’s Soul: An Important Re-Interpretation of Freudian Theory. New York: Vintage Books, 1984. Print. Bial, Henry. “PS: Can We Talk About Something Else?” Postscript. Theater Historiography: Critical Interventions. Ed. Bial and Scott Magelsson. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010. 276–86. Print. Bixler, Jacqueline. “Historias para ser contadas: El teatro de Alejandro Ricaño.” Historias para ser contadas: El teatro de Alejandro Ricaño. Lawrence, KS: LATR Books, 2012. v-xiv. Print. ———. “Una introducción al teatro elusivo de la elusiva Sabina Berman.” Sediciosas seducciones: Sexo, poder y palabras en el teatro de Sabina Berman. Comp. Bixler. Mexico City: Escenología, 2004. 17–29. Print. Blankenship, Bill. “Trapped by Language.” CJOnline.com. Topeka Capitol-Journal, 28 Feb. 2003. Web. 30 Dec. 2015. Brewer, Jan. “Jan Brewer on Madmen and Mowing Lawns.” By Andrew Goldman. New York Times Magazine. The New York Times Company, 24 Aug. 2012. Web. 22 Dec. 2015. Broyles-González, Yolanda. El Teatro Campesino: Theater in the Chicano Movement. Austin: University of  Texas Press, 1994. Print. Caminero-Santangelo, Marta. “Unauthorized Stories: Urrea’s The Devil’s Highway and Martínez’s Crossing Over as Narratives of ‘Illegal’ Crossings,” Nuestra America in the U.S.? Latino/a Studies Conference, Lawrence, KS. Feb. 2008. Rev. and rpt. as “Narrating the Non-Nation: Literary Journalism and ‘Illegal’ Border

works cited  205

Crossings.” Documenting the Undocumented: Latina/o Narrative and Social Justice in the Era of Operation Gatekeeper. Gainsville: University of Florida Press, 2016. Print. Cano, Natalia, and Julio Alejandro Quijano. “Recuerda actor censura en representar héroes históricos.” El Universal. 16 Sept. 2005. Web. 8 Nov. 2012. “El Capital, Base de Nuestro Progreso.” El Imparcial [Mexico City] 14 Sept. 1906: 1. Print. Carlson, Marvin. “Perspectives on Performance: Germany and America.” Introduction. The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics. By Erika Fischer-­Licte. Trans. Saskya Iris Jain. New York: Routledge, 2008. 1–10. Print. Casa Amiga Esther Chávez Cano. Casa Amiga Centro de Crisis A.C., 2009. Web. 21 Dec. 2015. Castañeda, Jorge G. Sorpresas te da la vida. Mexico City: Aguila, 1994. Print. Castillo, Debra A. “Devising as Pedagogical Practice in Latin American Theatre.” Making Latina/o-American Theater. Ed. Stuart A. Day and Jacqueline E. Bixler. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, forthcoming. N. pag. Print. ———. “On the Line: Work and Choice.” PMLA 127.4 (Oct. 2012): 835–44. Print. Cave, Damien. “For Migrants, New Land of Opportunity Is Mexico.” New York Times. The New York Times Company, 21 Sept. 2013. Web. 19 Dec. 2015. “La Ceremonia en Chapultepec.” El Imparcial [Mexico City] 17 Sept. 1906: 1. Print. Certeau, Michel de. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Randall. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Print. “Chaos.” Entry 3a. The Oxford English Dictionary. Web. 24 Dec. 2015. Chasteen, John Charles. Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America. New York: Norton, 2001. Print. “El Círculo de Amigos del General Díaz.” El Imparcial [Mexico City] 17 Oct. 1900: 1. Print. Cohen-Cruz, Jan. Introduction to Part 1: “Agit-Prop.” Radical Street Performance: An International Anthology. Ed. Cohen-Cruz. New York: Routledge, 1998. 13–14. Print. “Community Programs.” Ibero, Ciudad de México. Universidad Iberoamericana, 2013. Web. 7 Jan. 2016. Compton, Timothy G. “Mexico City Theatre: Spring 2002.” Latin American Theatre Review 36.2 (Spring 2003): 103–16. Print. ———. “Spring 2010 Theatre Season in Mexico City.” Latin American Theatre Review 44.1 (Fall 2010): 133–43. Print.

206  works cited

Conquergood, Dwight. “Performance Studies: Intervention and Radical Research.”  The Performance Studies Reader. Ed. Henry Bial. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2004. 311–22. Print. Davey, Monica. “Getting Ferguson Majority to Show Its Clout at Polls.” New York Times. The New York Times Company, 30 Aug. 2014. Web. 7 Jan. 2016. Davis, R. G., and Betty Diamond. “Zoot Suit: From the Barrio to Broadway.” Ideologies and Literature 3.15 ( Jan.–Mar. 1981): 124–33. Print. Day, Stuart A. “It’s My (National) Stage Too: Sabina Berman and Jesusa Rodríguez as Public Intellectuals.” Mexican Public Intellectuals. Ed. Debra A. Castillo and Day. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 117–38. Print. ———. Staging Politics in Mexico: The Road to Neoliberalism. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2004. Print. Del-Río, Marcela. Perfil del teatro de la Revolución Mexicana. New York: Peter Lang, 1994. Print. American University Studies Series 22, Latin American Literature 17. Dolan, Jill. Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theater. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005. Print. Dominguez, Ricardo. “Poetry, Immigration and the FBI: The Transborder Immigrant Tool.” Interview by Leila Nadir. Hyperallergic. Hyperallergic Media Inc., 23 July 2012. Web. 7 Jan. 2016. Eagleton, Terry. “Capitalism, Modernism and Postmodernism.” New Left Review 152 (1985): 60–73. Print. Editorial Board. “The Murder of Mexico’s Free Press.” New York Times. The New York Times Company, 15 Aug. 2015. Web. 20 Dec. 2015. “Efectismo.” WordReference. Espasa-Calpe, 2005. Web. 30 Dec. 2015. “Las elecciones presidenciales.” El Imparcial [Mexico City] 12 July 1904: 1. Print. Faussett, Richard. “In Mexico, Yo Soy 132 Ponders Next Step.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 13 Aug. 2012. Web. 19 Dec. 2015. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. Fraser, Nancy. “Transnationalizing the Public Sphere.” republicart: publicum. European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, Mar. 2005. Web. 18 Dec. 2015. Fusco, Coco. “The Other History of Intercultural Performance.”  TDR: The Drama Review 38.1 (Spring 1994): 143–67. Print. Gamboa, Federico. Diario de Federico Gamboa (1892–1939). Ed. José Emilio Pacheco. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1977. Print.

works cited  207

———. Mi diario IV (1905–1908). Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1995. Print. ———. Teatro. Ed. María Guadalupe García Barragán. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional de México, 2000. Print. García Barragán, María Guadalupe. “Estudio preliminary.” Gamboa, Teatro. García Canclini, Néstor. Art Beyond Itself: Anthropology for a Society Without a Story Line. Trans. David Frye. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. Print. Garner, Paul. Porfirio Díaz. London: Pearson Education Limited, 2001. Print. Ginsberg, Elizabeth. “Case Study: The Couple in a Cage.” Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution. Beautiful Trouble, n.d. Web. 30 Dec. 2015. Giroux, Henry. Impure Acts: The Practical Politics of Cultural Studies. New York: Routledge, 2000. Print. “Gleba.” Pequeño Larousse Ilustrado. Mexico City: Ediciones Larousse, 1993. Print. “Gleba.” Velásquez Spanish-English Dictionary. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1973. Print. González Espitia, Juan Carlos. “A Brief Syphilography of Nineteenth-Century Latin America.” Building Nineteenth-Century Latin America: Re-Rooted Cultures, Identities, and Nations. Ed. William G. Acree Jr. and González Espitia. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2009. 246–70. Print. González Mello, Flavio. 1822: El año que fuimos imperio. N.d. TS. ———. “1822 el año que fuimos imperio: Entrevista a Flavio González Mello.” By Katia de la Rosa. Revista de la Universidad de México 14 (2005): 76–81. Print. Gordon, Larry. “Drama Teacher Alleges Racial Bias in Pomona College’s Denial of  Tenure.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 20 Aug. 2013. Web. 24 Dec. 2015. Gregory, James N. “Out of the Heartland.” American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. 3–35. Print. Guterman, Gad. “Theatre of Inclusion: Michael Garcés’s Los Illegals and the Activation of Rights.” 32nd International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association. Chicago. 21–24 May 2014. Presentation. Rev. and rpt. in Performance, Identity, and Immigration Law: A Theatre of Undocumentedness. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 162. Print. Gutiérrez, Laura. “Unsettling Comforts: Notes on Language, Politics, and Sex/ Sexuality in a Transnational Context” and “Sexing Guadalupe in Transnational Double Crossings.” Performing Mexicanidad: Vendidas y Cabareteras on the Transnational Stage. Austin: University of  Texas Press, 2010. 1–63. Print.

208  works cited

Harmony, Olga. Rev. of 9 días de guerra en Facebook. La Jornada. DEMOS, 20 May 2010. Web. 20 Dec. 2015. Hellman, Judith Adler. Mexican Lives. New York: New Press, 1994. Print. Henley, Jon. “Medellín: The Fast Track from the Slums.”  The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Ltd., 31 July 2013. Web. 7 Jan. 2016. Hernandez, Daniel. “For Mexico, ‘Zoot Suit’ Still Relevant after 30 Years.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 1 July 2010. Web. 24 Dec. 2015. ———. “Mexico City Opens Massive Public-Surveillance Center.” LA Times Blogs. Los Angeles Times, 26 Oct. 2011. Web. 19 Dec. 2015. Highmore, Ben. Ordinary Lives: Studies in the Everyday. New York: Routledge, 2011. Print. hooks, bell. “Confronting Class in the Classroom.”  The Critical Pedagogy Reader. Ed. Antonia Darder, Marta Baltodano, and Rodolfo D. Torres. New York: RoutledgeFalmer, 2003. 142–50. Print. “Hoy renunciará el General Díaz.” Diario del Hogar [Mexico City] 24 May 1911: 1. Print. Huerta, Jorge. Introduction. Zoot Suit and Other Plays. By Luis Valdez. Houston: Arte Público, 1992. Print. Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of  Twentieth-Century Art Forms. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000. Print. “In Praise of Chaos.”  The Economist. The Economist Newspaper Limited, 1 Oct. 2011. Web. 20 Dec. 2015. Joseph, Jamal. “ ‘Panther Baby,’ From Prisoner to Professor.” Interview by Michael Martin. Tell Me More. Natl. Public Radio. 22 Feb. 2012. Web. 18 Dec. 2015. Kanost, Laura. “The Kansas State Psychiatric Hospital as Heterotopia in La mujer que cayó del cielo by Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda.” Latin American Literary Review 37.74 ( July-Dec. 2009): 26–37. Print. Krauze, Enrique. Mexico: Biography of Power: A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996. Trans. Hank Heifetz. New York: Harper Collins, 1997. Print. Lemus, Rafael. “La insubordinación del público: Intelectuales y redes sociales en México.” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 49.2 (2015): 227–42. Print. Levy, Jacques E. Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. Print. Magaña Esquivel, Antonio. Medio siglo de teatro mexicano (1900–1910). Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Departamento de Literatura, 1964. Print.

works cited  209

Malkin, Elizabeth. “Mexican Cops: These Are Their Stories.” New York Times. The New York Times Company, 10 June 2011. Web. 8 Nov. 2012. María y Campos, Armando de. El Teatro de género chico en la revolución mexicana. Mexico City: Biblioteca del Instituto Nacional de Estudios Históricos de la Revolución Mexicana, 1956. Print. Martinez, Alma. ZOOT SUIT (The National Theatre Company of Mexico). Facebook. Web. 22 Dec. 2015. Martínez, Fabiola. “Los feminicidios en Juárez, de tipo ‘sexual sistémico,’ señalan expertos.” La Jornada. DEMOS, 16 Nov. 2006. Web. Mathiesen, Thomas. “The Viewer Society: Michel Foucault’s ‘Panopticon’ Revisited.”  Theoretical Criminology 1.2 (1997): 215–34. Print. Meléndez, Priscilla. The Politics of Farce in Contemporary Spanish American Theatre. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Print. Meraji, Shereen Marisol. “Nightly Chaos Disrupts Ferguson Residents’ Daily Lives.” Code Switch: Frontiers of Race, Culture and Ethnicity. Natl. Public Radio, 20 Aug. 2014. Web. 7 Jan. 2016. Mijares, Enrique. “Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda, retratista de mujeres extraordinarias.” Las fronteras míticas del teatro mexicano. Ed. Stuart A. Day. Lawrence, KS: LATR Books, 2009. 83–87. Print. Mills, Sara. Discourse. London: Routledge, 1997. Print. Molotov. “Nostradamus mucho.” Dance y Dense Denso. Universal Latino, 2003. CD. Moncada, Luis Mario. 9 días de guerra en Facebook: Teatro Documento. Latin American Theatre Review 44.2 (Spring 2011): 93–146. Print. Monroy Zuluaga, Leonardo. “La posmodernidad y las redes sociales en 9 días de guerra en Facebook.” Latin American Theatre Review 47.1 (Fall 2013): 61– 71. Print. Nance, Kimberly. “Only Connect? Empathy and Exotopy in Teaching Social Justice Literature.” NOTE: Notes on Teaching English 30 (May 2006): 10–14. Print. Niess, Robert J. “Zola’s L’Œuvre and Reconquista of Gamboa.” PMLA 61.2 ( June 1946): 577–83. Print. Olaso, Francisco. “El delito de insultar por Internet.” Proceso. 7 Aug. 2015. Web. 20 Dec. 2015. Olivas, Juan de Dios. “Harán zona comercial en campo algodonero.” El Diario de Juárez. 23 Feb. 2007. Web. Otto, Beatrice K. Fools Are Everywhere. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. Print.

210  works cited

Pacheco, José Emilio. Prologue. Diario de Federico Gamboa (1892–1939). Ed. José Emilio Pacheco. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1977. Print. “Past Productions.”  Teatrotaller. Cornell University. Web. 7 Jan. 2016. Paul, Carlos. “Comienzan a plenitud las actividades del naciente foro Carretera 45 Teatro.” La Jornada. DEMOS, 25 Jan. 2013. Web. 19 Dec. 2015. ———. “Compañía de Ciudad Juárez intensifica su quehacer teatral en la colonia Obrera.” La Jornada. DEMOS, 16 Aug. 2013. Web. 19 Dec. 2015. Pavis, Patrice. Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts, and Analysis. Toronto: University of  Toronto Press, 1998. Print. Paz, Octavio. The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings. Trans. Lysander Kemp, Yara Milos, and Rachel Phillips Belash. New York: Grove Press, 1985. Print. PBS. American Experience: Zoot Suit Riots. PBS Online/WGBH, 1999–2002. Web. 22 Dec. 2015. Peschel, Lisa. “ ‘Structures of Feeling’ as Methodology and the Re-emergence of Holocaust Survivor Testimony in 1960s Czechoslovakia.” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 26.2 (Spring 2012): 161–72. Print. Peters, Cynthia. “Professor Alma Martinez Brings ‘Zoot Suit’ to National Theatre Company of Mexico.” Pomona College News. 21 Apr. 2010. Web. Petrich, Blanche. “Prueban franceses la complicidad de autoridades en los femini­ cidios.” La Jornada. DEMOS, 2 Oct. 2005. Web. Pons, María Cristina. “Monsiváis in a Nutshell.” Mexican Public Intellectuals. Ed. Debra A. Castillo and Stuart A. Day. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 71–93. Print. Quijano, Aníbal. “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America.” Nepantla: Views from South 1.3 (2000): 533–80. Print. Rama, Angel. The Lettered City. Trans. and ed. John Charles Chasteen. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996. Print. Ramírez, Catherine S. “Saying ‘Nothin’: Pachucas and the Languages of Resistance.” Frontiers: A Journal of  Women’s Studies 27.3 (2006): 1–33. Print. Rancière, Jacques. “The Emancipated Spectator.”  The Emancipated Spectator. London: Verso, 2009. 1–24. Print. Rascón Banda, Víctor Hugo. “En sus propias palabras: Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda.” By Stuart A. Day. El teatro de Rascón Banda: Voces en el umbral. Comp. Jacqueline E. Bixler and Day. Mexico City: Escenología, 2005. 21–32. Print. ———. La mujer que cayó del cielo. Las fronteras míticas del teatro mexicano. Ed. Stuart A. Day. Lawrence, KS: LATR Books, 2009. 88–126. Print.

works cited  21 1

Reyes de la Maza, Luis, comp. El teatro en México durante el porfirismo: Tomo III (1900–1910). Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1968. Print. Ricaño, Alejandro. “Del humor negro al discurso esperanzador: Entrevista con Alejandro Ricaño.” By Jacqueline Eyring Bixler and Shana Morris. Latin American Theatre Review 44.2 (Spring 2011): 147–53. Print. ———. Más pequeños que el Guggenheim. Historias para ser contadas: Tres obras de Alejan­dro Ricaño. Ed. Jacqueline Bixler. Lawrence, KS: LATR Books, 2012. 1–60. Print. Richard, Nelly. La estratificación de los márgenes: Sobre arte, cultura y política/s. Ed. Francisco Zegers. Santiago, Chile: Centro Cultural Palacio La Moneda/Centro de Documentación de las Artes, 1989. Print. Rizk, Beatriz J. “9 días de guerra en Facebook, de Luis Mario Moncada: De cuándo el dominio privado deviene público.” Latin American Theatre Review 44.2 (Spring 2011): 89–92. Print. Roach, Joseph. Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. Print. Rodó, José Enrique. Ariel. Austin: University of  Texas Press, 2010. Print. Rodríguez, Jesusa. “Interview with Jesusa Rodríguez.” By Mark and Blanca Kelty. Latin American Theatre Review 31.1 (Fall 1997): 123–27. Print. ———. Personal interview. 19 June 2008. Rodríguez O., Jaime E. “Constitution of 1824 and the Mexican State.”  The Origins of Mexican National Politics: 1808–1847. Ed. Jaime E. Rodríguez O. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997. 65–84. Print. Roosevelt, Margot. “Alice McGrath Dies at 92; Activist Backed Defendants in 1942 Sleepy Lagoon Trial.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 29 Nov. 2009. Web. 24 Dec. 2015. Rubin, Gayle. “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex.”  The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory. Ed. Linda Nicholson. New York: Routledge, 1997. 27–62. Print. “Ruben Espinosa, fotoperiodista de revista Proceso fue asesinado en la colonia Narvarte.” Rompeviento TV. 1 Aug. 2015. Web. 20 Dec. 2015. Sabatini, Arthur J. “The Dialogics of Performance and Pedagogy.”  Teaching Performance Studies. Ed. Nathan Stucky and Cynthia Wimmer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002. 191–202. Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1979. Print.

21 2  works cited

Sannah, Kelefa. “The Hell You Say.” New Yorker. Condé Nast, 10 Aug. 2015. Web. 20 Dec. 2015. Sarmiento, Sergio. “Fox y la Virgen de Guadalupe: Imagen usada ni Segob la quita.” Siempre! 16 Sept. 1999. Web. 18 June 2012. Schechner, Richard. Performance Studies: An Introduction. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print.

Scott, James C. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. Print. Sedycias, João. The Naturalistic Novel of the New World: A Comparative Study of Stephen Crane, Aluísio Azevedo, and Federico Gamboa. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993. Print. Shaw, Donald L. A Companion to Modern Spanish American Fiction. London: Tamesis, 2002. Print. “Siervo.” Diccionario del español usual en México. Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1996. Print. Solórzano, Carlos. “Algunos paralelismos entre la novela y el teatro hispanoamericano de este siglo.” Actas del Tercer Congreso Internacional de Hispanistas. Ed. Carlos H. Magis. Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1970. 853–59. Centro Virtual Cervantes. Web. 21 Dec. 2015. Sotomayor, Frank. “Zoot Suits Set Off Rage of Vigilante Servicemen: Stories That Shaped the Century.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 25 Oct. 1999. Web. 24 Dec. 2015. Sterling, Terry Greene. “Who Was the Real Arizona Killer?” Daily Beast. The Daily Beast Company LLC, 7 July 2010. Web. 24 Dec. 2015. Swalwell, Katy M. Educating Activist Allies: Social Justice Pedagogy with the Suburban and Urban Elite. New York: Routledge, 2013. Print. The Critical Social Thought Ser. 38. Tabuenca C., María Socorro. “From Accounting to Recounting: Esther Chávez Cano and the Articulation of Advocacy, Agency, and Justice on the US-Mexico Border.” Mexican Public Intellectuals. Ed. Debra A. Castillo and Stuart A. Day. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 139–61. Print. Taylor, Diana. The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003. Print. ———. Theatre of Crisis: Drama and Politics in Latin America. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1991. Print. Teatro #yosoy132 UNAM. Timeline post. Facebook. 31 Oct. 2012. Web. 19 Dec. 2015.

works cited  21 3

“Theatricality.” Entry 1a. The Oxford English Dictionary. Web. 24 Dec. 2015. Thompson, Ginger. “Mexico Journal; Now the Morning News Is Earthy and Unsparing.” New York Times. The New York Times Company, 14 Jan. 2002. Web. 21 Dec. 2015. Treré, Emiliano. “The #YoSoy132 Movement in Mexico.” Civic Media Project. MIT Press, 18 Mar. 2015. Web. 19 Dec. 2015. Usigli, Rodolfo. El gesticulador, La mujer no hace milagros. Mexico City: Editores Mexicanos Unidos, 1994. Print. Valdez, Luis. Zoot Suit and Other Plays. Houston: Arte Público, 1992. Print. Rev. of La venganza de la gleba. Diario del Hogar [Mexico City] 17 Oct. 1905: 2. Print. Versényi, Adam. Theatre in Latin America: Religion, Politics and Culture from Cortés to the 1980s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Print. Villaverde, Cecilia. “Reacción de Enrique Peña Nieto al salir del baño de la Ibero [No lo verás en TV] ¿Miedo?” YouTube. 11 May 2012. Web. 19 Dec. 2015. Wilkinson, Tracy. “Filming ‘El Traspatio’ Was a Death-Defying Act.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 19 Dec. 2009. Web. 21 Dec. 2015. Zahniser, David. “Villaraigosa Backs L.A. Boycott of Arizona over Immigration Crackdown [Updated].” LA Times Blog. Los Angeles Times, 29 Apr. 2010. Web. 24 Dec. 2015.

Index

los de abajo (underdogs), 57, 131 absurd, theater of, 171 activism, 5; Arizona’s anti-immigrant law SB1070 and, 101; art and, 160–61; Black Lives Matter movement, 160–61; demonstrations, 22; elite, 154; farmworker movement, 35, 153–54; injustice and, 148–49; Internet, 152–53; La mujer que cayó del cielo and, 148, 153–55, 163; political, 8, 14–15; El Teatro Campe­ sino, 153; universities and, 162–63, 165; of university students, 154–55, 160–62; #yosoy132 movement, 8–9, 120–21; in Zoot Suit, 95–96, 100 actors/performers: double role of, 175n6; evolution of, 9–10; spectators and, 11; transformation and, 10–11. See also teatreros affect theory, 127 Aguilar, Bertha, 86–87 Aguilar Camín, Héctor, 121–22 alienation effect, 193n19 allies: artistic, 22–23; in Berman, 27; Internet, 108; La mujer que cayó del cielo and,

147–48, 157; nation-state, 12; outside agitator and, 83; in theater, 154; Zoot Suit and, 21, 82, 101–2 anti-immigrant legislation, U.S., 25, 91–92 Arias, Santa, 41 “Ariel” (Rodó), 118 Arizona’s anti-immigrant law SB1070, 24; activism in response to, 101; Krentz murder and, 92; Zoot Suit and, 78–79, 84; zoot suit riots compared with, 101 Armbruster-Sandoval, Ralph, “The Life of the Party,” 96–97 art: activism and, 160–61; public sphere and, 4; social change and, 5–6; social power of, in Medellín, Colombia, 158–60; transformative power of, 5–6 Art Beyond Itself (García Canclini), 5–6 audiences, 6–7; participation of, 111–12; perspective shifts in, 10; questionnaire, 128; utopian performatives, 10–11 Backyard/Traspatio (film, Berman), 20, 132, 168; borders in, 27; class in, 141; distancing in, 137; filming, 136; “global

216 INDE X

vision” of, 146; humor in, 143–45; irony in, 144; neoliberalism in, 137, 139–40; simulation in, 137–39; victimization of women in, 141–42 Baudrillard, Jean, Simulacra and Simulation, 138–39 Berman, Sabina, 7; allies in, 27; in Ciudad Juárez, 133, 135; documentary thea­ ter and, 132; Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda, 43, 139; on femicide in Ciudad Juárez, 145–46; humor in, 27, 131–32, 142–43; literary career, 132; El Narco negocia con Dios, 27; Rascón Banda compared with, 131; Shalalá, 7, 130–31. See also Backyard/Traspatio Beverley, John, 157 Bial, Henry, 173n4; Theater Historiography: Critical Interventions, 18 Bixler, Jacqueline, 29–30, 169–70 Black Lives Matter movement, 160–61 borders: in Backyard/Traspatio, 27; Ciudad Juárez, 133–34; geographical, 18; Mexico-U.S., 27, 91, 133. See also lindar Borges, Jorge Luis, 138; “The Wall and the Books,” 6 boundaries, 11–12. See also lindar breaking fourth wall, 128 Brecht, Bertolt, 70, 156; denaturalization and, 124; Mother Courage and Her Children, 193n19 Broyles-González, Yolanda, 93–94, 99 Brozo the Creepy Clown (Brozo el Payaso Tenebroso), 33, 53, 168 Calderón, Felipe, 14, 33, 119, 175n5 Caminero-Santangelo, Marta, 157 Carballido, Emilio, 151 Carlson, Marvin, 11 Carretera 45 (theater), 19 cartoons, political, 73–75

Castellanos, Rosario, El eterno femenino, 43 Castillo, Debra A., 29, 164, 199nn1–2; on sex work, 165; Teatrotaller, 165–67 “Catholic” naturalism, 70 censorship, 7, 120; of guadalupana imagery, 42; of hate speech, 193n18; Internet, 26–27, 123, 128–29, 193n18; of journalism, 192n17; of plays, 36 Certeau, Michel de, “Walking in the City,” 108 chaos: hierarchy and, 108; Internet debate and, 114–15 chaotic interjection, 111; in 9 días de guerra en Facebook, 117–18 Chávez, César, 83–84, 153; activism and, 161; on Zoot Suit, 154 Chicanos, U.S., 25, 168; racism towards, 81; Zoot Suit and, 79–81, 105 Chomsky, Noam, 140 Ciudad Juárez, 27; Berman in, 133; borders and, 133–34; drug trafficking and, 133, 146–47; femicide in, 134–35, 139, 145–47, 195n4; men murdered in, 196n18; Mexico City and, 137; Muestra Nacional de Teatro, 159; violence in, 133, 136; women abducted in, 134; women in, 140, 142. See also Backyard/Traspatio class: in Backyard/Traspatio, 141; in La venganza de la gleba, 60, 64–65, 67 CNOP. See Confederation of Popular Organizations colonialism, 69, 149 colonial Mexico, 23; in 1822: El año que fuimos imperio, 53; Gamboa as colonial writer in “foreign” land, 59; Spain and, 32; transformational theater in, 36; Virgin of Guadalupe and, 41–42 Compton, Timothy, 20; on 1822: El año que fuimos imperio, 49–50, 179n19; on 9 días de guerra en Facebook, 114

INDE X 217

Confederation of Mexican Workers (Confederación de Trabajadores de México, CTM), 116 Confederation of Popular Organizations (CNOP), 115 Conquergood, Dwight, 15–16 counterhistories, 131 “Couple in the Cage: A Guatinaui Odyssey” (Fusco, Gómez-Peña), 148–50 CTM. See Confederation of Mexican Workers culture, performance studies and mani­ festations of, 17–18 cynicism, 167 dehumanization, 90, 130; efectismo and, 125; of mentally ill, 152; in military, 26, 124–25 denaturalization, 107, 124, 160 Diario del Hogar (newspaper), 71–72 diaspora, public sphere and, 4 Díaz, José, murder of, 85–86. See also Sleepy Lagoon murder trial Díaz, Porfirio, 24, 55; Gamboa and, 57, 71, 74–76, 168; journalism and, 72–73; political cartoons, 74; political theater under, 76 Diéguez, Ileana, 17 digital media, 37 Dios Olivas, Juan de, El Diario de Juárez, 195n4 diplomacy, negotiation and, 24, 56 Discipline and Punish (Foucault), 112–13 discourse, 194n27; colonialist, 149 discussion: democratic, 192n17; Internet debate, 110–11; theater and, 111 documentary theater: humor in, 132; La mujer que cayó del cielo, 147; in 9 días de guerra en Facebook, 109

Dolan, Jill, 10–11; Utopia in Performance, 11 domination, 55–56; in La venganza de la gleba, 66 Domination and the Arts of Resistance (Scott), 55–56 Dominguez, Ricardo, 164–65, 167 Dorfman, Ariel, La muerte y la doncella, 106 dramatic sphere of influence, 4 Dream Act, 166 drug trafficking, 130, 160, 199n1; Ciudad Juárez and, 133, 146–47; femicide and, in Ciudad Juárez, 146–47 efectismo, in 9 días de guerra en Facebook, 125–26 1822: El año que fuimos imperio (González Mello), 23, 32–33; colonial Mexico in, 53; Compton on, 49–50, 179n19; farcical elements of, 48–49; González Mello on, 181n26; Guadalupe Victoria in, 50–52; irony in, 45; jester in, 38–39; meta­ theatrical elements of, 50–51; Padre Mier character in, 37–38, 44–46, 167–68; post-Independence Mexico, 44; Virgin of Guadalupe imagery in, 35–36 Eliot, George, 55–56 Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda (Berman), 43, 139 Escalante Gonzalbo, Fernando, 121, 123 Facebook, 81; activism on, 153. See also 9 días de guerra en Facebook false consciousness, 107 farce: politics and, 48–49; in theater, 49–50 farmworker movement, 35; El Teatro Campesino and, 153–54 Felipe, León, “Auschwitz,” 125–26 femicide, in Ciudad Juárez, 134–35, 139, 195n4; Berman on, 145–46; drug trafficking and, 146–47

218 INDE X

Ferguson, Missouri, 161–62 Fischer-Lichte, Erika, 11 Fools Are Everywhere (Otto), 38 Foucault, Michel, 10, 68; Discipline and Punish, 112–13 Fox, Vicente, 32, 34–35, 146 Fusco, Coco, “Couple in the Cage: A Guatinaui Odyssey,” 148–50 Gamboa, Federico, 23–24, 54, 107; as colonial writer in “foreign” land, 59; Diario del Hogar and, 71–72; Díaz, P., and, 57, 71, 74–76, 168; in intellectual history of Mexico, 25; Kipling and, 59–60; naturalism for, 69–70; paternalism in, 70; Reconquista, 58; religion for, 76–77; Santa, 55, 70; Zola’s influence on, 56–58. See also La venganza de la gleba García Canclini, Néstor, 9, 18; Art Beyond Itself, 5–6 El gesticulador (Usigli), 43, 106, 133–34; César Rubio character in, 139; simulation in, 137–39 globalization, in La mujer que cayó del cielo, 152 global village, in 9 días de guerra en Facebook, 109 Gómez-Peña, Guillermo, “Couple in the Cage: A Guatinaui Odyssey,” 148–50 González, Manuel, 73–74 González Mello, Flavio: on 1822: El año que fuimos imperio, 181n26; on historical genre, 181n26; Lascuráin, o la brevedad del poder, 174n4; Virgin of Guadalupe imagery, 35–36. See also 1822: El año que fuimos imperio government, Mexican: on femicide, in Ciudad Juárez, 146; Internet hate speech regulation by, 192n17; theater

subsidized by, 36–37, 132–33; TV show subsidized by, 175n5 Gregory, James N., 79–80 guadalupana imagery, 35; censorship of, 42; Mexican Independence and, 41. See also Virgin of Guadalupe hate speech, Internet, 123; censorship of, 193n18; regulation of, 192n17 hegemony, 67–68; counterhegemony, 108; Porfirian, 60, 70 Hellman, Judith Adler, Mexican Lives, 115–16 hierarchy: chaos and, 108; in Mexico, 60; of separation, 5 Highmore, Ben, Ordinary Lives: Studies in the Everyday, 171 humor: in Backyard/Traspatio, 143–45; in Berman, 27, 131–32, 142–43; in documentary theater, 132; farce, 48–50; jester character, 33–34, 38–39; in Mexico, 167–68; politics and, 33, 53; transformational aspect of, 33. See also irony Hutcheon, Linda, 44–45 immigrants, Mexican: attitudes towards, 82; oppression of, 152; to U.S., 25, 79–80 immigration policy, U.S., 91; surveillance of social media and, 166. See also Arizona’s anti-immigrant law SB1070 El Imparcial (newspaper), 72–73 improvisation, 107–8 indigenous history, 44, 46–47, 176n10; Aztec empire, 46; marginalization of people in, 152; racism and, 76–77, 90–91 insider/outsider dichotomy, 161 intellectualism, Mexican, 25–26 Internet: allies, 108; anonymity of, 122; censorship, 26–27, 123, 128–29, 193n18;

INDE X 219

dialogue on, 26; hate speech on, 123; surveillance and, 113; in U.S., 193n18 Internet activism, 152–53; in 9 días de guerra en Facebook, 168 Internet debate, 110–11, 113, 168; chaos and, 114–15; politics and, 120–21 irony, 20, 27; in Backyard/Traspatio, 144; in 1822: El año que fuimos imperio, 45; Internet debate and, 110; in La venganza de la gleba, 58–59 Israeli/Palestinian conflict, 26, 108, 115, 127 jester, character of, 33–34; in 1822: El año que fuimos imperio, 38–39 journalism: cartoons, 73–74; censorship of, 192n17; Díaz, J., murder, 85; in Mexico, 110; pachuco in, 92; politics and, 72 journalists, murder of, 129, 192n17 Kanost, Laura, 150, 151–52 Kipling, Rudyard, 59–60, 90 Krauze, Enrique, 121–22, 176n10 Krentz, Robert, 91–92 Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol, 8 Lemus, Rafael, 118–21, 123; on social media, 121 Leñero, Vicente, 131–32 Leyvas, Hank, 86, 89. See also Sleepy Lagoon murder trial “The Life of the Party” (Armbruster-­ Sandoval), 96–97 lindar, 4, 11–12 López Obrador, Andrés Manuel, 13, 22, 174n4 Los Angeles, California, 85 MALDEF. See Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund

maquiladora industry, 146 marginalization, of indigenous people, 152 Martinez, Alma, 24–25, 82, 84, 99–100; lawsuit, 104; Valdez and, 102–4; on Zoot Suit, 101–2; Zoot Suit Pomona College production by, 103–4, 168 masks: “Mexican Masks,” 106; politics and, 73–74; in La venganza de la gleba, 56, 63–64 Más pequeños que el Guggenheim (Ricaño), 29, 168–71; autobiographical nature of, 200n4; offensive language in, 200n5 McGrath, Alice, 84, 168; activism of, 96; Jewish identity of, 99; SDLC and, 97; Valdez on, 94; Zoot Suit character, 94–95 Medellín, Colombia, 21, 31; social power of art in, 158–60 media: digital, 37; public opinion and, 7; war on drugs in, 36–37. See also jour­ nalism; social media Meléndez, Priscilla, 17; on farce in theater, 49 men: murder of, in Ciudad Juárez, 196n18; Virgin of Guadalupe to, 43 mental health system, U.S., 151 mental illness: dehumanization of people with, 152; in La mujer que cayó del cielo, 150–51 metatheater, 49–50, 107; in 1822: El año que fuimos imperio, 50–51 Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), 84, 104 Mexican Americans, 79, 85 Mexican Independence, 32; 1822: El año que fuimos imperio and, 44; guadalupana debate and, 41; nation versus state power negotiations post, 178n12 Mexican Lives (Hellman), 115–16

220 INDE X

Mexican Revolution, 79 Mexico: art world in, 30; hierarchy in, 60; humor in, 167–68; indigenous past of, 44, 46–47, 176n10; journalism in, 110; migration to, 30–31; progressive movement in, 15; as sociopolitical context, 6. See also Ciudad Juárez; colonial Mexico Mexico City, 18–19; Ciudad Juárez and, 137; decentralization of theater in, 19; surveillance in, 21; Universidad Iberoamericana, 162–63; Zoot Suit production in, 102, 104–5 Mexico-U.S. border, 27, 91, 133 Mier, Fray Servando Teresa de, 23, 32–33, 176nn9–10; in 1822: El año que fuimos imperio, 37–38, 44–46, 167–68; New Spanish Inquisition trial of, 39–40; Virgin de Guadalupe and, 39–41 military, dehumanization in, 26, 124–25 Moncada, Luis Mario, 18; as Moderator in 9 días de guerra en Facebook, 111–12. See also 9 días de guerra en Facebook Muestra Nacional de Teatro, 159 La mujer que cayó del cielo (Rascón Banda), 28, 168; activism and, 148, 153–55, 163; allies and, 147–48, 157; mental illness in, 150–51; mobility in, 152; other in, 151; privilege and, 148, 155; staging of, 150; universities and, 155–56 Nance, Kimberly, 156–57 El Narco negocia con Dios (Berman), 27 naturalism, 184n7; “Catholic,” 70; in La venganza de la gleba, 58, 69–70 negotiation, diplomacy and, 24, 56 neighborhood theater. See teatro de barrio neoliberalism, 133–34; in Backyard/­ Traspatio, 137, 139–40; patriarchal society and, 142 New Dramatists of Mexico, 131

New Spanish Inquisition, 39–40 9 días de guerra en Facebook (Moncada), 12, 25–26; Ariel character in, 118; audience participation in, 111–12; breaking fourth wall in, 128; central aspects of, 109; chaotic interjection in, 117–18; Compton on, 114; denaturalization and humanization in, 124; documentary theater in, 109; efectismo in, 125–26; Facebook and, 116–17; global village in, 109; Internet activism in, 168; Internet allies in, 108; Internet personas in, 109; Moncada as Moderator in, 111–12; playscript, 113; staging of, 108, 112, 114 Obregón Pagán, Eduardo, 86–87 oppression, 5; of Mexican immigrants, 152 Orientalism (Said), 90–91 other, 194n27; in La mujer que cayó del cielo, 151 Otto, Beatrice K., Fools Are Everywhere, 38 outside agitators, 20–21, 82; in Zoot Suit, 83–84, 98 outsider: insider/outsider dichotomy, 161; perspective of, 20; teatreros as, 16 outside theater, 4; lindar and, 12; outsider in, 16, 20–21; performances exemplifying, 13; space of, 16 Pacheco, José Emilio, 58, 184n5 pachuco: in print media, 92; in Zoot Suit, 89 PAN (Partido Acción Nacional), 35 Panopticon, 112–13 Partido Acción Nacional. See PAN Partido Revolucionario Institutcional. See PRI paternalism, in Gamboa, 70 patriarchy, neoliberalism and, 142 Paz, Octavio, 88–89; “Mexican Masks,” 106 pedagogy, 158, 167

INDE X 221

Peña Nieto, Enrique, 7–8, 33–34 People v. Zammora, 85. See also Sleepy Lagoon murder trial performance: political activism and, 14–15; social change and, 29; studies, 17–18, 173n4 Performing Mexicanidad (Gutiérrez), 42 political activism, 8, 14–15 political theater, 76 politics: farcical nature of, 48–49; humor and, 33, 53; Internet debate and, 120–21; journalism and, 72; mask and, 73–74; nation versus state power negotiations post-Independence, 178n12; public opinion influenced by, 7–8; religion and, 34; theater and, 12–14; La venganza de la gleba and, 61; Virgin of Guadalupe and, 43–44 Porfirian hegemony, 60, 70 power: of theater, 4–5; in La venganza de la gleba, 65–66 powerlessness, 167 presidentialism, Mexican, 54, 174n4 PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional), 34, 115 private sphere, social media and, 118–19 privilege, 27; La mujer que cayó del cielo and, 148, 155; university students and, 155–57, 163; white, 85 progressive movement, in Mexico, 15 public opinion, political influence of, 7–8 public sphere: art and influence of, 4; social media and, 118–19; transnationality and, 4 pueblo, in La venganza de la gleba, 66–67 Quetzalcóatl, festival of, 36 Quijano, Aníbal, 44 Quintero, Rita Patino, 147–48

racism: Chicanos in U.S. and, 81; in colonialist discourse, 149; indigenous peoples and, 76–77, 90–91; Sleepy Lagoon murder trial and, 86; in U.S., 25, 81, 102–3; Zoot Suit and, 90 Ramírez, Catherine S., “Saying ‘Nothin’: Pachucas and the Language of Resistance,” 86–87 Rancière, Jacques, 4–5 Rascón Banda, Víctor Hugo, 130; Berman compared with, 131; Leñero and, 131–32. See also La mujer que cayó del cielo relajo, concept of, 116 religion: Catholic Church, 34; “Catholic” naturalism, 70; for Gamboa, 76–77; politics and, 34 resistance, silence and, 86–87 Ricaño, Alejandro, 30, 160; Más pequeños que el Guggenheim, 29, 168–71, 200nn4–5; “a veces el pato nada,” 169–70 Rizk, Beatriz, 29, 109, 111, 194n27 Roach, Joseph, 30, 36–37 Rodó, José Enrique, “Ariel,” 118 Rodríguez, Jesusa, 13–15 Said, Edward, 59; Orientalism, 90–91 Sanneh, Kelefa, 123–24 Santa (Gamboa), 55, 70 “Saying ‘Nothin’: Pachucas and the Language of Resistance” (Ramírez), 86–87 Schechner, Richard, 17, 171 Scott, James C., 54; Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 55–56; on La venganza de la gleba, 65–67 self-expression, 120 the servants of the land. See los siervos de la gleba sex work, 165

222 INDE X

Shalalá (television program), 7, 130–31 Shibley, George, 84; Sleepy Lagoon murder trial and, 98–99; in Zoot Suit, 98 los siervos de la gleba (the servants of the land), 58 silence, resistance and, 86–87 Simulacra and Simulation (Baudrillard), 138–39 simulation: in Backyard/Traspatio, 137–39; in El gesticulador, 137–39; map and, 138 Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee (SLDC), 88, 96–97 Sleepy Lagoon murder trial, 24–25, 83; activism around, 96–97; Krentz murder and, 92; racism and, 86; Shibley and, 98–99; women and, 87, 97. See also Zoot Suit social change: art and, 5–6, 158–60; theater and, 6–7, 29; in La venganza de la gleba, 77 socialism, in La venganza de la gleba and, 61–62 social media, 7–8, 27, 111–12; participation in, 121; public and private spaces in, 118–19; surveillance of, 166. See also Facebook; Twitter Spain, 32. See also colonial Mexico spectacle, 22 spectators, 11 structures of feeling, 9, 127 surveillance: Internet, 113; in Mexico City, 21; of social media, 166 synopticon, 113 Taylor, Diana, 18, 42–43; Theatre of Crisis, 22 teatreros (actors, directors, etc.), 13, 16 Teatro Avante, 29 El Teatro Campesino, 29, 99, 102; farmworker movement and, 153–54

teatro de barrio (neighborhood theater), 19 Teatrotaller, 29, 165–67 television, 37; government-subsidized, 175n5; Shalalá, 7, 130–31 testimonial literature, 157 theater: of absurd, 171; allies in, 154; collaborative, 166; decentralization of, 19; discussion and, 111; farce in, 49–50; government-subsidized, 36–37, 132–33; lindar and impact of, 11; La mujer que cayó del cielo and, 148; political, 76; politics and, 12–14; power of, 4–5; social change and, 6–7, 29; space of, 16; ticket prices, 19; topics of, 131; transformational, 36; transformative power of, 9–10; universities and, 167. See also documentary theater; outside theater Transborder Immigrant Tool, 164 transformational theater, 36 transformative power: of actors/­ performers, 10–11; of art, 5–6; of humor, 33; of theater, 9–10 transnationality, public sphere and, 4 Treré, Emiliano, 8–9 Trujillo, Víctor, 33, 53 Twitter, 122–23 underdogs. See los de abajo United States (U.S.): Ferguson, Missouri, 161–62; Internet censorship in, 193n18; Los Angeles, California, 85; mental health system in, 151; Mexican immigrants to, 25, 79–80; Mexico-U.S. border, 27, 91, 133; racism in, 25, 81, 102–3; universities in, 28–29. See also anti-­ immigrant legislation, U.S.; Chicanos, U.S.; immigration policy, U.S. Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, 162–63

INDE X 223

universities: activism and, 162–63, 165; La mujer que cayó del cielo and, 155–56; theater and, 167; U.S., 28–29 university students: activism of, 154–55, 160–62; privilege and, 155–57, 163 Usigli, Rodolfo, 20, 131. See also El gesticulador utopian performatives, 10–11 Valdez, Luis: Martinez and, 102–4; on McGrath, 94. See also Zoot Suit “a veces el pato nada,” 169–70 La venganza de la gleba (Gamboa), 24, 43, 107; campesino in, 63–64; class in, 60, 64–65, 67; colonial heredity and, 69; Díaz, P., regime in, 57; domination in, 66; don Francisco character in, 61, 64; hidden transcript in, 67–68; irony in, 58–59; language in, 63; masks in, 56, 63–64; naturalism in, 58, 69–70; politics and, 61; power structure in, 65–66; pueblo and, 66–67; Scott on, 65–67; socialism in, 61–62; social message of, 58, 77; studies on, 57–58 Versényi, Adam, 36, 175n6 Victoria, Guadalupe, in 1822: El año que fuimos imperio, 50–52 violence: in Ciudad Juárez, 133, 136; on Mexico-U.S. border, 91; sexualization of, 144–45; against women, 134–35, 145, 147; zoot suit riots, 85. See also femicide, in Ciudad Juárez Virgin of Guadalupe: colonial Mexico and, 41–42; in 1822: El año que fuimos imperio, 35–36; imagery, 34–36; male and female perspectives on, 43; Mier and, 39–41; political usage of, 43–44

war on drugs, 36–37 Welles, Orson, 86 white privilege, 85 Williams, Raymond, 9, 127 women: in Backyard/Traspatio, 141–42; in Ciudad Juárez, 140, 142; Ciudad Juárez and abduction of, 134; oppression of, 142; Sleepy Lagoon murder trial and, 87, 97; victimization of, 141–42; violence against, 134–35, 145, 147; Virgin of Guadalupe to, 43; in Zoot Suit, 88. See also femicide, in Ciudad Juárez #yosoy132 movement, 8–9, 120–21 Zinn, Howard, 26, 125 Zola, Émile, 56–58 Zoot Suit (Valdez), 5, 12, 24–25; activism in, 95–96, 100; allies and, 21, 82, 101–2; Arizona’s anti-immigrant law SB1070 and, 78–79, 84; Chávez, C., on, 154; Chicanos and, 79–81, 105; criticism of, 88; love story in, 93; Martinez on, 101–2; McGrath character in, 94–95; Mexico City production of, 102, 104–5; National Theater Company production, 78–79; outside agitator in, 83–84, 98; pachuco in, 89; Pomona College production of, 103–4, 168; racism and, 90; Shibley character in, 98; Tommy Roberts character in, 80; tradition in, 88–89; white “savior” in, 98; women in, 87–88 zoot suit riots, 85, 92; Arizona’s anti-­ immigrant law SB1070 compared with, 101 Zúñiga, Antonio, 19–20

About the Author

Stuart A. Day is a professor of Spanish and senior vice provost for academic affairs at the University of Kansas. He is an author, editor, or contributor to several books, including Staging Politics in Mexico: The Road to Neoliberalism.