SEDOAC was recently invited to participate in an artistic project with Usera Feminists. The group is collecting oral histories from women in the neighborhood to adapt as theatrical performances. At the meeting I attended, two of the participants presented one such performance to a crowd of senior Spanish women in a small auditorium of Usera library. The piece was modeled after a letter a participant developing Alzheimers had written to her niece about migrating to the Usera neighborhood from rural Spain. One actress read the letter aloud while another played the part of the letter-writer, reminiscing about her childhood. The presentation ended in a symbolic embrace between the letter-reader and the letter-writer – you would have thought you were at the Tony Awards, the way the audience exploded in tearful applause.
After the performance, SEDOAC representatives brainstormed about how they could participate in the project. They were concerned they wouldn’t have anything relevant to contribute, but I disagreed. The women I’ve worked with at SEDOAC are master storytellers, whether they realize it or not. Their ability to narrate their experiences in an engaging, structured way is uncanny and practiced (one would assume so considering the number of researchers flocking to their door in search of their stories). Consider Angela, from Peru, who recounted an instance when she stood up to her employer:
“I was a live-in with an older woman and her children said that no employee had been able to put up with her. She didn’t like the food I made for her. And what would I do? I would fry some garlic and make spaghetti with meatballs. I had no idea what a meatball even was – I tried doing it as best I could. She’d be on the phone saying, ‘She doesn’t even know how to cook! She doesn’t even know how to cook!’ I heard here one, two, three times. And on the fifth time, I told her, ‘You know what, lady? I’m not here to be your cook! You didn’t hire me to be a cook. I’m not a cook. I’ve cooked for my children, but I don’t have the title of a cook.’ And the woman replied, ‘You have a big temper, Angela! You’re never gonna last as a domestic employee…’ And I stayed there for 8 months. The woman was accustomed to me and when I told her I’d leave, she said didn’t want me to, even though I spoke back to her and yelled at her… Because she was used to me.”
Angela would lower her voice to imitate her boss’s incredulous tone and fling her arms to the sky as she punctuated the moment she reached her breaking point. She utilized all the typical elements of storytelling – setting, characters, dialogue, conflict – and had a clear idea of what she wanted her audience to take from the story. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time, thinking to myself: “Angela is an artist. This is what they teach at NYU Tisch!”
Delia, from Paraguay, shares Angela’s talent. She migrated to Madrid 16 years ago after her small business fell victim to Paraguay’s economic strain. Delia worked as a live-in employee upon arriving, but her lack of documentation resulted in her internment at a Centro de Internamiento de Extranjeros, the Spanish equivalent of an ICE detention facility. She describes the CIE as akin to Guantanamo. Now, years after that experience, Delia is spending her free time at acting workshops where she hones her storytelling skills. She tells me that this art form has been a way to reclaim her personality, heal from the time she spent incarcerated in homes and facilties, and uncover the woman who she had been prior to migrating: “I used to subjugate myself to everything…In my country I was an empowered woman, I never let anyone speak down to me…I thought ‘where did that Delia go?’ I wanted to do this theater thing to become myself again.”
I used to act too, but gave it up after pressure and exploitation from the New York entertainment industry. That Delia considered acting restorative and joyful reminded me of why I loved doing it in the first place. Spending time with her, Angela, and the Usera Feminists, I once again witnessed the power of storytelling in action (without the veneer of Broadway glamor). The way they tell their stories speak to a theory of change based in the transformative potential of narrative art rather than damage-centered research.
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