Shaikha Almawlani
Staff Writer
Student performers exposed their thoughts on Latin revolutions and immigration policies through poetry for their final projects in a January performance course offered by the theater department.
The class, Staging the Latinx Revolution, focused on analyzing the dramatic literature that rose after the 1960s in order to better understand Latino immigrants and their backgrounds.
“The purpose of the class is to begin to understand where these people are coming from and why they are coming,” said Alma Martinez, artist in residence and professor of the class.
“Why are these immigrants coming here? Who are they? What are the experiences that they are going through that brings them to this country?”
The course examined the revolutions in Latin America based on the plays that were inspired from that time period’s events.
Students learned about the United States’ historical economic foothold in Latin America and the causes that led immigrants to the United States in search for a better way of life.
“The class looks at the U.S. involvement, both political and economic, and how that prompted a lot of the immigration flow,” Martinez said.
Due to the diversity of students at the university, Martinez is open to discussing similar immigration stories that occurred elsewhere in the world and the issues of tolerance and overcoming differences.
“It is important that we all understand our experiences, not just Latino,” Martinez said.
“Whether you identify as white European, black, Indian, or East Asian, everybody needs to understand the experience of the western hemisphere.”
Noel Cabrera, senior public relations major, had never taken a theater performance class before, but found the topic interesting.
“I don’t have an interest in (performance),” Cabrera said. “But when I figured out it was about the plays and the articles and writing that were going on through the different Latin revolutions, all through Central to South America, I thought this is a pretty interesting take. I would actually like to learn about this stuff.”
As a part of his final project, Cabrera took the opportunity to examine his own family’s history.
Through spoken word poetry, he discussed his family’s struggle immigrating to the United States from Mexico.
“It was mainly me speaking out toward my family’s own homeland, Mexico,” Cabrera said.
“It talked about the struggle of immigrants trying to migrate throughout the U.S. and the oblivious American ideal that immigrants do not belong in a country that is founded on immigration.”
Nadira Fatah, junior photojournalism major, was also inspired to share her own personal experience on revolutions, tolerance, and differences through poetry.
“The class is really interesting, and the professor really knows what she is talking about,” Fatah said.
“I did not know a lot about the class going in, and I did not know much about the Latino struggle.”
Fatah collaborated with Corey Redeaux, junior criminology major, on their final project for the class.
Fatah and Redeaux took advantage of the assignment and explored the revolutions that occurred in their countries of origin.
Fatah’s family comes from Italy and Redeaux’s from Algeria.
“We collaborated together and talked about the struggles in America, and then Italy and Algeria and connected it all together to share a positive image,” Fatah said.
“Corey wrote it in English with me, then I went ahead and translated it into other languages.”
The class offered a platform for students to learn more about the revolutions’ causes and effects, and the impacts they had on North, Central and South America.
Some students even did their own research outside of class.
“It benefited me because I got to take a step back on everything that I was learning, and I sort of looked up the entire history of my family’s own country,” Cabrera said.
“Because of this one class now I know a really generalized history of Mexico.”
Shaikha Almawlani can be reached at shaikha.almawlani@laverne.edu.
