Latinx Identity Formation through Contemporary Theatre and Scripts

Many contemporary scholars and authors make the claim that the Chicano movement today is not the same as it was when it first began in the 1960s in the United States. If there were a way for the movement to remain active, however, it would be through the power of theatre. There is a long history tying the Chicano movement from the very beginning to theatre as a way for actors in the movement to claim identity, develop a Latinx consciousness and make political statements.

Though the Hispanic communities within the United States had begun to question their rights long before the civil rights era, the decades of the sixties and seventies were when the Chicano Movement finally gained political traction. Among other things, they demanded reforms in education, rights for farm workers and land restoration. Activists were from every part of the United States, ranging from student groups to migrating farm workers and just as the movement allowed them to join together in a united front, it also enabled new identities to be forged for previously marginalized Hispanics and Latinos. 

In the midst of this time period, Chicano theatre was born. It began with activist Luis Valdez, a former farm worker who wanted to use theatre to organize and educate farm workers about what they were fighting for. The striking workers developed skits based on their experiences to help others understand the conditions they worked under and why going on strike was not a choice but a necessity. Out of these skits blossomed the beginnings of the Chicano theatre movement with the creation of El Teatro Campesino.

Initially, the theatre company developed actos that spoke out about justice through satirization in order to spur the audience to action, always tieing the production in some way to the roots of Hispanic culture. Over the years they moved away from solely farm worker related issues to focus on broad topics such as racial discrimination, the barrio and Mexican-American culture. Students began to join in the theatre movement, finding a way to reconnect to their heritage through acting, dancing and musical performances. 

Today, the legacy of El Teatro Campesino and the Chicano movement lives on in the production of plays that deal with issues that first and second generation Latinx immigrants face. Forming an identity that connects to your heritage is becoming increasingly hard in a country that demands immigrants conform to an American norm. However, the scholaship surrounding the topic suggests that through the filter of theatre and in particular Hispanic and Latino scripts, it is possible for performers to talk about the 'Americanization' process that immigrants from Central or Latin American countries face when they come to America. One scholar proposes that it is possible to track the acclimitization of Mexican-Americans to American culture through such scripts, providing a platform to explore what it is to be both Mexican and American as well as the choice to identify with one, both or a combination of the two.

Before exploring the scripts that form identities today, take a look at the type of photo that shaped the Latinx representation in the 1930s, that of a Hispanic or Latinx Migrant Farmer on the next page. Just as Spanish-speaking theatre companies brought Hispanic culture into the Southwest, documenting the experience of farmers who migrated north from their home allowed their voices to be heard.