– Director of La Víctima, recounting audience responses to this play on immigration

La Víctima is a play about crossing the Mexican-American border, written by Teatro Campesino in the 1970s.  Its relevance to today’s immigrants was demonstrated by the enthusiastic response of community members to a recent production put on by the organization Latinos Progresando.  They staged the play in a variety of venues, including a church basement in Little Village and a theater in Pilsen.  In addition to serving as a vehicle for raising political awareness, La Víctima broke through the social isolation experienced by some recent immigrants, and tried to create a bridge between immigrant parents and their children.  The director recounted that three people from the audience came up to her and cried.  She recalled the essence of what one audience member said: 

1. "I was touched....The scene where you smuggle the mother into the U.S....I went through that, I was in the car and my mum was naïve enough to put me in the trunk...I could breathe because there was a little hole where the [spare] tire should have been."

The director continued:

1. I didn’t realize it until people come to me and tell me....that we are telling their story.  I think that’s why people cry, because they realize that ‘Oh my God, just when I thought that I went through this all by myself, I didn’t.... They actually put my story up there.’

La Víctima allowed viewers to identify with the characters on stage, and publicly deal with a psychologically charged aspect of immigrant life that is rarely talked about.


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