So last year I learned that I was the recipient of a Far South/Border North grant to create a campaign using my art to raise awareness about crucial issues affecting under-resourced San Diego and Imperial Valley communities. I decided to work with the community of San Ysidro. I knew I would write and produce a play but I didn't know what it was going to be about. Then I went on a walking tour of San Ysidro with the environmental expert at Casa Familiar (a San Ysidro community support organization) who described the terrible air quality and how it was affecting children. There and then, I decided to write a play about air and it would be called "Somos Aire" (We Are Air). I would engage young people to help shape the script and we would bring a beautiful piece of theatre to a community that deserves to be honored for its resiliency in spite of all of its challenges.
The result was a borderlands steampunk fairytale where a young woman returns to her hometown of San Ysidro in search of a cure that will save her sister and her community. Exploring issues of environmental justice and air quality, “Somos Aire” is a play about history, homecoming, and hope.
The show was to open and close on June 20. But it was a "sold out" audience (tickets were free but reservations required) and there was a demand for more shows. We later performed for the San Diego Air Pollution Control District. It was a fully packed house with an audience of community members, elected officials, and key staff and board members of SDAPCD. We then were offered two more shows coming up.
But our story did not end there.
While I truly believe in the transformative power of theatre, as a theatre artist/lover and person of color, I also recognize the limitations of theatre as far as access, logistical and otherwise. So how could the "Somos Aire" story continue beyond our one and only performance? And how could young people access it? Well, we decided to do a comic book. I wrote it and my sister Zulema did the art. And whaddya know? Thanks to my "Somos Aire" collaborator and fellow FSBN grantee, Johnny Bear Contreras, we ended up on our own panel at Comic-Con: Indigenous and Latinx Public Art: Turning Stage Plays into Comics. In this panel, which was a packed room, we shared how "Somos Aire" came about and how collaborations were instrumental in breathing life and joy first into the play and then into the comic.
One of the unique aspects of my work is my continued collaboration with my sister, Zulema. She is an artist (she was the set and costume designer for "Somos Aire") but she is also a PhD who is a comics-based researcher. She did the art for the comic book and pulled it off with what I would say is a ridiculously aggressive timeline. But she believed, as I did, in the mission to get this comic book in the hands of the youth of San Ysidro (we distributed them after our performance--which also happened to be the last day of the Casa Familiar summer camp). In spite of all of the kind words we have heard from audience members who have felt seen, it was the show where we performed for kids, that I consider to be our most important performance. "Somos Aire" is about reimagining a world for the youth of a community that is so often overlooked.
I don't know that there has ever been a play written about San Ysidro. I have asked around but no one recalls any. So it was important to put on a good show. In the great scheme of things, our budget was tiny but what we lacked in funds, we made up for in artistry. Our actors were phenomenal. Our sets and costumes were magical. Our company was all heart. If I sound like a proud mom, it's because I am. There is great responsibility in bringing attention to a community that is often only known for its deficits or worst moments. This is a consideration that we, as a company, all carried with us. This is why we had to be all heart. And through it all, we remembered que todos somos aire.
Wanna read the script? Check it out here.