Here's short story from Aryeh Shell, who wrote "Reclaiming Culture: ¡Que Viva La Posada!" for CAN in January. This is another story about her work with Somos Mayfair (We are Mayfair), a nonprofit organization that is using popular theater and culture to transform the community of east San José, California. It tells about their newest theater performance and workshop, "La Dulce Vida y la Amarga Muerte de Pancho Mojado (The Sweet Life and Bitter Death of Pancho Mojado)"; its topics is the dangers of diabetes. Thanks Aryeh!

La Dulce Vida: Participatory Theater Takes on Diabetes
By Aryeh Shell

SOMOS Mayfair is offering our newest theater performance and workshop to the Mayfair community. La Dulce Vida y la Amarga Muerte de Pancho Mojado (The Sweet Life and Bitter Death of Pancho Mojado) uses drama, humor and the traditional Mexican icon of La Catrina skeleton to show the dangers of diabetes brought on by unhealthy eating and the social and economic conditions that are at the root. La Catrina, or la Muerte, appears as death herself to seduce Pancho to the grave with the “American Dream” of excessive consumption. She uses the corporate food system and aggressive marketing to increase her business of claiming lives, and takes advantage of immigrant communities because of their minimal access to health care and healthy food in schools and the community. Pancha, the wife of Pancho, struggles to convince him to change his habits and take his diabetes seriously. He brushes her aside and denies that his illness is a problem, claiming that he has a right to “the good life”.

In developing the play, we held weekly theater workshops and rehearsals with two Mayfair women, in order to incorporate their life experiences and the messages they felt were important to communicate in the depiction of an immigrant family as it struggles to maintain its cultural values and create a healthy home for its children. Arturo Gomez, the Artistic Director of the Community Engagement program, incorporated their input into his writing of the script, so that the community could identify more closely with the narrative.

An indigenous character representing Life appeals to Pancho’s conscience to remember and honor the sacredness of life and our bodies with the poetry of Guatemala’s heroine Rigoberta Menchu: “Mi tierra, madre mis abuelos, sus manos llenos de lluvia, sus ríos transparentes, su dulce aire libre, sus fértiles montañas y el calor de su sol, hecho para crecer y multiplicar el maíz sagrado que formo los huesos de esta nieta.” “My earth, mother of my grandparents, your hands full of rain, your transparent rivers, your sweet air, your fertile mountains and the heat of your sun, made to grow and multiply the sacred corn that created the bones of this granddaughter.”

After the performances, we facilitate a series of follow-up popular education workshops in order to collectively analyze the social and environmental realities around them. Popular education uses stories, theater, and images as codes to mirror the conflicts that arise in people’s everyday lives. We don’t give the answers, but instead work with the community to come up with its own solutions to the problems presented.
We have performed in various community settings from school cafeterias to church services to Día de los Muertos events. Each theater presentation is followed by a group discussion to explore the causes of the growing diabetes epidemic in Latino families. After we present each play, we ask the audience:
• What problems did you see in the play?
• How do you relate with the story in your own lives?
• What are the root causes of this epidemic?
• What can we do about it?
Audience members erupt into conversation, seeing themselves reflected in the struggle of Pancho and Pancha and began sharing solutions on the individual, family, and community levels.

Before the presentations, we ask audience members what they understand about the causes of diabetes. We found that the majority of people either don’t know, think that diabetes is curable, or that it is only caused by hereditary factors. Upon our evaluation of the performance and at the end of the workshop series, participants have shown a more in-depth understanding of it’s social and environmental causes, beyond the individual behavior of unhealthy eating:

• “television and advertising influence our families’ unhealthy eating habits”
• “there is no access to organic and healthy food in local grocery stores”
• “there are no safe places to exercise in the community”
• “we don’t have access to health care or the money to pay for
medicine”
• “we have to focus on prevention”
• “we have to organize ourselves as a community to take action and change these conditions.”

Theater is a powerful tool that has given our community a voice and an opportunity to understand the conditions of their lives. These problems cannot be addressed alone. It inspires both participants and audience to collectively engage in dialogue and creative solutions.

   

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