Through smiles and laughs, a group of women can be seen practicing theater techniques at a local Santa Rosa, California park. All of them immigrants, all of them hard workers. This is a theatre troupe made up of farmworker and domestic workers women in Sonoma County.
All of them have similar backgrounds but come from different walks of life. For most, acting is a form of expression where they can become liberated. They can open up, release tension, trauma, and turn their difficult past into art. Many left lives behind when they immigrated to the U.S., and their present is about embracing what is in front of them. And Teatro Almas Libres is giving them the space to just be.
When Remezcla spoke with them they were preparing for their next play La Madre Patria (Motherland). The group was led by Jackie Katz, their theater teacher.
On that Saturday afternoon, she asks the ladies to choose an element of a tree they want to be. One says “I am roots,” another says “I am an apple,” and they have to act as what they chose. With their bodies, one woman kneels to the floor to represent the roots. Another hangs like a fruit. Katz puts them out of their comfort zone and these actresses are up for the challenge.
Eloisa Hernandez, 43, is originally from Oaxaca, México. She has been living in the states for more than 15 years and learned about the theater group through the Almas Libres collective. Almas Libres is a program of Raizes Collective, a cultural and political empowerment organization in Sonoma County. Hernandez has participated in all three plays which the theater club has conducted. But Hernandez was no stranger to public speaking or expression, she said. Before this, she had played a few roles at church. It’s common for Mexican catholic churches to create fictitious biblical scenarios during Christmas time or Easter.
“At first it was difficult because I felt really embarrassed to speak, but I like all these kinds of things because I have been losing my fear of speaking,” Hernandez said in Spanish. “I was very shy, and now I’ve lost more than anything, the fear of being able to speak, of being able to say no. There are things I don’t like and now I can communicate. Before, I always kept quiet. I think that’s what I liked most, being able to empower myself to speak.”
Hernandez has worked as a farm worker and currently she cleans houses. She said the performances usually are centered around themes which the women feel passionate about. For example, immigration reform, leaving your country behind, etc.
La Madre Patria from Teatro Almas Libres focuses on mothers. How mothers work, where they leave their children but also the motherland. Where it all began.
Hernandez said she doesn’t mind what role she is given but she likes the adrenaline of a challenge. And during her practice time at the park, Katz asked Hernandez to recreate a scene. Hernandez had to pretend she asked someone to marry her and that person said no to her. But the fictitious scenario hit too close to home.
Hernandez had been married before and her relationship ended. “I don’t want to live through that moment again,” she said. But regardless, she did the exercise. Hernandez said she understands when it comes to a performance, sometimes you have to do things you do not like or want to. “Because it’s an act, it’s not really going to happen.”
Hernandez feels grateful for the space and opportunity to evolve this theater club has given her. She said her upbringing was filled with repressed emotions. “My parents used to tell me, ‘You can’t laugh, you can’t talk’,” she said. But theater has allowed her to break free from these ideals and every day, she learns something new.
Hernandez is a mother of three, she herself has not been able to see her parents in 17 years. That is something which weighs heavy in her heart. She is also a single mother now. “I’m grateful to God and very happy because, despite all the difficulties I’ve experienced and been through here in this country, my son, he’s going to finish his degree in electrical engineering and I’m very excited and very happy because he’s going to graduate on June 14,” she said between tears.
Ana Salgado, originally from the Mexican state of Morelos, has been living in Santa Rosa for the last 35 years. This is her first time acting but she has been a part of Almas for at least three years. But she has always been interested in the arts; Salgado is a poetry writer. And she began crafting her own poems at six-years-old.
“I write about the feelings one has when you’re far from your family, from your homeland.
I also write what my life has been like in the United States, being an immigrant and facing the language, the cultures,” she said in Spanish. She continued, “And how knocking on doors sometimes isn’t easy for you and that you have to open them.”
Just like Hernandez, this theater club has allowed her to learn how to express her emotions and not repress them. “It’s like a way of communicating without speaking the same language,” she said.
Maria Mendoza, 70-years-old, is also a part of the club. The Mexican woman from the state of Michoacan has been living in Santa Rosa for the last 34 years. Acting for her is a way of practicing activism. She believes it can change minds better than other regular methods.
“I think theater is a way to reach people so they understand the message a little bit more. So, it’s not the same if I go and hand out flyers or if I go and talk to people, but if they see you acting it out—it’s like we connect more with them, with the people, and the message reaches their hearts more,” Mendoza said in Spanish.
Katz, the teacher, became involved in 2020 after talking to the organization’s director about a possibility of a theater club. In the beginning, classes started over Zoom. “I was showing up as this outsider, who does not speak Spanish, which is really not great,” Katz said, who is able to communicate with her students through translation and human emotion.
Regardless of not speaking Spanish, ten women were interested when she first announced the theater classes. And as the ladies rehearsed more after the day Remezcla spoke with them, Katz also has a retreat planned for them where she will include creative writing and a space for members to connect with their peers.
“Because as an ensemble, it’s really important to build trust and to know each other’s strengths and how to best work with each other and know where everyone’s coming from in this moment of their life,” she said.
At the end of the day, art is liberation. And Teatro Almas Libres is giving these resilient women a safe space to open up and be themselves, freely.
This is the first time Katz leads a group of only women. She said she learns from them every time and feels the space of being around strong, resilient women is a safe one. It’s a space where these women can open up and be themselves, freely.
