EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS AT CARA MÍA THEATRE
PRE-SHOW STUDENT WORKBOOK Grades 7- 12 PRE-SHOW STUDENT WORKBOOK / Grades 7 - 12
ABOUT THE PLAY
With a minimal set, various puppets, and a performance rooted in movement, performer Frida Espinosa Müller transforms into over 10 characters to tell this story of child detention at the Southern border through the mind of a child. Ursula is performed primarily in Spanish with English subtitles. Intertwining this story are voice overs from government officials that are both against and in support of the zero- tolerance policy, the border wall, and the treatment of immigrants. This highly theatrical one-woman performance opens the door to conversations that help communities understand the immigration crisis at the border and begin to collectively envision solutions.
TERMS TO KNOW
Refugee: A person who, owing to well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinions, is outside the country of their nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country. (World Health Organization)
Asylum Seeker: An individual who is seeking international protection. In countries with individualized procedures, an asylum-seeker is someone whose claim has not yet been finally decided on by the country in which he or she has submitted it. Not every asylum-seeker will ultimately be recognized as a refugee, but every refugee is initially an asylum-seeker. (World Health Organization)
Migration: The movement of a person or a group of persons, either across an international border, or within a State. It is a population movement, encompassing any kind of movement of people, whatever its length, composition and causes; it includes migration of refugees, displaced persons, economic migrants, and persons moving for other purposes, including family reunification. (World Health Organization)
Immigration: The act of leaving one's country and moving to another country of which they are not natives, nor citizens, to settle or reside there, especially as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. In the United States Immigration and Nationality Act, an immigrant is an individual seeking to become a Lawful Permanent Resident in the United States. (US Homeland Security)
Immigrant (US): Any permanent migrant in the United States. A migrant who entered the United States without inspection, would be strictly defined as an immigrant under the INA but is not a permanent resident. Lawful permanent residents are legally accorded the privilege of residing permanently in the United States. They may be issued immigrant visas by the Department of State overseas or adjusted to permanent resident status by the Department of Homeland Security in the United States. (US Immigration and Nationality Act) PRE-SHOW STUDENT WORKBOOK / Grades 7 - 12
Why is it important to talk about immigration and migration together?
Everyone has an immigration or migration story
Why is it important to talk about immigration and migration together? Well, it's because immigration and migration are connected. Those stories are interlinked, and everyone has an immigration or a migration story.
When I think about stories of immigration and migration, I reflect on my grandmother’s story. As a 19-year-old young girl and sharecropper in the 1940s, she felt that she had to flee the southern states of the US. She decided one night to pack up all of the belongings and hop on a train that she knew was headed north. My grandmother did this to escape the violence of the Jim Crow South. She headed to Chicago, a place where she had no family members and no sense of where she would live, work, or how she would earn money but knew that she was escaping violence.
My grandmother’s story is the same story of young people who are fleeing their countries from hardships and violence and seeking asylum with hopes of a better future. In Ursula, Nadia and her mother left a violent Honduras with hopes of a better future, just like my grandmother.
These stories are similar, and they mirror each other because people are fleeing the violence that they are not guilty of themselves but are experiencing. Everyone in this country has an immigration or migration story. PRE-SHOW STUDENT WORKBOOK / Grades 7 - 12
Activity: What is your family’s story?
Interview your family members to learn where your family comes from and how they arrived to where they live now. Make sure you write down all of the places your family has lived. You should be familiar with the location(s) and should easily be able to identify them on a map. When the class is ready, students will each add a pin (or pins) to a large map so you all can see the variety of places everyone is from. You may add pins to the map anonymously if you do not wish to share your name. PRE-SHOW STUDENT WORKBOOK / Grades 7 - 12
Activity: What is your family’s story? PRE-SHOW STUDENT WORKBOOK / Grades 7 - 12
Activity: What is your family’s story? EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS AT CARA MÍA THEATRE
MID-SHOW STUDENT WORKBOOK Grades 7- 12 MID-SHOW STUDENT WORKBOOK / Grades 7 - 12
Borders are political boundaries, not human boundaries
When we contemplate the political boundaries that separate us, we think about the names North America, Central America, and South America. We think about the names of countries, such as the United States of America, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. These political boundaries have separated us, and they are not natural. The indigenous history of North America or South America shows that these land masses had different names. For example, the bodies of water had different descriptors here in Dallas. The Trinity River wasn't called originally the Trinity. The Caddo American Indians called it the Arikosa River. The images below show how natural land masses such as the Sonoran Desert and Native land such as that of the Tohono O'odham are divided by political boarders.
It's really important for us to understand that these boundaries were not always here. In fact, they are relatively new. Some boundaries are less than one hundred years old. The boundary that exists between Mexico and the United States of America is less than 400 years old. Before that political boundary, there were only geographical ones.
See the map of the area now called Dallas on the left without any borders between cities. Each color represents different traditional Native American lands. See the map on the right that shows the current borders between the cities surrounding Dallas. MID-SHOW STUDENT WORKBOOK / Grades 7 - 12
ACTIVITY: What is a border?
List the obstacles that Nadia and her mother faced when crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. How would Nadia’s and her mother’s lives be different if a border did not exist between the United States and Latin America? MID-SHOW STUDENT WORKBOOK / Grades 7 - 12
ACTIVITY: What is a border? MID-SHOW STUDENT WORKBOOK / Grades 7 - 12
ACTIVITY: What is a border? EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS AT CARA MÍA THEATRE
POST-SHOW STUDENT WORKBOOK Grades 7- 12 POST-SHOW STUDENT WORKBOOK/ Grades 7-12
Our lives and issues are connected
You have just experienced Ursula, a play by Frida Espinosa Müller. Take a moment to share what you are thinking after watching the film. What are you feeling? What do you feel prompted to do after watching Nadia’s story? Do you relate in any way to this story? You may be reminded of stories that you have heard. You may know someone who has sought out asylum at the border. You may not know how to communicate your thoughts but feel empathy and pain for Nadia. This proves that our lives and our issues are connected.
Though we may live in separate communities and neighborhoods, attend different schools, think that our issues are different, or think that we don't have a lot in common. That could not be further from the truth. The truth is that all of our lives are connected and what you do affects me. What happens to me affects you.
Take littering as an example. If I was to litter, particularly next to a sewer, that piece of paper will go down a drain into the sewer that empties out into the Trinity River. The Trinity River is our main water source. It is the water source that connects us, it is our drinking water, and the water that we use to shower ourselves and take baths. It is really important that we know that we are all connected. Our lives are also connected because we have to think about our differences and how those differences make us stronger and make us better as a group of people.
We have to think about differences in race and ethnicity, differences in class and economy, differences in gender and ability, and create a world that's for everybody. POST-SHOW STUDENT WORKBOOK/ Grades 7-12
ACTIVITY: What are our connections?
Nadia often talks about her dreams openly. She expects, hopes, and dreams of different circumstances and living conditions than she's experiencing. Write ten words that describe Nadia's hopes, dreams, and expectations. Share and compare your thoughts with the class. Did anyone write the same things? If so, why do they think those things were so important to Nadia? Do all people deserve what Nadia dreamt about? Why or why not? Now I want you to talk about your dreams, how you visualize the world you want to see, and what issues you are passionate about. Now, write down ten words that encompass all those thoughts. I want you to write down words that are really important to you. These words can be things that you're passionate about, things that you are thinking about, or even things you are going through. After you write down your words, get with a partner. What were the connections? Did you all write the same words? If there are any similar words, you should talk about them. Why do you think that you all have some similar ideas? Why and how are they connected? How many of their issues are the same as yours? Do you have different words? How many are different? If so, do they represent different ideas? I also want you to talk about those with your partner, or the class. Why do you think that those ideas are different? As a class, compare and talk about those words and think about what we can do next as a group of people together to create the world that we want to see. Let's think about this as we write down those issues and understand that all of our issues and our lives are connected. You have space on the following pages to write down your thoughts and your ten words.
Artwork by School of YES Student Ivana Gamez POST-SHOW STUDENT WORKBOOK/ Grades 7-12
ACTIVITY: What are our connections? POST-SHOW STUDENT WORKBOOK/ Grades 7-12
ACTIVITY: What are our connections? POST-SHOW STUDENT WORKBOOK/ Grades 7-12
ACTIVITY: What are our connections?
Your 10 Words Your Partner's 10 Words EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS AT CARA MÍA THEATRE
ABOUT THE ARTISTS Cara Mía Theatre
Cara Mía Theatre inspires and engages people to uplift their communities through transformative Latinx theatre, multicultural youth arts experiences and community action. In 1996, co-founder Eliberto Gonzalez founded Cara Mía Theatre because he believed that Chicano literature and its writers ought to be more accessible to the general public. With Adelina Anthony, Gonzalez started the company as a vehicle to bring the Mexican-American experience to Dallas stages. The cultural breadth of Cara Mía Theatre’s plays has since expanded and the company’s artistic approach has simultaneously evolved, especially since the arrival of current Executive Artistic Director David Lozano in 2002. To expand the company’s reach to non-theatre going Latinos, Lozano chose to focus on creating new bilingual plays that were both topical and theatrically unique. Trained in physical theatre, Lozano formed a resident artistic ensemble that devised new works in the form of clown and mask performance, poetic movement and topical, issue-driven plays to speak to the experiences of the local Latinx community. Today, Cara Mía Theatre boasts of a resident artistic ensemble that creates new works and also produces classic and new plays by the most acclaimed Latinx playwrights in the nation. Frida Espinosa-Müller
Frida Espinosa-Müller is a Mexican-born artist. She holds her BFA in Dramatic Literature and Theatre at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (U.N.A.M.), and studied physical theatre at the Diplomado Teatro del Cuerpo (DTdC) in Mexico City. In 2005, she joined Cara Mía Theatre’s Resident Ensemble where she has served as an actress, designer, and teaching artist. She has written and directed several children's plays that are part of CMT's repertory. Frida has also served Cara Mia Theatre as director, editor, and ensemble on the Broadway en Español Series with ATTPAC. She teaches theatre, puppetry, and visual arts as part of CMTC’s Educational Programs for Youth and through Dallas' Community Artist Program (CAP).
Frida’s designs include puppetry, props, costume and masks for CMT’S productions The Magic Rainforest, TEOTL: The Sand Show, Crystal City 1969, Nuestra Pastorela and Bless me Ultima, masks for the University of North Texas’s production of The Siege of Numantia, and costumes and masks for Yana Wana's Legend of the Bluebonnet in collaboration with the Dallas Children's Theatre
Some of her roles include the Nurse in Romeo and Julieta, Dolores in Zoot Suit, Rosa in Lydia, the title role in Yerma, the Mother and Death in Blood Wedding, la Niña in Nuestra Pastorela, Alicia in The Dreamers: A Bloodline and Abu in Deferred Action in collaboration with the Dallas Theater Center (parts one and two in Cara Mía’s trilogy on immigration), Mami and Lila in Yemaya’s Belly, Lupe in De Troya, Leaning Strong in Where Earth Meets the Sky, Magog in Gog and Magog, Tina in Tinas' Journey, Ultima in Bless me Ultima, and she was last seen as Nadia in URSULA or Letting yourself go with the Wind, written and directed by herself. Imagining Freedom Institute
The IF Institute is rooted in action-oriented, equitable & radical capacity building for institutions. The National IF Institute office is based in Dallas, TX. The IF Institute focuses on dismantling institutional and structural racism, providing historical analysis of inequitable policy and practices, addressing intersectionality in issues and solutions, implementing equity and social justice, and envisioning a more equitable society. IF builds organizational capacity to deliver on an equitable development mission and formalize organizational commitment at all levels to equity as an essential part of the mission and work.
Jerry Hawkins
Jerry is the executive director of Dallas Truth Racial Healing & Transformation, part of a national 14-city initiative by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and a co-founder of the Imagining Freedom Institute.
Jerry holds a B.S. in Early Childhood Education and Child and Family Services, Southern Illinois University and an M.A. in Education from Northeastern Illinois University with a concentration in Inner City Studies.
Jerry began his career at the Chicago Urban League as a Male Involvement Specialist, co-founded The Boys Leadership Institute, a uniquely designed early childhood “Saturday School” at The University of Chicago Donohue Charter School for African-American and Latinx kindergarten and 1st-grade boys from single- mother head-of- household homes.