 has a new play that ArtsEmerson is going to premiere in October called Mala and we announced that on Monday night at our season preview and so it just both shows happen to be by incredibly talented women and are about family and home and Cuba and being daughters of immigrant parents. So anyway I thought we could have a kind of it you know just a kind of an in-depth conversation about some of those themes and I'm going to talk with the two of you for a little bit and then I'll open it up for some questions. We'll go until five o'clock so it won't be a long conversation and is that all everybody good? Sound good? All right excellent and I guess I wanted to start it off with the two of you. We named this little conversation claiming your space and I was thinking about actually Kevin and I are thinking simultaneously right now so we were both thinking about out in the lobby that idea you've both written stories I know you both perform and and Melinda certainly you write other plays than the kind of play that Mala is and you both you know you have varied careers but in these the case of Daughter of a Cuban Revolutionary and Mala these are both very personal stories very personal stories about your family life and in in that world of claiming your space I guess the question that I was thinking about was when do you know it's time to tell those kind of stories like how do you know as an artist that you're going to tell something so incredibly personal and also in both the case of Daughter of a Cuban Revolutionary and then Mala Melinda is going to perform it and so in both cases you're performing these stories and so you've had an instinct that these are not just stories that you needed to tell but that you need to tell as actors as well as playwrights so anyway if you might not either of you want to start well it's interesting because I there's something in the play we talk about seeing this person on this roof across from my apartment building and he looked like my uncle Eddie and it was the middle of the night and he's waving a white handkerchief and waving at me and I you know it was the strangest thing that ever happened and you know and then I was having all these dreams and so I really felt like I was gently and sometimes not so gently being guided and saying you have to tell the story I felt I felt very much moved by my ancestors to tell them and then I started a whole process with my family members opening up some subjects and that were very painful and that was its own journey but I think the point happened for me where I had no choice I had to tell the story that's how it felt yeah my experience is very similar to yours I mean I think in general writing an idea or an image will infect my brain for example what Sonya flew I just kept turning over this idea of what would move a parent to give up their child right so I couldn't get that out of my head and I was thinking in it I couldn't get away from it was very interesting and compelling to me with Mala I feel like creating that was an act of desperation and survival I you know I I have this over my desk you know this kind of cradle where I try to write at least one true thing you know every day every other day just writes one thing that's true for me is in a period of my life where every part of my life was completely out of control do was try to survive in desperation I would reach for my cell phone in moments where I had 15 seconds and jot down a note on the cell phone at some point I went back and I looked at this collection of what inspiration and I thought it's a story and so Mala was born out of that out of a really an elemental need to express survival mechano right the difference between writing something that you think is important I'm gonna write a play about something important I'm gonna take an issue and write about it because it matters and writing about something that's true for you that's real for you that's an experience is profoundly intensely yours and having the faith that if you tell something true it will resonate truthfully among people that you don't know and maybe that you have nothing in common with right because I have faith that the human experience above all all other things unites us and so sometimes it's just about getting out of my own way and saying what I feel right now matters and I guess that's also I try to teach that when I teach playwriting and I say you know to my students your voice is unique and your voice needs to be in the world like however that manifests whether it's writing or singing or activism so sorry that's a long that's a long answer to a simple question you're getting is something interesting there both of you I think and it's something that I think about in both of your pieces what draws me to them is both the unfamiliar and the familiar so the unfamiliar being at you know I don't have it I'm not Cuban I don't have an experience of being a Cuban immigrant so I'm interested in the things I don't know about the stories that you're telling I'm Italian so sometimes I feel a little sense of simpatico in the you know what your mothers say to you but the but but it you know so it's the unfamiliar but then of course I think you're both getting at these very universal themes simultaneously and I just wonder about for you as artists that relationship between you know what's very specific to your experience and then how you're exploring these things that matter to all of us and I think that's the beauty in both of the you know in both of your work. Is there a question in there? I don't know, maybe it's just a comment but you know we spoke briefly last night I saw the show last night and Marissa and I had a conversation and I was talking to you about how with your show this experience of wanting to know your lineage you know that your show your play has so many layers that go so far back you know to the parents but also to the ancestors you talked about the ancestors you know the gods who watch over you and this and and again the fact that it's particularly first generation immigrant that seemed to me a very American thing right we talked a little bit about that like I think in particular it's for this country that's a story that we tell and retell a lot like where our people are from or you'll meet someone at a party and you'll say where are your people from that's a line I use a lot you know and they'll say well Poland via Afghanistan or you know I'm Persian but my mother was really Irish you know that everyone's got their origin story and I feel like that's also very specific to the place where we live like I don't think they do that in Sweden I don't think they do that in places where everyone is the same you know it's where it's very homogenous a very homogenous population so it may also again be like the specific the specific the conversation that's specific to us as Americans you know I think that's also something else to look at when we talk about these and right what is America what were we and what are we becoming I think this this thing of remembering is really important we were just talking in the lobby a little bit that I mean partly my impetus for writing the piece was to claim my father's place in Cuban history somebody who had been erased and also to discover you know something about my own self right about what we understand who we are by knowing what we come from I think and the Greek goddess of the arts is also the goddess of memory and I think that's really important there are things that we are tasked to do is artists to remember things that are uncomfortable for the culture that maybe the culture wants to pour concrete over and I think that's partly the friction sometimes you know both for ourselves to dig into histories and memories and remembering things but I think it's really important I think that's certainly I feel like that's a big part of our work I just want to throw out there Polly I think it's really important to state you know the way you open this discussion about you saw the work and you said we're producing it like that doesn't happen no no one does that for for artists for writers for actors it's a it's a gerbil wheel of years of development right everyone wants to do a reading of your play everyone wants to talk to you about the play you want you want to have endless meetings about how your play could be better but but to have an organization especially with the like these incredible facilities in this incredible visibility this power to say yes no maybe in four seasons I mean right it doesn't matter what we write we're performers that has to be seen right plays have to be produced they don't exist in the drawer and so all of our great ideas and love and care and activism doesn't matter without a producer who says this voice needs to be heard now and if the producers are only listening to the same voices the same race of performers of the same particular story of the same socioeconomic you know comfortable monologue audiences will I I think audiences will stop going to the theater because there's nothing is resonating with or the same thing keeps resonating it's like you don't hear the tone anymore because it's the same so I just want to say who does to what you you do you and David and David and all of all of you guys there but it's unbelievable as an artist to have a producer say yes thank you the yeah I mean and to that question about I mean just what stories get told what stories get heard I mean I guess you know in what way for you as artists and you both are experienced artists so you've been around and you know you have a history as you think about that history how how is America changing I mean you both are talking about that and how is it changing in the world of the stories that we're telling in the theater and other places I mean how do you how do you see it evolving in your experience there's there's so much change but I mean I I think the change has been happening for a long time I think there's a way in which voices that have been shut out are just kind of taking matters into their own hands and saying we're doing this that's certainly I'm part of the Latino theater Commons that was in many ways birthed in this room or the large gathering after the initial birth was in this room so this is a very special room to perform in for me and you know that it very much is yeah we're we're changing the narrative of the American theater we're claiming our space we're telling our stories we are promoting each other we are supporting each other and we're finding those allies who say yeah your voices should be heard as well I mean that's that's really that's really the big thing that's changed I did a project around the during the last election there was a lot of talk about traditional America being lost and that really got my back up and I thought okay I'm gonna do a piece about traditional America and so I did a piece called the LA founding families and a lot of people don't know that there were 44 people who founded men women and children that founded the city of LA and all but two were what we would call today people of color everyone else was the other two were white Spaniards and then the rest were all Native American African background and then all the different mixing so I mean and it was one of those things where when I took when we presented the piece there were a lot of people who were like whoa I didn't know this you know and it's so I think there's also something about revealing what's already there the change has happened and and it's about really I feel like our communities of color are stepping forward and claiming that space and saying yeah we're here we've been here right yeah and I would also just add I think at least we have finally arrived at the point where I think I can say no major American theater company will announce the season without women in it or without playwrights of color in it or if they do the community's going to raise holy hell I mean I think that that's something right where it used to be not it wasn't something even remarked on I don't think I think everyone understands they can't they cannot do that anymore if only for the sake of all the bad publicity they will get so I feel like the as Marissa was saying the community is so much more educated audiences are so much more educated about what they've been missing and making clear their demands on their local theaters their producers theaters that they subscribe subscribe to and saying this is not acceptable that sea change although it may be it was too long coming and it's certainly not enough it's by no means enough because for me until there's 50 you know until the 50% women in the season I still have a problem with that but but it's it's better so you know we have to keep pushing in terms of our collective activism both as both as artists and as consumers of art you know I mean switching gears a little but I keep circling around this question of and I'm thinking back about you know your comments about being first-generation immigrants and what story that is and then I think about in your work writing about home and I just wonder about what is home for you as you keep exploring this you know I just had this very bizarre experience of coming back I'm from a small town a very conservative town in Indiana and it's not home at all for me but it's also home it's such an odd you know like so I'm I'm always juggling how much it's not home and how much it is home simultaneously and I and I think about that in relationship to America versus Cuba versus you know and so can you just talk about how you navigate that both as artists but just you know like how you emotionally navigate that subject of home it's funny because when I went to Cuba the first time I thought I'm gonna be home I'm gonna feel at home and I was so not at home you know it was like wait a second this is supposed to be home why didn't that happen and you know I thought about this question a lot and I realize this room is home talking to you guys is home and and what's great is I'll meet artists from different parts of the world and like there's a when there's that there's so much that we share and I really feel like other artists and and that community who are working to create together that always feels like home to me like and that is I can find anywhere that's I can go anywhere in the world and I can find those group of people who are you know making work I would I always think about so I wrote a piece this is the first piece I wrote which was also semi-autobiographical but a lot of a lot of material about my doubt and in the play sort of the culmination of the play the line is it's a privilege to grow up in the place where you were born and to live a life I'm just quoting myself but but right what like how what an insane privilege is to grow old in the place where you were born right so like think about it who who does that right I mean does it anyone in this room been able to do that it you know as Americans were nomadic we're also people again we're from we're forced to move circumstances that are beyond our control or we choose a new home and I just think about the great migration that's happening in Europe and you know what is home to the people in from Syria like what will what will they look back on enough in a generation or two so so I actually think that that question is really tied up in a question of privilege because it's only the really well-connected successful I find safe financially stable people who get to grow old where they were born and and and I can't I can't like just can't help rethinking that given your family story in my family story which is similar the diaspora that so many of our generations have suffered and I just I wonder you just have to make home every day right every day you have to make your home with what you have the people around you right yeah and I mean I have mixed feelings about it because I also in terms of home having to do with a nation obviously I'm moving away from that right I I nationalism is very problematic for me and I grew up with you know and I'm sure Cubans are not the only culture but they're the best at everything right other Cubans think there's no one else that can make music that can do this that could do that well maybe it's true about music but sorry had to do it but you know that there's it's problematic and I I also grew up in a household where my father referred himself as a citizen of the world and I like that I like the idea of the citizen of the world I kind of think the survival of the planet depends on us thinking that way and that there's there's something about making a new kind of home in community you know in our extended community and communities that I like I like that home doesn't have to be although I love the earth and there's no question I love Cuba I loved being there as soon as I leave I want to come back you know I've been there five times and I've been there twice this year and I just keep like I gotta go back I gotta go back so yes it does the land of my ancestors has has a pool you know but home can be each day I like that a lot another question that arises for me with for both of you with your work I thinking about this a lot today because I've been trying very much to stay somehow to stay out of the world of politics right now like I mean you can't help but do it but in some way I don't want to be mad all the time so I've been trying you know to just not you know look too closely if I can help it and then I sort of I don't know I kind of blew a gasket this morning which I don't do very often after I read the paper and and I wonder about the way in which Cuba as a nation is just political I mean you just say Cuba and you're in such a charge political environment and and particularly in this country you say it I mean it's a very chart thing and so and and again I'm back back to having been in Indiana the last couple days with family I mean the way we get along is we never speak you know you just cannot even mention like and if somebody says anything everyone goes quiet and then they let the moment pass and so that's how we get along and and I wonder as artists as you navigate I mean I know how hard it is to navigate it you know in a home how do you navigate it you know in the work around you know family and Cuba and nation and home I'm always yeah I mean I I actually find them always upset no matter what which direction the conversation is going and I think that has you know it right complexity of the issue blah blah over simplification blah blah and then there's this thing about what we think here like okay American policy yes moving in the right direction yes and then this thing here about there's always stuff that's you're hanging on to from generations and I I'm and I'm I guess by nature or devil's advocate anyways so I'm always on the wrong side of the argument and I found like I I guess I most clearly became aware of this when I you know I grew up in a house Cuban-American so by nature very conservative very particular opinions political opinions and I was the you know Marxist Marxist you know leaning communists raging Democrat blah blah and I spent a significant amount of time in Florida and Miami and I came back and and so I'm used to that perception I came back from Miami and suddenly that this is right when alien Gonzales had been you know found unwrapped and I came back and all my American friends were like he should go back and I was like what do you mean you don't know anything and I the things that were coming out of my mouth were you know as far to the right as as you know I thought who are you and I had the same experience coming back from Cuba so and you know anyone it comes up to me and says I'm so excited about that and I'm like yes but that's what I'm that's I'm going everything for me about Cuba is yes but everything so I find it nearly impossible to talk about except on very personal emotional terms policy I I was in Cuba both Miami and Cuba during the alien Gonzales thing and I learned something so important because in Miami the news reports who's a Cuban artist in Cuba right now has started an instituto the art of ism and it's basically in Mavana it's a space for creative exploration of what it is to be to make work freely right and collaborate and I'm so interested in that when I was in Cuba most recently I was talking to somebody one of the workers in a hotel and he heard that I was speaking Spanish and he said oh we're you know where are you from or what are you and I said I said I'm so I go on and and he said well where do you live and I said the United States and he said you're not Cuban and I looked at him and I said see so I'm Cuban and I think you know without getting into anything with the guy you know I just think it's important to kind of just assert gently let's let's try and find a place to actually communicate right that's that's that's not going to be easy and especially with people who really make us angry but I don't know how we move forward otherwise you know I don't you know wall building does not move us forward communication moves us forward I would love to let anyone I know there's some folks have been thinking about the play and I would love to if you have questions do you mind just so people can hear it there's a little there's a mic on each side yeah how about you go and then you go how about we'll take turns love to hear your questions yeah go ahead hi thank you so much for doing this I have a two-part question one I as a first-generation immigrant myself who's never been to my native country and and just got a lot of negative messages growing up and a lot of prejudice about rejecting your native culture yet invariably being inextricably intertwined in it and the whole dichotomy of being torn between two cultures I'm just wondering my first part is when was the turning point the tipping point for both of you as far as really delving into your heritage and your culture was it in in the case of Marissa the death of your father or the death of your uncle or just I mean was it just a coming of age thing reaching a certain age reaching a certain point of self acceptance I don't know I was just curious like if there was a particular moment that really made you go back do the research go back to your native country things like that because I've always had the curiosity myself but I haven't had that tipping point that's why I was curious and the second part of my question is you both have chosen to do one-person plays and I'm wondering if you thought about at any point about doing conventional play where you would have actors playing your mother your father different family members as opposed to just making it you on stage the whole time and and what was the thought process or decision into making it strictly a one person show I'll just jump in by saying I mean I I've written I have written many multi-character plays and generally people come backstage and they're like oh was that your story so you get make you get conflated no matter what you do you know my my multi-character plays are not autobiographical in any way they're just stuff that I'm interested in but people audiences tend to they like to think it's a very you know it's more authentic if it's all true so I don't know what I don't want me to generalize about audiences so I I guess the closest moment I could come to identifying what you're sort of putting your finger on is now I was an actress for many years I'm still an actress and I was living in Minneapolis in the mid 90s when the new play development scene was getting very exciting lots of new players all the time and I was doing a lot of play readings where you would come in read a new play and then talk about it and say this is really exciting I was confused here you know it was part of a conversation and I came home one night after a reading and I thought I'm really enjoying helping someone else develop their artistic vision and it was really just like a light went on and I thought do I have an artistic vision so I just started writing whatever I was interested in I didn't know if I was writing fiction I didn't know if I was writing poetry I didn't know what I was doing and I thought I'll just write down some family stories and then I wrote down conversations I remembered and then I wrote down a funny thing and I amassed a pile of paper and I looked at them and I realized everything was about Cuba having never really given it much thought everything that I was moved to write about was all linked by that theme and and again that was another aha so and someone else has said it better but it's something like this right I read what I wrote to know what I think and not the other way around I recognized that that was my pool of inspiration not that I thought it would be interesting for anyone else but that it was interesting to me I had something very similar I was I worked for many years as an actress I was living in New York and I remember distinctly one my my husband who's a theater director an opera director he was writing a grant proposal for a project and I said that's so cool you know you're like getting your work done and you know and he turned to me he goes well you could do that I was like what you know I was in my my 20s and I late 20s and I thought yeah I could and he's like well what's what story what would you want to make something about and immediately and it kind of was took me to by surprise oh something about my uncle and I kind of went what really oh yeah that is and then I just kind of like followed that line yeah there there's something about it's one of the reasons why I as a I teach at California Institute of the Arts grad and undergrad programs and it's something that I do immediately with my students is get them to start making their own work you know they write missions and we do personal artistic strategic planning and that whole process of really just asking yourself what's important to me you know what are those things that I value what are the stories that aren't being told that I want to hear told what do I feel passionate about those those questions are really important and if you just take you know nobody can answer that for you right you got to take that time and space to really be with yourself and ask those questions and see what emerges and what emerges could be a surprise right have a comment and then a question you had talked a little bit about home and having money to go make wherever you are home it's been my experience that usually gentrification or whatever you don't have a choice you don't have the money to stay hence you have to move but my question has to do with the internet mind control you had talked a little bit about the news here versus the news in Cuba and with the internet kind of making the world kind of one place and totally accessible how do you see your place changing or maybe videoing and going on the internet or how do you see that working I just want to clarify so my comment about home was actually more geared towards you can only afford to stay where you're born it if you have money it's it's so often people without options without choice who get swept away in movements and like as you said gentrified neighborhoods sprout up around you that you can't afford to stay in so I think I think it's an incredible luxury to be that person who gets to say oh yeah I was born right here in this house this is where I grew up in this you know I think that's the luxury and so many of us are just trying to you know just trying to keep keep ground under our feet never mind you know this idea of what a home is so yeah I just I wanted to make that clear that I don't think of money buying you other homes I think of money and privilege keeping you where you were where you come from but you want to touch on the question yeah I my parents each had two jobs and we moved nine times by the time I was in high school and so part of that was you just you know it got too too expensive to stay so I think that was also a reason when I talk about traveling and I'm in a privileged position because my work will take me somewhere to be able to you know to do a play in in Scotland or something like that so that that there's definitely you know a privilege there but the the home thing is the people that I can't meet even you know from different parts of the world here that I connect with but what was to the second part of your question the second part of the question he had to do with you talking a little bit about the commercials or the news in here versus Cuba and having being controlled or having the public opinion controlled how do you see your plays say using the internet or combating that it's the internet is just starting to get to the island it's but I think it's a little bit like you know if it opens a crack I mean when I was there last and you were there more recently but you know in order for a tourist to access the internet you have to go down to the lobby and you pay a fee and you get a number and there's a special code and you can access it for two hours like it's very controlled you know that's not gonna last much longer you know I'm sorry even here in the states what you see is controlled by pretty much nine media centers and companies so how do you and they mold public opinion so how do you see arts be it and it doesn't have to be the internet I just use that as an example combating that and unifying that yeah no that yeah it that's clear I don't think it can I don't think in not in a I mean I can't compete on it doesn't have the bandwidth I mean our plays will reach a hundred people in an evening you know that's that's not gonna that's not gonna threaten Rupert Murdoch's empire that's not gonna threaten the Castro regime's line on you know what happened in Havana today but I think it's all we can do which is talk and tell the truth and you know I'm skeptical of everything I read and here I'm skeptical of everything I see I'm skeptical I mean I think that that's our only power so I don't know I'm I don't I don't I don't think I don't think a play can compete with with a cat video seen by millions and millions of people like you know but I don't despair and you know and maybe your question about how it how open how opening the relationship might change my work I don't know but I expect it will change my work so I guess I can say that it's gonna change my work somehow that is such an important question and it's something I was part of a delegation of theater artists that went to Cuban October and that was something we you know it's not true in the Cuban dance community it's not true in the Cuban music community or visual art why theater and honestly I'm it's something that I'm really interested in and want to have conversations in Cuba and with Cubans about but for some reason theater you know it's it's deplorable the representation I mean there is none you know and I saw several plays there during the festival it was really shocking and those of us in that were on that delegation all had the same response like what's going on isn't a lot of the theater stay controlled or it's all it's all state-controlled so perhaps there's some relationship there I'm I'm guessing no but it's a very important question well I I would just offer up that any any anything that is controlled from the top down whether it's business or the arts or theater anything that comes from the top down with a mandate of what it should be is doomed to fall into a cycle of perpetuating the same errors of you know the past so it's I don't I don't have any experience with Cuban theater yeah I did not see it I mean I know I I know that this is you know I I don't know the the answer to that or I do know that there are Afro Cuban artists who visual artists there's I'm I can't remember right now but there's an Afro Cuban visual artists who did a whole thing on beauty and hair in for the Biennale this past year the year that I was there I met her so there are artists in other areas that I met who are grappling with that issue but I didn't see it in theater yet I haven't seen it in theater yet yeah yeah yeah go ahead and make comment and question I see a question coming up behind whoever wants to yeah I just had a comment I don't know who said it but I thought it was great that you went to see the play in LA and you immediately bought it here and bought it for us to see the last year and a half I've come to art episode on a number of occasions in the place that I've seen here have just been phenomena I just want to thank you for seeing it and bringing it here thank you so much yeah thank you I'm also with the play reading club from Newton and I read your play actually a couple times before coming in today and at some point you're saying that you're the radio or a radio and I just checked my notes and I translated to myself she's a transmitter so the question of mine is that me as a receptor what you actually wanted to deliver or what what you wanted me to hear today and I want to ask this question first of Melissa actually because you said that you saw it yesterday the play and you're a Cuban or Cuban American or whatever let's not go into details but whatever you feel about yourself but but I want to know what you learned yesterday about revolutionaries or anything new to you was there something new politically emotionally I understand so I would rather wanted to have I don't know historical kind of information but it's question for both of you so but if you could start with Melissa could start with your impression of yesterday and learning and then just what it what you wanted me to hear so thank you that's a great question my I feel like I know a lot about Cuban history I've just been always very interested in and I do a lot of reading about it I pick a period and I get to know things about it and I've also learned a lot from my parents and the thing that I always learned about the revolution was you know well everyone supported the revolution at the beginning that was sort of that's like the party line for almost anyone you ask well everyone supported at the beginning and then later you know but I never understood the pieces of it like I didn't know about at each of us I didn't know about this you know this family legacy I had heard I knew very vaguely about the suicide but I got I got so much more clarity on the timeline and the trajectory of how it went bad how things fell apart the size of the hope of a democracy of free speech of you know the right to vote and how it all came crashing down and so quickly so there was a bunch of factual stuff in there but for me and Marissa I haven't talked to you about this but I felt like the thing that grabbed me the most was this unfinished line you had where I think maybe it was right after the man in white and you were I think you were over here and you're saying but is it my fault that I'm like you were drawing a very direct parallel between you and your uncle and there was something about his suicide and it was implying something about you and and your worldview and and I was so moved by that it felt like underneath it there was this this constant question of like why am I what why am I different why do I feel too much why do I do things in a way that people say I should you know these questions that are always sort of under the surface for so many of us and for me the play really grabbed me there because it wasn't aligned to your dad it was aligned to your uncle and this like you talk about this gnawing desire to know this man who's unknowable to you and and I was really struck by how theater can make those connections so apparent so quickly and so viscerally so what I got there was that it's it's really always about like how did I get to be this soul and so I don't know that that was what that that through all the politics and through all the facts and through all the history and through all the longing ultimately what you're what we're longing to know is the only thing we can know which is this right and trying to answer those questions to get other people to tell us why am I like you why am I not like you how am I different how am I the same that's what really what just moved me so so much I think I'm very interested in again claiming my father's place there's a lot of assumptions I feel like the the revolution was hijacked you know and everybody knows one person maybe now two and they're both castrels and there were a lot of people there were a lot of people that made that revolution happen and a lot of people in the story of Cuba that aren't people don't know about and so that's really important to me that I'm sharing you know the story about this figure who is really important to happen to be my uncle and and my father and of course my mom that I so sharing stories that aren't heard about Cuba that aren't heard about or is that's really important to me and then I on a deeper level like I'm also had to put that in that list of things that I'm a daughter of you know I'm the daughter whose deep roots travel far beyond homeland and geographical borders and you know I I want to reach people and I want you to be inspired to know more about what you come from and and how those voices who have been before you have affected you you know I think both those things are really important to me the specific about my family and then the you know I guess that's more spiritual right of you know who are we had we get here like I have that line you know that moment when my father you know and that actually happened to him where he was taken and was told he was going to be killed and that moment of like how did I get here I think that's that's something I think you know whether we conscious of it or not we're often asking ourselves that certainly at this point in my life you know I'm how did I get here you know it's a different horizon than it was you know 20 years ago so those are all things that I'm interested in and sharing yeah so I just want to say we're gonna wrap up and I just a couple final comments which one is you know I think of that internet question and I think well you know the only thing the only thing to be done is to tell stories in these kind of pure honest ways that you both do and and to do it in the kind of intimate spaces that change lives and so I just want to thank you for being artists who do that and give us those opportunities and then I just want to say a final comment which is that one of the things that interested us at Ars Emerson this year in terms of programming was we use the word Latino all the time like it means one thing and that's so odd to me because it seems to mean many things and so we program very specifically at the end of the season a show from Santiago Chile a show that was you know a Cuban American show and then a Mexican American show pre-meditation Chicano show coming what date is that is it next week oh my god it's actually next week so and we and on main no actually May 10th May 10th but to somebody's birthday I know is we're gonna do a conversation about the diversity inside of the Latino story just around that you know to be able to think more deeply about you know what it means to say Latino in this day and age right in this moment in America so thank you so much for sticking around for being part of the book club for having the conversation thank both of you for being here today I really appreciate it thank you