 You were going to get me from behind a lot, and you got back to the passport going. Oh, you're setting the camera up over there. Oh no, I'm going to face me. I'm going to face people. Got it, now I understand. I was like, nobody wants to see this much of that. We had so many different options. So many different options. Let me know when you guys are ready. Guys, a little housekeeping. A little housekeeping. Hi, I'm Garmin. A little housekeeping. The mic, it's a shotgun mic, so we don't have the handheld mic, so in order for them to hear you, make sure that you're staying in the direction of the camera. Otherwise what they'll hear is the sound going this way and that way. So just be aware of that because I fully expect all of you guys to have really valuable insights to bring to what we're doing today, and I want all the HowlRound watchers to see it as well. And you guys, let me know when you're ready, or can I start? Okay, I'll start. I'll start. There's the mic. Alright, so my name is Garmin. Hi, nice to meet you. What do you call it? I did theater making for what feels like forever. From Miami originally, went to American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, spent 22 years in New York. Most of my work, however, got produced in Miami first. I'm old enough to remember a time where I was not a Latino artist, I was just an artist. And I was not a Cuban playwright, I was just a playwright. Or a female playwright, I was just a playwright. When I was going to move back down from New York to Miami, because I was like, I don't want to live in a city bank, I'm going back to Miami. People are like, oh, hey, why are you going back to Miami? Oh, wow, what's happening there, whatever. I had shot a couple of short films down here, I had done work here. And I knew that in Miami, I could kind of release those tags again, right? And I was like, well, in New York, I've become a Latino playwright, a female playwright. I've been told, well, we have our Latino playwright this season. Send us another play, which I'm sure you all have heard. Or I've been told by a very prominent Latino theater, why don't you go be the Latino playwright token at a white theater, because you're Cuban and people kind of can't stand Cubans because you all are bougie. And that's the way they'll like you over there. So that was my experience. So one of the things that I was most looking forward to moving back to Miami was that I was going to get to be government palace again. I didn't have to fit into anybody's pigeonhole. But this pigeonhole is a double-edged, it's an opportunity. It's a catch-22, right? Without the scholarship, without the work that this conference is doing, without our scholars recognizing us and pulling us out of spaces that we're kind of relegated to a drawer, our work doesn't get recognition, right? Because the people, the gatekeepers, the people that are deciding just don't have the same life experience and they don't look for us. So we have to stand out as Latino playwrights. We have to stand out as female playwrights. We have to stand out as queer playwrights. Any tag or any identifier that sets us apart, politically, we need that. But does our art need it? And this is what is a little, roll with me a little bit on this, because it's kind of been, it's a little like crazy. But if Tennessee Williams were working today, would he be known as a gate playwright? That only does game material? There is not any Tennessee Williams play that isn't brilliantly gay, right? They're all so wonderful and they speak to such a full context. They look at life clearly through a gay lens, but he's not relegated to anything. And I think because we needed this political empowerment in the industry, we've fallen a little bit into a trap of writing only to identity, as opposed to having it be a starting point. We've made it an end point. And I feel that that gets very dangerous, because they're more fulfilling an expectation that people that aren't us are setting for us, and not our experience. So the reason I wrote my first solo play wasn't to show how many accents I can do. It was a time when people like I developed one monologue at a time in these nights in New York that you'd go, you'd show up, they'd give you 10 minutes, you'd do whatever you want. And I would develop it, I would see. And under these super, what I guess back then would have been hipster audiences and very politically aware and all with the, you know, with the banjo, political commentary. At least somebody cannot, right? And then I would show up with like La Santera from La Saucera Illumina, or I'd show it up as my grandmother taking a break of a hunger strike shift. And they'd be like, Cubans are so crazy, how can you do hunger strikes and shifts? And I'm like, well, because they're starving Cuba and people on purpose. We're not going to starve ourselves here just for like the show of it, right? We're protesting that. I understood that there was a disconnect between the Miami Cuban experience and the way Cubans were seen everywhere else, and our very real and lived trauma. And the way everybody else, everybody else expected us to be, right? So for Miami, where it was very clear what the revolution had done to New York where people say, I think Fidel's been very good for Cuba. And I was like, what are you talking about? Right? Well, I've been to Cuba and I know. So then I was like, all right, then I have to go to Cuba because I'm not going to hear that from one more gringo. I'm not going to hear it again. I'm not going to hear it from one more anybody. My Latino friends in New York would tell me that I wasn't really a Latina. I was a sellout because I was a white Latina. And I didn't feel that way. I felt solidarity with all Latinos. I didn't even realize I was a Latino until I got to New York. It was like, spic, and I'm like, hey, what's that? Because here we're the majority and we exist in every socioeconomic spot. So it really just became about money and not about cultural identity because we're all over the place and we're in power, economic and political power. So it was an understanding of, oh, wait a minute, there's different Latino experiences in this country and I have to stand shoulder to shoulder with them because I come from a very privileged Latino class. We got entry, we got papers, we got everything. How can I support their struggle? But they never wanted to support mine, which is cool. Everybody's got their way. But I wasn't going to let other people, American or other Latinos, denigrate my experience or say that my grandparents left on a yacht. And they were just like these bougie bastards that didn't care about anybody or just as middle class as everybody else. So I would hear the things people would say about Cubans and I put them into characters studying what would be Goldberg's solo show that could say them what she said the most dangerously, right, and the most honestly. But I also used humor. And this reminds me of something that, I still dropped. I saw the Sundance Institute think of the director of Bendit like Beckham. She gave this little video and she said, you know, I like to make comedies and I like to make movies that affirm our experience. Not necessarily the deal with our struggle because our struggle isn't within our community. They're imposing our struggle on us. So let them deal with their crimes against humanity. I want to deal with how we survive and how we thrive and how we go about dealing with the things that everybody goes about and deals with. And she's like the first Latin director to work in Great Britain. She's broken all kinds of barriers with her movies. And that was kind of the approach that I had. Who do you think broke Hitler's heart? Who do you think broke Hitler's heart? Anybody? No. Who do you think broke Hitler's heart? Mel Brooks said this. Charlie Chaplin. Because Hitler was a huge Charlie Chaplin fan. And he did The Great Dictator. And when Charlie Chaplin did The Great Dictator, Hitler said, no more Charlie Chaplin for anybody. And he totally turned against Charlie Chaplin. And something Mel Brooks says is, there's no way to deal with the horrors of the Holocaust. There's no way to fathom the horrors of the Holocaust. So how do you turn it around and make fun of it and show them how you survive and show them how you still have the power to laugh, right? So that's kind of what my approach is in being political. I'm not going to stand here on the soapbox. I'm a progressive, true, blue, born Democrat, hardcore, anybody outside of my anything, some Marco Rubio. And there's no way I can do to fight that. I was like, I think he's an asshole. I tell him all the time on Twitter. But there's no way to fight that, right? There's no way for me to explain the conservatism of my grandparents comes because they saw their friends die on the shores in Bay of Pigs because the CIA organized something and they were betrayed by Kennedy at the last minute. It was a very progressive country before. But I can show a little bit of the method behind the madness. But my approach is if you go to the top layer, you're going to alienate a lot of people. I always try and go vertical, right? I always try and approach my politics like if what bothers you is colonialism, you have so many different levels of colonialism to play with, explore all of them, and they come and take this, go further. What's wrong about colonialism? Anybody? What's wrong about colonialism? Genocide. Destroying local economies. Destroying local economies. Appropriation. All of that could be a comedy. Destroying local economy. You could write a play about colonialism in a mom-and-pop shop that incorporates gentrification as well, which appropriates appropriation where somebody gets murdered. I mean, you almost have to do the right thing there, right? That's basically slavery in America, right? Or racism in America. For me, it's been very fruitful. When I get mad about something, the first thing I do is head to my computer and just write it out, and I usually make a joke out of it. That's my approach, but I find that when we go deeper, we're going to find that common well that we can all identify to. And somebody that's American that doesn't care about colonialism, that's tired of hearing it, they can't walk away from it because they care about their neighborhood changing or something. You know what I'm saying? So I try and find those commonalities. I keep trying to dig until I find the universal, and then I take that universal, what I've mined that's universal, and I put it into a Cuban character if I feel like doing a Cuban character. So that's been my approach. And I also think there's something really powerful about kind of standing up and taking the hate, right? When I said, when they told me to speak Spanish, I died laughing, because my first thing, when I was told to speak Spanish, you're an American, I'm like, being in America guarantees my right to speak however many languages I know. My dog is bilingual, and you're not, that's not my fault! And they're just like, no, no, don't be like that, but you have to be like that a little bit, because you can get a lot farther with a laugh, and you can break a heart with a laugh. I always say that I like to explore that space that laughter and devastation live in the same moment. I've known true horror. I've had people in my family murdered. I'm horrified right now knowing that the ICE raids are going to happen, because I know what it's like to have family members in Cuba and friends in Cuba all of a sudden be disappeared by the government, right? So how do you live in that, not let it drive you crazy, and put it in a light where, like what the Goldberg said, you can put him in a petting zoo, put something really dangerous right in front of somebody, and make them not want to walk away from it, or not want to be like, I can't take another story about this again. Which we all hear, I think, you know, I wrote this, I had this contract, and I was on the Paramount lot, on the Desilu lot, the Desilu Cabanos, okay? And I'm here thinking, this is a cubicle, this is a cutimeric, this is like my spot, this is my cultural spot, right? And I had written this pilot, and I was all excited because it was bilingual, and I was showing these two sisters in Brooklyn, and how they were kind of making it on their own, and this and that, and I was thrilled, and this Paramount executive wanted to meet me, and I was all like, oh, and this person was heading like a show that I will not mention, but it was doing really well at the time. Sactors, I love the dialogue, great. I love the story, great. I love the characters, they're so much fun, great. Like, but they're both Latino, I'm like, yes. And one of them's pregnant, or has a drug problem. And I'm like, no. Yeah, but nobody's going to be able to relate to that. Oh my God. And I was like, I can relate, I relate it to the Cosby show, and I'm not black, and I want a drug problem, or I was pregnant. And they're like, yeah, but we love the dialogue, we love the characters, but, right, there's always going to be that but. So, you ultimately, I think, to be hyper-political, you have to be hyper-excellent, but put yourself in a space that they cannot deny. So my characters, for example, in Roman Coke, one of them deals with death, the other one deals with humiliation, the other one deals with separation, the other one deals with fear of action, which we can all relate to. And it's a highly political show, but I've been told time and time again, oh, it's interesting, because I thought I was going to get like a soapbox Cuban thing, and it wasn't like that at all. I'm not interested in that. But I also had people come up and tell me, you know, I've been to Cuba many times and never thought about what the people there were going through. Great. And I think that's what we can all aspire to as artists. We want to communicate the human condition. We want to communicate the way that we see the world. Everything is political. Everything is a political act. And I find my approach personally is to take that act, is to approach the work as joyfully as possible, but without pulling a punch. Don't pull any punches. I punch to the Cuban side all the time. I just did my new play fake. I criticized Cubans so fast and hard, and the funny thing is a lot of the people that I were criticizing came up and told me, great, great work. I'm like, great, you saw yourself in it, right? But we have to hold our own accountable as well, because otherwise we're just victims. We have no agency. So my approach is don't pull a punch, hold your own people accountable, because if you don't, you have no agency, do it joyfully, do it in a way that people can relate to. That doesn't mean pleasing people. That means finding the most universal way that your characters, that your story, thrives. If you see people getting knocked down a lot, that's all you think they're ever capable of. But if you start your story at the moment that they get up, then you got them. And I think you have to be dangerous with it. I don't think you can be careful with it. Because when you're careful, you're boring. Everybody knows as a person of color you've got to be excellent. You've got to be better than everybody else. We'll really know that we've all made it. If we can write a really boring play about Latino and we, like all the ringos do, and get Broadway production, well, hey, finally made it. But that's never interested me anyways. So I would encourage you, when you're really furious about something, try and find the moment of life in it, the moment of laughter in it, and start from there. Even if it's not a comedy. I mean, how many of you have ever laughed at a funeral? I guess there's a lot of Cubans in the room. Cupid funerals are like, ah, we're over to parents, right? And we're all like, because it's in those moments, those moments of the most life-affirming, you know? And it's when you don't have that laughter, that way to turn it on, you lose your ability to point out the weakness of the oppressor. And I think that that's what gives you the ultimate power when you're dealing with something politically. When you're very heavy-handed, people walk away. They want to give you the pat on the head, but they keep you separate from them. Get in their heads, get in their homes, get in their emotions. And we all have the ability to do that because we're all human beings, right? I mean, some of us. But if you use identity as an ending point, you're never going to get much further than that. That's our beginning. That's what puts us ahead of the game. And then the organizations and the scholars and the people, the advocates, are the ones that push our work forward. But we have to make our work emotionally compelling, truthful, viciously funny, or viciously tragic, but just we got to go deep. Because otherwise, we stay in this very mid-level range that people don't really respond to, and then they can just keep us there. And it's just kind of nothing. And they pat themselves on the head. Look, we have a Latina here today. She's the Latina from our season. Stand up, Carmen. Yes, my name is Carmen. And don't be afraid to be challenging that, right? With my play, Fake, I had the run in Miami. It was awesome. Everything went great. Several theaters nationally wanted to see it. And then I had a couple conversations. I was like, oh, this will be good for our Latino spot. I was like, I forgot I had written a Latino play. I thought I was ready to play about the intersection of art and economy and politics. I forgot I had written a Latino play. And it was a shock. Don't be anybody's token. Refuse to be anybody's token. Have your identity as your point of pride. It's the best of what we've got. And just fucking go for it. Whenever you say, say it for real. Say it with an exclamation point. Say it deeply. We have such a profound experience. When you look at Latin America and the Caribbean, you look at our natural resources. We're for our shittiest governments that go back and forth between left and right. We would be a powerhouse. And US imperialism, all of it. There's no question. There's a reason they keep us here. But I also think of Joanne Sanchez, who is a dissident in Cuba. And she says, I'm a free Cuban. I don't let them tell me what I'm feeling. They can manipulate how much food I have, but I'm not going to let them get in my head. So I live in Cuba and I live freely. And we have to choose, in my opinion, as artists, what my approach is, is to live freely. To tell my story, to go deep, to kind of like go through that first couple of layers, get rid of that, and go, what really bothers me about colonialism, the injustice. My sister went to Maramar the other day to help the circle of protection, this group of people that go and help immigrants that are lining up to check themselves in the nice. And she said it broke her fucking heart. Because all these families were dressed in their Sunday best to present themselves to these savages. And they didn't want to let them give them juice or water. You know, why are we presenting ourselves to these people apologetically? Or with, okay, you're going to let me walk in here? You bust through that door and be fearless about it. Because our stories are incredible and they haven't been heard. And they don't fit in a lane. They're all over the place. Once we all start telling our stories as humanly as possible and just without the target of what the theater wants, but what we need to say, those walls, I think, are just going to disintegrate. Because the power of the Latino theater artists that I've met, Latinx, whatever, I'm terrible at names, that I've met. That's way too much more than me that I was planning on saying. What I really want to know is how you guys deal with it. I want to know what your approach is, what you depend on as a Latino artist, what gets in your grill and how you exercise those demons, how you deal with the subject matter. What's in your toolkit to deal with politics? How do you approach it? And that can mean your theatrical life or in your activist life. Because I think it's at the end that you can't help but be an activist. You have to be, especially in these times. I think this is an interesting time now where we're wondering, are we going to be infiltrators or are we just going to have our own thing? And I looked it up, so I didn't know this, but I looked up Mel Brooks' real name, Mel and Kaminsky. And obviously it was at a completely different time and you showed his names and whatever that meant. But to me that's the idea of like, we've got to infiltrate. We've got to get our stories in there through the cracks and then maybe they'll like us a little better because we're already in their house. As opposed to the mentality that I think we're on the Miami's an interesting scene now, it's burgeoning. And we have a little theater in Haiti. A little Haiti, excuse me, a little theater in little Haiti. That is, that we try to operate as if, hey, we don't need that validation. We, when I think of like a show like Atlanta on TV or I think of, you know, other groups that, like Melissa Spookies, which is like a new show on TV, which is kind of them just being like, this is us. We don't care. That's huge. Isn't that another, that is a political act I think, but it also means that we need to invest in our infrastructure. We need to care about all of our community members and support them and because if we're relying on their infrastructure, then we're playing by their rules and we're infiltrating. That's a great point. Do you know, I have something right now that we're pitching for distribution in a couple of places and the producer said to me, well, Netflix says Latinos don't watch content made for Latinos, according to their metrics. So Netflix is out. And it's true. It's true, actually. The content made for Latinos isn't being watched by Latinos. What content? What is it? No, no. Latinx content isn't being watched by American Latinos and this is where the other, this is the rock, right? Okay. Something, how many of you have seen Cluelac Weddewals on Netflix? Baby Jesus, please watch, go ahead and watch this. Cluelac Weddewals is one of the most amazing series. It's a Mexican production. It is about a footballing family. It is brilliant. It plays, it does play in the upper socioeconomic world in Mexico, but it also shows the corruption. It shows the systematic abuses. It's hilarious. And there was a marketing thing. They tried to market Cluelac Weddewals for Latinos and they, no, they tried to market Narcos for Latinos and Latinos did not watch Narcos, but they went to Cluelac Weddewals and the Americans watched Narcos. Yes. The Americans watched Narcos. And I told my producer, I've never had a Latino audience, which is true. When I was an Off-Broadway, I did not have a Latino audience. Most Cuban show I could possibly have written, I had a Cuban audience because Cubans tend to support Cuban theater. I did not have a lot of Dominican or Puerto Rican people coming to the show or Mexican people coming to the show in New York. In Miami, there's everything. We're all here and we're all over the place. But I didn't have that audience either. So this expectation of this Latino audience, what is that Latino audience? Which is what you're saying. If we have to build our infrastructure we get Celia Cruz and Madonna. Or like Lady Gaga and Celia Cruz because Miami Radio never changes. But we have those benefits, right? But I think it's because of our community. We're infused by also the American way. And being first generation, we straddle both sides. You really don't represent any side because you're not. So we straddle. And so I find that within the Latin community of performers here, everyone stays in their own little house. And we don't really... And even in the American more theaters, it's the same thing. Nobody does this. There's very little meaning. I find this is true in New York too. And the same thing I find with material is in doing... I wrote a piece and in it when they wanted to take it up north, they asked me to change some of the characters to not be so Cuban and throw in a Dominican in there. And could you not do the Puerto Rican? Let's clean her up. Let's not have her be... I'm like, wait, wait, in order to... then we can have people... I was just like, what is happening? Because the problem is we've accepted the default being Anglo-American. Yeah. Right? We've accepted the default being Anglo-American. We all crossed the room when we said to somebody, you don't really look Latin. I've gotten that all my life. And seriously, palma en la frente. I bleed a Cuban sugar. I do not get more Cuban. You know, I got... You don't look Latin all the time because I'm a white Cuban. I got Italian, Jewish, those are the things that I'm reading. Or I would get sent out to read lines in the N-word in it. And I'm like, I can't read that. It's got the N-word. And they're like, why not? And I'm like, because it's got the N-word. I can't say that. It's not right. But they want to... Why do they water it down? They don't want to see us individually. Can you imagine, if you tell an Italian and an Irishman and an Englishman, well, you're all European. Can't you... the Sopranos, can't you just cast? Because that's what they told Coppola, and he said, no, I'm casting all Italians in this with the exception of a one character. Because it goes to... He had the power to say, no, we only get the power if we have the infrastructure. So I think your idea, Peter, of kind of like sourcing, like putting together resources and being in spaces, the fact that you have villain theater, which you can have here on 8th Street, which would be more central technically to the core of the city, but you have it in North Miami and people still go, and it's a little Haiti, and you have that interaction. I think it's very powerful. And it's one of the things that makes Miami most interesting. Yeah, well, the difference is, it's like, it's a space. It's us saying that we have real estate. And that's something I think when we're talking about just Miami in general, that's one of our limited resources we don't talk about enough. So of course our actors leave. Where are they going to go? Right. And we can have as many schools as we want if we don't have stages. Not just physical, but digital, and video, and all of that stuff too. Absolutely. And so honestly, when we started the place, it was kind of like a, whether that field of dreams movie, that build-in, there will come sort of thing. And then the way that we've grown is to be like, well, how much more can we take? Right. You know, open border policy of, we don't... What are you talking about? That we're not looking for actors. We stopped looking for actors. These are regular people coming in. Right. And I feel like if we set our bar too high, then we won't allow someone to become an actor. We won't allow someone to think of themselves as an artist. And then our Latinos, who maybe have the immigrant mentality in their head, or are properly trying to put food on the table. Right. They don't have the time, like hierarchy of needs. They're not thinking art. Right. But we know art is essential for your soul. And... And... But if we don't have kind of basic, everybody can come in. You can do this too, mentality. This stage can be yours, mentality. Then we're turning off Latinos. Who gets hurt the most? Right. Right. I think building a space, creating an infrastructure where people can work together and that's open, I think that's key because like you said, their infrastructure, their rules, our infrastructure, our rules. I think that's a great... Can anybody here in their own cities, do they know of a place where they can build their infrastructure? Do you have a place you can build your infrastructure? I know you have a... I might come into UNEX. Do you have a place you can build an infrastructure? Well, I booked at Milaco Theater in Portland, Oregon, which is dedicated to Latinx theater making. It's been around for 35 years. So it's Latinx Identified Theater in Portland, Oregon, which is a very, you know, Latinos, Latinx is a very small minority. So as far as creating infrastructure, it is an infrastructure that has also yielded an opportunity as a center, and in essence is a way in which as a center, as an arts and culture center, has been able to support the creation of other projects. Latinx, what is it called? Ideal intercambio de artistas latinos. So different projects that have engendered, it multidisciplinary in the Portland area to support theater making. So that's one way to approach it is to find hosts, frankly, people that have been around for a while. That's just one strategy. That's a great idea. Maybe like go to people that have been around for a while and say, hey, I've got this idea. How can we open this up a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. That's great. Oh, I think also thinking too of like infrastructure in terms of like, like the resources and just like help each other get opportunities, also like what are spaces for healing? What are actual spaces for us to be together? Such as this one, right? Because this is, I had done like a lot of POC-only like affinity space organizing back in Philly and I can't tell you how many times that somebody came up to me after our sessions and then like, oh, thank God I'm not around white people. And like just happy to be around each other and there was such joy in the room to have just those spaces. And then, you know, I noticed how often the tone of the conversation changed when we talked about white people. Like whenever we talked about white people, it was suddenly about them, you know, and it became, it was so different when we were just in a space with just ourselves, you know, talking about what we cared about, right? So I think thinking of resource also as like a space for healing and not, I think like sometimes I try to think less about like in terms of competition, like when am I going to get my piece, you know? You talked about a couple of these good points. When am I going to get my piece? We have to understand that there's enough for all of us. I'm the first one. I just applied for a sink dust thing and like I was talking to five other people that applied for the sink dust thing too. White men never think, oh, I'm going to get it from that white guy. They just think, oh, I'm going to get this award. Right? Like we also have to understand that we have space for all of us. Something also actually that is a question to you because I'm experiencing this now. Like after living in New York, like undercover racist place in the world which kind of makes me frickin' crazy because just the prejudices and the things that they say to you, Bessie Smith said in the south, they don't mind if you get big but they just don't want you to get too close. In the north, they don't mind if you get close but they just don't want you to get too big. Right? But this is the thing. When we, and I'm prejudiced right now totally towards the Americano. Right? Because I'm in Miami now and whenever I see this, I'm like, oh, of course the Americano. Because I lived in New York for 22 years and I was on the other side of it. But if we're closed off also, I think to white people, we're doing the same thing that they did to us in a way. And I'm asking this. I'm not giving you a prescriptive, I'm asking this. How can we, I'll give you an example. I was asked to do this thing to this women's shelter. And it's going to be all women going in. And I'm like, oh, that's great. But a lot of the kids at this shelter are boys also and they only have examples of violent men of color in their life. We have a couple of men of color in our group that are amazing. Wouldn't it be great to teach them how to be vulnerable again with these men as examples? Well, no, it's not about that. And I'm like, it's not about that for you because you're a rich white lady and you can live a separatist life. Are we ready? I understand the us-only space that tribal spaces, the communal spaces, the safe spaces, because to me that's Miami. It's ridiculous. But are we in danger? And this is a question to everybody. Are we in danger of letting that prejudice get in our way and not seeing other people's humanity? Yes. It's complicated. I don't think I have an easy, even as somebody who has done that organizing, I have an easy answer to that question. I consciously made the choice to exist outside of institutions and to try to do that. And that doesn't necessarily mean that I have the answers, but I think oftentimes I've said, well, why don't you just self-produce and then people respond, well, I don't want to self-produce. I don't have the means to self-produce. I don't have the skills to self-produce. I don't even have the... I don't know how to do any of that stuff and that's something that's even in itself a privilege to be able to even think about. How, for me to actually do the crowdfunding campaign, raise $3,000, do all that stuff, to have that donor base built, is something that I don't necessarily... I know there are people out there who don't know how to do that. I think, however, what I've encountered is the repeated frustration over and over again, the collective frustration that professionals who are twice my age telling me about repetition of cycles, right? And so, for me, I want to cut into that and I want to be like, no, actually I want to try something different or find organizers who try to think in a different way about that kind of stuff. And both are valid, in my opinion. I think that all approaches are valid. I think that approach is... I should have a right to exist in my weird radical comedy space and then other people should have a right to sort of thrive within institutions. That's my belief, at least. I mean, it's really religion, right? It's just the way in which you communicate your art. Like, producing these spaces are the way in which we communicate our art, but they all have valid... they all have valid spaces of places and approaches. It's art. That's what's wonderful about it. You could throw up a white canvas. When Milovic threw up his white canvas, everybody was like, what? And everybody was mesmerized by the white canvas because it's got red, blue, yellow, green, black, purple, and then white. And when you're standing in front of it, you know there's more layers there. So it's just like, I think that if you have that passion and you have that clarity of what you want to create, I think finding spaces outside of institutions is awesome if you can't create your own institution because that's its own skill set. Like, a good producer is its own skill set. And a good marketer is its own skill set. So that's really valid, too. So how do you break out of the mold of producing to find your own way? And sometimes it's as easy as, you know, asking somebody, hey, this is close at night. Can I get in here? Do you mind? I also, you know, helped run a theater here in Miami. Which one? Oh, I live right by there. And we, you know, we have a Latinx improv festival that we're launching next month for the first time, which is really cool. And so there's an opportunity for people who identify with that or have any kind of, any written materials or anything to, you know, to have that represented. But also I think it's great that, yeah, if you have something, you know, we want to be able to help, you know, hone that development in any way possible to reach out to somebody who's saying, like, oh, yeah, you know, what do you do on Sunday afternoon? There's nothing, okay, well, let's make it happen, you know. Yeah, let's just come and work it out. Let's work it out. Filmmakers in Miami do that a lot, actually. Daniel and I, we have a mutual friend and we kind of support each other's projects a lot. I'm going to be collaborating with Peter Muir going up to the 2020 cycle on political videos that we're going to put out to support the candidates that we support. But it's just, we kind of pool the filmmakers in Miami pool resources a lot just because somebody's got a camera and somebody's got lights and somebody's got the space and somebody's got the van. So if a theater needs so much less technically, that would be kind of, I wish theaters did it more. But theaters need to have a space. If you're looking for something, you better come over here. Like this guy, I didn't know him, but he sent us something about, oh, I have a script, blah, blah, blah. I was like, Peter, is it any good? All right, to see Hispanic, awesome. Let's work and do it. I was like, oh, his last name's Mendoza. The other guy's name was Othasso. Okay, great. We got some treatments in here. Let's do it. And you know, it's not prejudice, but there's something fantastic about the Jewish community. They are always pushing themselves up. They're worried about their community at all times. They're celebrating their community at all times. And we need to be doing the same thing. And if you have a little slice of privilege, you should be telling your entire community and seeing who else can benefit from that privilege. I'm going to do a story. There's two old Jews at a cafe. And I think I heard this from Mel Brooks, too. Clearly, that documentary really impressed me. There's two old Jews at a cafe. One of them's reading an article that has these horrible caricatures of Jews, like horns on their head, they're dirty, they're dirty, they're like money, horrible caricatures of Jews. And the other one's reading the paper of all the anti-Semitic hate crimes that were reported that week. And then the guy that's reading the paper is like, how can you read? How can you buy that? They're making fun of us. This is what's happening to Jews in the world. And you're just sitting here paying money to see these caricatures and you're laughing. And he goes, well, your paper tells us how we're victims. My tells us how we're successful. They only want to take you down if you're successful. If you're not successful, they're not going to bother making fun of you. They only want to take you down if you're successful. And I think the Jews have done that extremely well. They will laugh in your face and they'll take your caricature and turn it around and make you laugh so hard that you feel like an asshole. Look at the producers and look at how much money that made and look at how many people saw that because they took that to the inf so it was just like stratospheric. So I do agree that sometimes we do have to help each other out. I just meant with the thing of like, are we becoming like them a little bit and like pushing out because if the whole thing is included, you said you're a communist. Awesome. Listen, I'm completely anti-communist but you know what? I will fight for your right to say whatever you have to say and I will support your art as long as I like it. Even if it's communist, right? Some of my favorite artists are communists. But to me it's like about a level playing field for everybody and until we get there we have to kind of like cheap the balances and not cheap but create better balances but we all have to like really come together and help prop each other up in a substantive way and also in a critical one. Right? And also in a critical one because it's not just like, oh she's Latina so this is whatever she does. If it doesn't speak to you, we have to have a standard because that's the other thing. If we don't have a standard we're the dollar store. No, it doesn't be the dollar store. Even though this great thing is the dollar store why don't you keep raising your hand? So much. So many things. No, not right now. No, it's because you have taught so many amazing things and thank you for being here and opening the conversation in this way. I totally agree with the fact that theater is art and art is art and we should not divide art by I don't know if you have said that but I believe this I don't think we should divide art by color or ethnicity or different levels I think we should help each other definitely and be successful but we have to find a way no matter what we are all immigrants somehow and we are in this land and this land when I first moved here it was my formula I have to go to school I have to do this I have to do that in order to get this was my action, what are the conflicts how am I going to resolve it all of the fun stuff so I am I think I have privileged of being here in Miami we are not a minority so here and I have had a nice way of the benefits and there is a way and the system that works here in America I think it's work and we can all make it work to have more Hispanic representation more Latin representation more of our work there but I think we should also work hard on not creating a wall that will divide us from from the people who are still the majority and that will not be what happened in 2016 and the Latin community is very different from the Black community and other communities Miami voted Republican sorry actually because I worked on the Hillary campaign I am very proud to say Miami outperformed Obama by 88,000 votes in Miami-Dade County Tampa 88,000 she did better than Obama at Obama's in grade 2012 Dade County is solidly new so I had wrong numbers but overall there are many Republicans here in Miami they are vocal Republicans they are very vocal they have some resources yes and it's like resources and I think the thing is about getting those things finding the formula, how do you apply for grants how do you get your work produced look at what the right steps are well I love this because he's like I don't even know the system you system and you're like that system let me tell you something I've been very organized and that system works and you put into work and that's what's great about it well it's like dipping your toes into two I think there's a way to exist in both that I try to I don't necessarily I'm part of for example nonprofits for different companies in Philly but there's also a part of me that's like oh man but like the nonprofit industrial complex forces people to 501c3s to behave like corporations which then affects hiring practices which then affects the board and what kind of big decisions they make no matter what we are in America an industrial capitalistic country where money is speech and if you have more money and more resources you can speak more and louder and make more movement so we have to make more money but what I wanted to say that's funny that you said that too because I purposely write like when I wrote fake it's about the art world and my character I'm pleased I'm a fact Cuban but I'm right for myself I'll never see a stage so my character lives in a very high socioeconomic echelon they don't like that they don't like it when they see us in high economic echelons and because of the art world I know the most diverse part of New York City is the Upper East Side it's got all the museums the Asia society you go and see a Picasso and a Minol at the Met you have and the patrons you hear the languages that's spoken in Upper East Side a lot of Spanish in a high socioeconomic place they really push against that so I try and put us there to be like the richest man in the world who's a Mexican that's something that they do understand a very capitalist society money talks that's something that I don't think you're not going to have the money to do something it's like the Yankees if the rule was the biggest payroll wins every world series the Yankees would win every single one they don't win every world series it's a double edged sword, it's a catch 22 it's both sides of it but I also agree that there's a way to work through the system and show that you're financially viable do you know what makes more money in Miami theatrically? Spanish language plays I have yet in three years that I've been back I've yet to go to Spanish language play that isn't sold out American theaters wish they had the audience they wish and they don't have that income but they don't acknowledge us the American theater community here like if we didn't exist and I work in the American theater community I happen to work with Miami drama that's my home and they're awesome because they do bilingual stuff they're Miami beach but it's like if we didn't exist and you're like we make more money in Miami Michelle Hauser is the first one that says that he subsidizes his English language season with the Spanish season it does count for a lot once that I because your statement about how you met him and all of that triggered on me something about what is better talent or representation oh my first question was is it good then I asked is he Spanish because that's one thing that it's always kind of like this kind of conferences or talks it's always like representation representation but it's not just about that if I hold auditions I see like hundreds of people every single year and I like if the best ones happen to be two white male and one African American person that is like I would cast whoever is the best because they are the best because art what measure are you using for best practice you know what the most important thing for an artist to do is to do their work and when an entire community like black people or Hispanic people are constantly telling you can only do one at a time then you are not allowed to be the best the point of what I'm trying to make is to do mix castings our company has been around for 40 years 42 we've been doing theater for 42 years we've been doing mix cast forever because we can do it because we do theater for young audiences so those labels of race don't matter and we go to Wachula we go to the center of Florida because we're a touring theater company and when people see they're like oh relax Cinderella yes she was the best the meritocracy is the industry pretends to work as a meritocracy and it doesn't and what you're saying is as Latinos you don't want to adopt that false model you want it to be a true meritocracy but then there's this other institutional thing I do believe the talent should be not all the time even though it rarely does because if it did bring his fears it would never have been a thing sorry not pretty but there is an institution there is opportunity there is when people get a chance to work I think blind color casting is brilliant in my play they wanted to do blind color casting but I was talking about a very white auction house and I said listen I'm all for blind color casting my boss is a woman of color she's going to be expected to help me which takes away from the emotional arc and I said besides Michelle the minute we leave Miami there's already four black people in this play because there's four Cubans in it and I said oh that's right you know so it's interesting because it's how do you maneuver you have to compromise all those spaces and maneuver all those pieces you next to this gentleman here you have something to say and I wanted to I don't think it's lost no bring it up I think like I kind of want to ask a general question it seems like a lot of the conversation is about like okay so our representation as Latinx artists is inherently political and the more we are represented that in itself is political and also that it's human to be human is to be political yeah but I guess like a like Ramel kind of brought up that kind of like tweaked me a little bit is like I feel like sometimes what we're talking about is seeking a bigger piece of the pie when the pie is already kind of predicated on a lot of systemic oppression that's like just historical it's a reality you know so I guess my question is like is this conversation about politics exclusively about how we represent ourselves, how we get that bigger piece of the pie or is there an additional extension of political work that we're talking about as artists other than just getting ourselves in there like I think that's my question I can answer it quickly I see it in my perspective from the way that I see it I see it as both the more visible that we are the more we reach that household in Alabama that's never seen a Latino because we create that space in the industry the more that might change a perspective or change a heart but without theater that serves a community then what are you doing so for me I saw it as both things if it got in one way we're just talking a lot about industry so let's move a little bit into what you're talking about then community and how do we expand these spaces in our community Rose please so I was just kind of thinking one of the big things I learned from the LTC and one of the images that we used from the very beginning was approaching approaching things from a standpoint of wealth as opposed to why don't I get any or we don't have enough we're fighting for the crumbs we're approaching it from we have the feast we're making the table we have a lot of comida on it so approaching that we have a lot of things to offer and then you get yourself a little bit out of the mindset of victimhood why don't we have costumes why don't we have to keep borrowed things hold on there's something else I broke down oh and then about representation I think it's a many pronged approach so it's infiltration yeah you want to be oh I love that word infiltration you want to be in these big regional theaters but you also want to not forget about your community and there are some stories that may appeal to some theaters and some audiences and some you may however you choose to say it whiten it up or uncubin it or you know mix it for certain audiences and then for somewhere else you do it in a different language so I think it's attacking it from many sides and just to finish the idea so it's not one or the other and you can have your play at the Rep in Seattle and you can still take that same play or scenes of it and go to the different local shelters and do it in English and Spanish and that's what our theater company does you can have it both you can have a bunch of stuff hopefully one would subsidize the other and usually it's the other way around usually it's the shelter because you apply for these grants that is going to help you get your three weekends that at the Rep that cost so much money last thought the thickening of the story it's a term I got so my passion which I've been doing these workshops at Columbia University there's a field of bringing together medicine and storytelling storytelling is an act of healing so I just want to reflect that I heard that come up and one of one of the points made by Dr. Rita Chiron founded this program along with the head of the film department at NYU so that's how it comes together Film, MD program she was talking about the thickening of the story and how we ourselves we have to learn to thicken our stories sometimes you know kind of like a paper doll it's kind of flat maybe a little thicker but you know and as we fold in different you know three-dimensional stories we're making our story thicker and that applies to medicine too in patients and patient stories but yeah so I just these kinds of circles thicken our stories so there wouldn't be any you know antagonism between represent I want the best or I want to give opportunity it is coming it's a weed it works together I totally know what you're saying but that thickening of the story is something that from the beginning of my career was very attractive to me as well because when I was doing these little monologues and these ten minute things sometimes I would marry the stories of two monologues of a character and then it would deepen the because we live thick lives unless we're dumb as a door nail then we're just happy in our design but we live thick lives we live vertically I go to Publix and they don't have the right type of chip cookie and I'm like bam! and I came over here and I really wanted the software and then we have our ones today and it's Shakespearean right I'm not that stupid but what I'm really reacting to is the power and I'm furious and it's my inability to do anything but we live thick lives and how do we find these intersections as opposed to separating them and I think guilt the companies too guilt the hell out of the people who make money off of us we have ten minutes oh yeah please yes yes beautiful red shawl oh thanks thank you for this conversation I really appreciate everybody's questions and thoughts it's really inspiring I want to respond I think the latest one had to do with the question of there's a way in which I also share the feeling that there's a conflation of not only regions in which we represent in which we do our work but also media so we're talking about film we're talking about theater we're talking about audience and for me ultimately I think what's distilled for me is the question of intentionality in other words there are different ways I'm going to approach my work depending on what's my medium what's my region what's my given given that all of that may be underneath the giant hegemonic presence of a culture that seeks to erase my stories from my family and undermine its thickness and flatten it and so my task ultimately always has been about thickening I've never used that term before but it's so appropriate stealing your girls because ultimately what we're battling against is ignorance is a vision of what the panics are that has been created for us and so representation to me is the act of or decolonizing whatever is the act of owning our own narrative and telling our stories in whatever way we want to so ultimately I go back to the question of intentionality how and then I will know and what and where and once I have those things figured out then I go into the work of people who share that particular story or a broader group that includes allies who can feel it and understand and also share an outrage in the generation of this or also share a desire to show my audience their beauty then then I know what I'm dealing with and all of those have different that's why we have an all and answer here but I think I want to just advocate for the intention which is to be political I think that's beautiful and I think that's what's universal right because I have much more to learn from a Mexicano, from a Chicano from Puerto Rican, from a Dominican from a Colombian, from a Brazilian by acknowledging that we're different than we're the same but the intention is the one thing that crosses any cultural experience right that intention it's got to be everything and that's how you shoot out of the gate and sometimes I think because of the multimedia because media is the one that shape the way that we see each other right so because of the multimedia and because of the media that's out there we have these ideas about one another that are ridiculous and that are wrong and that keep getting perpetuated and I think if we focus more on intention as opposed to identity we might find we're able to blast through a couple more walls and take a little bit more agency and they're willing to give us because nobody's going to give you agency nobody's going to give you the power that doesn't exist understand that our intention that blasting through walls has in itself its own power and that we are inherently if we identify because there's plenty of Latinx artists out there who don't necessarily identify as like my work is going to be Latinx I'm just doing my work and that's great and wonderful because they are nevertheless going to be seen as whether they want to or not and they're doing their work boldly the thing that you said earlier oh for the day and I tweeted this oh for the day that we can just do dull work I never want to do dull work but you know what I'm saying I know what you meant by that and so the freedom to do that but the understanding that at this point at this time particularly whether we want to whether we want to or not we are represented and so acknowledging that is the first step toward intentionality we can own it or not own it but it's going to be owned for us absolutely this sort of goes back to your point and think about the political thing and I would ask us to us here in the group but also in our community broadly speaking are we looking critically internally at anti-blackness in our own community homophobia in our own community misogyny in our community like are we showing up for trans lives in our communities are we talking are we trying to sort of pick apart our internalized racism and how race has been constructed in Latin America that is outside of the dominant white gaze here are we having those conversations in our theater companies are we reifying how we see indigenous bodies on stage do we have indigenous bodies on stage can we take a pause from outside of the American community and do that hard work here and that hard work is not only on our stages but at our dinner table with our grandparents which can be the hardest work I think sometimes we get so and I am guilty of this too concerned with how we are being represented outside but are we then replicating those models because we inherit we inherit all of those systems absolutely political it has to be rooted there not only do we inherit some of those systems we create some of those systems that is when I say we have to take accountability for ourselves nobody really likes a saint you are like oh there is the saint but I don't want to sit next to a saint at a party so if we take responsibility for our own actions for our own racism for our own classism for our own misogyny those stories are going to be even more powerful and they are going to land even more so with people that are not us I learned the most growing up from Jews, blacks and the Cubans I would hear on the radio now I am a Cuban kid from Miami I grew up in Jewish neighborhoods I didn't have Cuban friends other than family until I came back to do my solo play but if I could learn from them they could learn from me and when was I learning and let me bruise these people that are Woody Allen if you hear the way Woody Allen talks about his own community I know he is not a good example but I am just saying culturally I am just saying we have to hold ourselves accountable bad example but you guys know what I mean right we have to hold ourselves accountable because if not we are just victims and then they can separate us they can keep us like oh look at what we did to them we got to hold ourselves accountable for our own racism because it is ugly and we are the ones doing blackface yes yes 100% so that is like it all goes it is all full circle so basically we are all political beings I would say the last thing I want to say because I am sure we are out of time you really should have never put a Cuban moderating this lesson learned I would highly encourage you all to exchange information if you are living in different cities good become friends on Facebook the person sitting next to you is going to be your biggest advocate even if you don't necessarily connect with their art form how can you help them make their art form happen what skill set can you offer somebody else abundance we are nothing if not extreme right everything and the more we give the more power we have with each other with ourselves with our stories be abundant be abundant with each other and help each other every chance you get think of somebody right now that you can reach out to and you go back home or something or back to your city or back home here a theater company an actor or something that you can say hey if you want to work on a project let me know even if it's going to take your time or whatever if you need me to read a script I'm happy to do it if you want to do a reading in my living room I'm happy to offer my living room we are only as good as those we support and we have so much brilliant work in our community to get out there should just like focus on each other help each other out support each other and just love just really lean into the abundance because it's all there and it's right for us to really tear apart Thank you