“Latinos Shaping a Nation” debuted this Tuesday in Smothers Theater.
The two-person play performed by the Will & Co production company was written by Colin Cox and focuses on the lives of six influential Latinos in American history: Dolores Huerta Rafael Cordero Luisa Moreno a Latino-American soldier Andrea Perez and Roberto Clemente.
“The people who write history never put the multi-culturalism in Cox said, explaining why he wrote this play.
The play is a part of the series Faces of America” a tribute to those who have made a significant contribution to the American way of life.
Huerta for example helped to organize a grape workers’ strike that inspired legislation to a set minimum wage in America.
Cordero began the tradition of multi-cultural education.
Moreno the first important woman to ever play a major role in a large U.S. union was an idealist blacklisted for her actions. Faced with the choice of deportation or helping the government blacklist her friend Moreno proclaimed “I will not live as a free woman with a mortgaged soul.”
Another character was a Marine who proudly described how 43 Latino-Americans have won the Medal of Honor and reminded the audience that Latinos have defended the United States since its inception.
Perez’s contribution to American life remains an relevant legal issue today. In Perez v. Sharp she pushed to change the laws restricting Caucasians from marrying those of other ethnicities. Today that case is being employed to contest the California Supreme Court’s ruling on Proposition 8 which bans same-sex marriage.
Clemente helped to integrate baseball and said that if you worry about race “Then you are wasting your time on this earth.”