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Topping the list of the many things I am grateful for is being a bilingual Spanish speaker. This was the language of our home and there was never any question that we would speak it. We lived in a segregated Mexican-American community and attended a segregated parochial school. Everyone around us spoke Spanish. AND we kids were also fluent English speakers. Efforts by the nuns at St. Joseph’s to punish the Spanish out of us were unsuccessful. “Es-panish not allowed, you will be pined one knee-kol.” The nuns, who were from the Philippines, treated us like colonial subjects and they were hell-bent on turning us into monolingual English speakers. In their minds, real Americans were people who spoke only English. You know the old joke. What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bilingual. A person who speaks three language? Trilingual. And a person who speaks only one language: American. Many an afternoon I’d report back home to my mother that I had been fined (a penny or nickel) or otherwise punished for speaking Spanish. Her response: “diles que el que habla dos idiomas cuenta por dos.” Tell the sisters that someone who speaks two languages has the value of two persons. That was not a persuasive argument to the nuns and they offered no explanation as to why we should speak ONLY English. Still we persisted and we grew up bilingual as did every single person who went to St. Joseph’s. My first encounter with Mexican-Americans kids who did not speak Spanish came when our family travelled to Austin (three+ hours north of Alice, our hometown of 18,000, in South Central Texas) to visit friends of our parents who had moved there. That was such a weird experience -- being with kids who looked just like us but only spoke English. Wha???? It blew my mind. In college and beyond I met other Latinx who were monolingual English speakers and typically they had grown up in urban areas and in more racially integrated environments. Some parents wanted to shield their kids from the discrimination they had encountered and enforced an English-only rule in their homes. They hoped that if their kids spoke “perfect” English they would be more acceptable and treated better. There was also plenty of shaming done by fellow classmates. “This is America, stop talking Mexican!” I meet plenty of Latinx folks who do not speak Spanish. “Hey Rodriguez, what do you mean you don’t speak Spanish?” Some bristle at these encounters and a few have shared with me that they harbor resentment toward their parents for not teaching them Spanish. Blame a racist society, I say, not your parents. “If it’s important to you,” I tell them, “it is totally within your power to learn Spanish. And if it isn’t, then make peace with it. Your parents were doing what they thought would give you the greatest opportunity. Don’t fault them for that.” I love knowing Spanish and I speak it frequently with friends. Some are NOT native speakers but learned it at school and speak it beautifully (tip of the hat, you know who you are). But lately I confess the following. I become anxious when I am in public places (especially on BART, the Bay Area’s subway system) and I overhear people speaking Spanish (or Arabic). I’m on guard, waiting for someone to make some nasty comment directed at these folks. I was reminded of this when reading the news story about the ACLU lawsuit on behalf of two United States citizens detained by a US Customs and Border Enforcement agent in a small town in Montana, who overheard the women chatting with each other in Spanish in a convenience store. https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-files-lawsuit-behalf-us-citizens-detained-speaking-spanish After showing their valid Montana driver’s licenses, they were not allowed to leave the store’s parking lot. Other agents were called to the scene to further investigate them. They asked the agent whether he was racially profiling them. “Ma’am the reason I asked you for your ID is I came in here and I saw you guys are speaking Spanish, which is very unheard of up here,” the agent said, looking into the camera. The women videotaped the encounter with the officer. Ana Suda, who was born in Texas, inquired of the officer’s supervisor, who had come to the scene, whether they would have been detained had they been speaking French. The suit alleges that his reply was, “No,” we don’t do that.” So friends, parlez-vous away. Do you worry that speaking Spanish in public spaces might bring negative attention toward you? Let me hear from you on this point. My one-woman show, Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? explores these and other issues of living while brown in the US. If you live in the SF Bay Area, I hope you’ll come see it. NOW in BERKELEY Sundays 2 pm The Marsh Arts Center 2021 Allston Way (between Oxford and Shattuck) 1/2 block from Downtown Berkeley BART Tickets: https://themarsh.org/irma_herrera/irma-herrera-berkeley/ #respect #bilingual #Latinx #MispronounceMyOwnName #immigration #ACLU

“The final line is spoken, the audience applauds, the actors take their bows. But at an increasing number of theaters, the night isn’t over. Audiences often settle back into their seats. It’s time for the talkback, a chance to discuss the play with the actors, the director or sometimes the playwright.” These are the opening lines in an article in the LA Times, “The theater talkback: Why they're popular, and why playwrights aren't always pleased:. Click here to read article. When the Marsh offered me the opportunity to present Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? at their San Francisco Theater for the initial seven-week run, I knew that I wanted to have talkbacks, although I had a different idea in mind. It wasn’t to discuss my play, it was to engage the audience with the work of thought leaders from the Bay Area’s social justice community. I wanted audiences hear about the wide-ranging activities that are addressing the many forms of discrimination that (unfortunately) have been flourishing in the past several years. My intuition was correct, folks have loved the talkbacks. I personally knew the majority of talkback speakers I wanted to invite. And I also reached out to folks I had never met. I had heard them speak at conferences or seminars or I had read something they had written. Almost every person I invited accepted my invitation, and they gave me permission to tape and disseminate videos of these conversations. The talkback speakers were gracious, entertaining, and had so much to say. I’m so pleased to finally share these videos with you over the next few weeks, each is between 25-35 minutes. When my play was extended in SF for six weeks, I invited additional folks. I am also having talkback speaker in Berkeley. However, there will be some performances where there is no invited guest. I will use these opportunities for the audience to share their name stories, and to ask or comment about the issues raised in my play. I'm so pleased to provide videos and bios of five of those speakers (not in the order of their appearances, except for Rinku Sen). Stay tuned for the rest of the videos, they will appear in future blogs. For now I introduce you to the following: Rinku Sen is a writer and a political strategist. She is currently Senior Strategist at Race Forward, having formerly served as Executive Director and as Publisher of their award-winning news site Colorlines. Under Sen’s leadership, Race Forward has generated some of the most impactful racial justice successes of recent years, including Drop the I-Word, a campaign for media outlets to stop referring to immigrants as “illegal,” resulting in the Associated Press, USA Today, LA Times, and many more outlets changing their practice. Her books Stir it Up and The Accidental American theorize a model of community organizing that integrates a political analysis of race, gender, class, poverty, sexuality, and other systems. She is also a James O. Gibson Innovation Fellow at PolicyLink. Rinku Sen writes and curates the news at rinkusen.com. Click here to watch. Carlton F.W. Larson is a Professor of Law at the UC Davis School of Law, where he has taught American constitutional law and Anglo-American legal history since 2004. Before joining the UC Davis faculty, Professor Larson was a litigation associate at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Covington & Burling, and a law clerk to Judge Michael Daly Hawkins of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He earned his undergraduate degree, summa cum laude, in History from Harvard College and his law degree from Yale Law School, where he was an Articles Editor of The Yale Law Journal and Executive Editor of The Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities. He is the author of the law review article, “Naming Baby: The Constitutional Dimensions of Parental Naming Rights.” Click here to watch. Victoria Plaut and Christopher Bridges appeared together. Victoria Plaut is Professor of Law and Social Science at UC Berkeley, School of Law, where she also serves as Director of the Culture, Diversity, and Intergroup Relations Lab. She teaches courses on implicit bias, law and psychology, and the psychology of diversity and discrimination. A social psychologist by training, Dr. Plaut has conducted extensive empirical research on diversity and inclusion, published in her field’s top journals, and co-edited a book, Diversity Ideologies in Organizations. She has also written articles for other audiences, including “Inviting Everyone In,” in Scientific American’s 2014 State of the World’s Science issue. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and private organizations. She has worked with Fortune 10 companies, nonprofits, law firms, courts, schools, and universities as well as with global business and science leaders on addressing biases and creating more inclusive work and educational environments. Learn more about Culture, Diversity, and Intergroup Relations Lab at www.law.berkeley.edu/culture-diversity-intergroup-relations-lab/ Christopher Bridges is a graduate of Northeastern University School of Law. He also holds an MS in Criminal Justice from Michigan State University and a BS in Political Science and BA in Criminal Justice, both from North Carolina Central University. Chris began his legal career in 2012 with the ACLU of Northern California as the Racial Justice Project Fellow, where he worked on school to prison pipeline issues as a member of the Education Equity team. Chris began his work at the Equal Justice Society in Oakland as the Butler Koshland Fellow and was later hired full time to focus his advocacy on school discipline and education issues as well as inequities within the criminal justice system. To aid in these efforts, Chris is using social science, structural analysis, and real life experiences to help broaden conceptions of present-day discrimination to include implicit bias.Learn more about Equal Justice Society at www.equaljusticesociety.org/ Click here to watch video of talkback with Victoria and Chris. Tom Saenz is the President and General Counsel of MALDEF and leads the organization in pursuing litigation, policy advocacy, and community education to promote the civil rights of all Latinos living in the United States in the areas of education, employment, immigrants’ rights, and voting rights. Saenz rejoined MALDEF in August 2009, after four years on Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's executive team. He previously spent 12 years at MALDEF practicing civil rights law, including four years as litigation director. He has served as lead counsel for MALDEF in numerous cases including challenges to California Proposition 187, California Proposition 227, and California congressional redistricting. In 2016, Saenz argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Texas, representing intervenors defending Obama Administration deferred action initiatives. Saenz graduated from Yale College and Yale Law School; he clerked for two federal judges before initially joining MALDEF in 1993. Learn more about MALDEF at maldef.org. Unfortunately, due to a technical glitch (OK, my human error), only a few minutes of my conversation with Tom Saenz is available. Click here to watch. THIS Sunday 2/10 If you live in the SF Bay Area come to this Sunday’s show at the Berkeley Marsh where I have another wonderful talkback speaker. Michael Nava is the author of an acclaimed series of eight novels featuring gay, Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios who The New Yorker, called “a detective unlike any previous protagonist in American noir.” The New York Times Book Review has called Nava “one of our best” writers. His 2016 novel Lay Your Sleeping Head, a reimagining of the first Henry Rios novel published 30 years ago, was named by the Lambda Literary Review “one of the literary events of the year.” In January 2019, Michael launched the Henry Rios Mysteries Podcast, which adapts Lay Your Sleeping Head into an 18-episode podcast inspired by classic radio theater. His new Rios novel, Carved in Bone, will be published in spring, 2019 by Persigo Press, Michael Nava’s fledgling publishing company. He is also the author of an award-winning historical novel, The City of Palaces, set at the beginning of the 1910 Mexican revolution. His website is www.michaelnavawriter.com For tickets and more info about this and future shows visit: https://themarsh.org/irma_herrera/irma-herrera-berkeley/​ #fairness #equality #MispronounceMyOwnName #MALDEF #justice #prejudice

After a 13-week run at San Francisco’s Marsh Theater, Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? is going to Berkeley for eight-weeks starting Sunday, February 3, 2019, with a 2 pm matinee. YES, first show kicks off on Super Bowl Sunday. I’ll be performing every Sunday in February and through March 24th. Beginning March 2nd, we are adding a second weekly show on Saturday evenings at 5 pm. This means there are 12 additional opportunities to see this production. “Speaks volumes about the ingrained power structures in American society.” ~Mercury News It has been gratifying to hear from audience members in post-show conversations, emails, and comments on social media. “Put @irmadherrera's theater piece, "Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name?" on your to-do list . . . Personal and deeply thought-provoking on issues of identity important for us to think about today.” ~Professor Marsha Cohen (twitter) “[O]rchestrated our understanding of what's been happening to people who were here long before we honkies were and who cannot pronounce her or others’ names. It was brilliant! And Irma is so charming, and such an actress, that the whole performance was entrancing . . . Thanks so much; the Marsh never disappoints, and most often overwhelms!” ~Claire Risley (Goldstar) Please note that the person who wrote this Goldstar mini-review chose the word “honkies." Perhaps this was in response to a scene where I share a litany of ethnic slurs I heard growing up. It is always interesting to hear audience reactions as I say these ugly words: sometimes people laugh (nervously, it seems) at the first two words, beaners, cucarachas, but by the end of the recitation, you can hear a pin drop. Following presentation of my hour-long show (no intermission), I will have a half-hour on-stage conversation with leaders in the Bay Area's social justice community. Both my website and the Marsh will list the talkback speakers for upcoming shows. The talkbacks in San Francisco were both informative and inspiring. SF audiences loved them, as did I. To Recap: February 3-March 24, 2019 Every Sunday 2 pm matinee during the eight week run, and Saturdays at 5 pm, from March 2nd - March 23, 2019. Berkeley Marsh Theater (pictured below) 2120 Allston Way (one block from Downtown Berkeley BART station) Tickets, starting at $20, https://themarsh.org/irma_herrera/irma-herrera-berkeley/ For decades, people of color (POC) have been protesting the absence of our stories on stage, and on the screen, big and small. Before and after every major awards ceremony: Tonys, Golden Globes, Oscars, Academy Awards, hastags abound: #tonyssowhite, #oscarssowhite . . . We are making inroads, but oh so slowly. POC need to be everywhere in order for our stories to see the light of day. We don't just need to write them, we've got to be in all other spaces: producing, acting, directing, financing, and reviewing this work. Made my heart sing to learn there are Latinx reviewers, like David John Chavez, at Bay Area Plays, whose professional work is to see and review plays. Ajúa. Check out what he has to say at: https://bayareaplays.com/2018/12/20/the-marshs-irma-herrera-would-like-to-share-with-you-how-to-pronounce-her-name/ “The shortest distance between two people is a story.” ~Patti Digh This is one of my favorite quotes and when I came upon it there was no attribution, so I set about to find the person I should credit. Thanks to google, I learned of Patti Digh and her work. Her website, https://www.pattidigh.com, describes her as an “author. speaker. educator. philosopher. social justice advocate. community-builder. And posted prominently in her website is: “How do you Pronounce Digh, Anyway? It sounds just like the word “dye.” Or like “sigh,” with a D.” Everybody has a name story, whether it's how we say it, how we got it, or what it means to us and to the people who named us. Props to all the folks around the country who toil tirelessly to promote fairness and justice, and who dedicate themselves to creating a society where we treat all individuals with respect. We've got much ground to travel to achieve equality, but we never give up. "If the cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. Because the goal of America is freedom, abused and scorned tho' we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny." ~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Everyday, we make a difference by bearing witness and taking a stand when we see injustices. And today as we celebrate the life of Dr. King, it's important to reflect on what more each of us can do. Telling our stories matters: we are hard-wired to connect with each other through stories. It's how we make sense of our lives and of what happens in the world around us. Following one show, a middle-aged white man came right up to me and said, "you and I probably don't agree on anything politically." Okay. I wondered what was coming next. "But, I'm leaving with lots of things to think about, so thank you for that." I thanked him also and said, "my hope is that people who are here, watch and listen with an open mind and an open heart. That's it." If you live in the Bay Area and haven’t yet seen Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? please come on down to The Marsh Theater in Berkeley. And if you can’t come to the Bay Area, get on my mailing list so I can let you know if my play is coming to your community. One last comment that really touched me. “Everyone please go see this show! Why Would I Mispronounce My Name? is a magnificent piece of art! You hear people say "Art is Resistance". . . well this definitely fits that bill! You are taken on a journey with Irma from childhood, adolescence to adulthood. Her experiences navigating through sexism and racism pull you in because they are so relatable. Your memory is provoked regarding your own personal story about power dynamics and how they relate to your name, identity, culture, gender, ethnicity, immigration status and/or profession. I kept nodding my head at each scene because Irma was bringing truth to power. I felt seen and heard! This play really spoke to me deeply . . . The best part was seeing it with mi gente! Nothing better than getting together with beautiful folks! ~Vicky Castro (Facebook) If you have a story about names, I’d love to hear it. You can reach me either through my website, irmaherrera.com or by sending me an email at irmadherrera@gmail.com. You can also connect with me on twitter or Instagram @irmadherrera (please note the initial “d” between my first and last names). Muchismas gracias to all of you who have supported me as I took a leap of faith and transitioned from lawyer to playwright and performer. #respect #socialjustice #BayAreaSoloTheater #inclusion

So many cities in the United States have names from languages other than English. Native American languages gave us Chicago, Milwaukee, Omaha. Plenty of cities, big and small, with Spanish names -- San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tornillo. And the French graced us with Lafayette, Des Moines, Baton Rouge. Most newscasters anglicize these names, which I find slightly annoying but doesn’t beget any action beyond a few moments of ranting. But. There. Are. Limits. Lately I can’t stop yelling at my radio about the mispronunciation of the Mexican border town of Tia-Wanna, Aaarrghhhhh, it's like nails on chalkboard. It’s Ti-Juana, Ti-Juana, there is no “UH” between Ti and Juana! With 24/7 news coverage about the “fake” border crisis, I hear Tia-Wanna countless times a day. I suppose we can blame Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass for making this city a household name back in the 1960s. Those of us “d’un certain âge,” remember Herb Alpert and his band fondly. Never heard of him? Well here you go, taken from his website: http://www.herbalpert.com/ Creator and innovator, musician and producer, artist, and philanthropist, Herb Alpert is a man with a profound passion. Born in Los Angeles, the future trumpeter came of age in a house filled with music. At the age of eight, he was drawn to the trumpet in a music appreciation class in his elementary school. “I was very fortunate that I had that exposure to music and was encouraged to stick with it. Years ago, when the arts programs were cut out of our public schools, so many kids stopped having that kind of opportunity.” A legendary trumpet player, Alpert’s extraordinary musicianship has earned him five #1 hits, nine GRAMMY® Awards, fifteen Gold albums, fourteen Platinum albums and has sold over 72 million records. Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass propelled his sound into the pop music limelight, at one point outselling the Beatles two to one. In 1966, they achieved the since-unmatched feat of simultaneously having four albums in the Top 10 and five in the Top 20. Herb Alpert also has the distinction of being the only artist who has had a #1 instrumental and vocal single. Beyond his musical talents, Alpert is also a respected abstract expressionist painter and sculptor. There’s a whole separate website just for his visual art, click here. His wife, Lani Hall Alpert (herself a Grammy-winning vocalist) is a published author of fiction and non-fiction. More about her interesting work here. Dayenu, I say to myself as I read about this power couple’s accomplishments. But on top of all this, they shine in another front: as philanthropists. Their foundation has donated upwards of $160 million, including $10 million to LA Community Colleges for music education. It made my heart soar to read about their talents and generosity. Time permitting, you’ll be inspired by this interview in Forbes with Alpert about their philanthropic work. What an antidote to people in the current news, particularly those associated with the Trump Administration, whose wealth has been used to beget more personal wealth by whatever means necessary, including mendacity of breathtaking proportions. But back to my original rant about the mispronunciation of Tia-Wanna. So after yelling at my car radio, yesterday morning, I decided that newscasters would definitely continue saying Tia-Wanna unless someone brings this problem to their attention. I emailed the editors of California Report as the most recent offender was a reporter from KQED’s California desk, and informed them of the issue, and requested reporters to get the name right. I haven’t yet heard back from them (it's only been a day). I would encourage anyone who find this annoying to put in your .02 worth and ask that more attention be paid to pronunciation of Spanish names, like Tijuana. You can reach them at calreport@kqed.org. It takes just a couple of minutes to send off an email, or make a call to California Report's senior staff: Ingrid Becker, Senior Producer 415.553.2404 and Senior Editor, Victoria Mauleon 415.553.2477. I am well aware that there are many folks who really don't care, or even if you do, why bother? I get that we are all plenty busy . . . but me . . . I just can't stay quiet. Ps: My one-woman show, Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? is still on stage, Saturdays at 5 pm, only through January 26 at the San Francisco Marsh Theater. Hope to see you there if you live in the SF Bay Area. Tickets and information about post-show speakers at themarsh.org/mispronounce-my-name/irma-herrera/. #MispronounceMyOwnName #respect #Tijuana

Since 2003 Merriam Webster, America's leading dictionary publisher, compiles a list of its top words of the year. It selects ONE word and ten runners-up. In an on-line video, Peter Sokolowski, Editor at Large, explains the process. “Merriam-Webster’s word of the year is determined by our on-line dictionary look-up data: the word must show both high volume of traffic and show significant year over year increase in lookups at merriam-webster.com. Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2018 is justice. It was a top lookup throughout the year, 74% more than in 2017. We see spikes in our data that correspond to certain news events and stories reported in the media that help us to understand what drove many people to look up justice so much more frequently this year. The word and the concept of justice has been at the center of so many of our national debates in the past year: racial justice, social justice, criminal justice, economic justice. Any conversation about these topics can naturally lead to seeking a clearer idea of what we mean when we speak of justice.“ Click here for the back story on how justice and ten other words worked their way into our collective consciousness, and to find out what exactly these words mean. These words provide a window as to what’s on our mind. The top ten runners up to justice were: nationalist, pansexual, lodestar, epiphany, feckless, laurel, pissant, respect, maverick, and excelsior. In many of the cases the lookup was occasioned by a prominent person's use of the word, or when words are used with reference to some important individual. John McCain was often described as a maverick, and when Samantha Bee called Ivanka Trump a feckless c**t, many looked up feckless, wondering what exactly she meant. I spend a lot of time thinking about justice and fairness, and what I, as an individual, can do to fight injustice. And looking over my shoulder as I write at my stand-up desk is one of my favorite paintings. Several years ago, my friend Teresa, penned a short email to me “send me your snail mail address, I’m sending you something.” Nice, I thought, looking forward to receiving a book or some magazine she thought would interest me. Some weeks later a large package arrived at my front door. Inside was a meticulously wrapped 46” x 51” painting with a note saying she thought this belonged with me. Teresa and her spouse, John, were downsizing and planning to travel and eventually moved to Mexico. She had received this as a gift when she retired from an illustrious career creating sustainable communities, and building affordable housing. La Justica was painted by Phoenix artist, Emily Costelo. Learn more about Emily and her beautiful work here. I consider myself the entrusted steward of La Justicia, and I will gladly return her to Teresa whenever she may want it. It is a honor to have her in our home. I find myself looking, really looking, at La Justice several times a day, when I need inspiration or am simply taking a break. I wonder if there’s something she needs to tell me. La Justicia is one of the best gifts I have ever received. I was interested in knowing what Merriam-Webster's words of the year had been in previous years. Here is a complete listing since they started tracking them. 2018 justice 2017 feminism 2016 surreal 2015 -ism (“ism” is a suffix rather than a word, still made it to word of the year. We read and hear it often: ageism, fascism, terrorism, racism, feminism, communism, capitalism . . . 2014 culture 2013 science 2012 socialism 2011 pragmatic 2010 austerity 2009 admonish 2008 bailout 2007 woot 2006 truthiness 2005 integrity 2004 blog 2003 democracy As we move into the New Year, I wish you and your loved ones good health, and great success in achieving your goals. Take a stand for justice in your day to day lives. When you see or hear an injustice: a racial slur, homophobic jokes, bullying of persons who are disabled, harassment of women and girls, say something. The “See Something, Say Something” national campaign applies not just to Homeland Security, but to everyday acts that belittle and diminish us as individuals. When we witness something that’s not fair, we feel it in our gut. Take the time to say: “that is not OK.” It’s the just thing to do. Gran exito en 2019 y Adelante. #equality #justice #civilrights #fairness #merriamwebster

When I planned a vacation to visit friends in Guanajuato, with a three-day stopover in CDMX, I did not know that our short stay in Mexico City would coincide with the massive pilgrimage to honor La Virgen de Guadalupe, Mexico's Patron Saint on her Feast Day, December 12. Last year over 7 million people participated in the annual pilgrimage. The major gathering starts the day before and the highlight is the Midnight Mass at the Basilica in which a large troupe of Marachis serenade her with the traditional Mexican birthday song, Las Mañanitas. Earlier in the day on December 11, the streets throughout CDMX were gridlocked with the millions of people who came to Mexico City to pay tribute. At Plaza de La Constitution, (el Zocalo) across the street from our hotel, hundreds of people turned into thousands by late afternoon as they gathered there or stopped enroute to the Basilica: they travelled on foot, bicycles, pedi-cabs, motorcyles, and of course cars, buses and trucks, many of them ornately decorated. They carried framed pictures, wooden and ceramic statues of the Virgin in all imaginable sizes, banners, and specially-designed altars. You can learn more about the importance of La Guadalupana, in this interesting article from the Yucatan Times: https://www.theyucatantimes.com/2018/12/tonantzin-the-deity-behind-the-virgen-of-guadalupe-cult Her recognizable image is found in contemporary and modern works of art as well as everyday items such as socks, jeans jackets, t'shirts, and mugs. An adventuresome taxi driver was able to get me to within two blocks of the back of the Basilica where I saw thousands of people participating in the procession. “Rivers of people,” as someone described it had been waiting for hours to enter the Basilica to participate in services. I was not among the fortunate. On the flight from San Francisco to Mexico City, I sat next to a Filipino-American woman who was traveling to Mexico with family and friends to visit the shrine. I did not then know that they were coming to participate in one of the largest gatherings of people in Mexico. I was told that the only other events that draw these many people are visits of the Pope. It was moving to witness the devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Yippee, My Show Got Extended Through January 26, 2019 Thanks to the wonderful support of all y’all who have attended my show, and/or told your friends about it, the Saturday shows have been selling out. The Marsh has extended my run and added six additional performances starting Saturday, December 22nd through Saturday, January 26th. If you haven’t yet seen it, you can catch Why Would I Mispronounce My OwnName? over the holidays, and throughout January. Please note there is no show on Saturday, December 15. I’ve been fortunate to have an all-star cast of talkback guests speaking on a variety of social justice topics, and folks have found the post-show conversations to be very informative. The list of topics and guests is at: https://www.irmaherrera.com/talk-backs These conversations have been videotaped and they will be posted on my website within a few weeks. Due to glitches (aka human error) two talkbacks were not recorded. I plan to continue the talkback series, and am in the process of lining-up guest for the six additional dates. I am truly grateful for the support you have shown me. Numerous folks have come up to me after a show: “I’m here because my mom, friend, co-worker . . . (fill in the blank) . . . said I had to see this, and was that ever a good suggestion.” Thanks for sending people to my show. Book Recommendations With a little bit of down-time over the Thanksgiving holiday, I was able to listen (and/or read) two wonderful books. I am an avid reader, and mostly gravitate towards fiction, but occasionally venture into other genres. Besides my love of the printed word, I am a big fan of audio books, mostly listening to audible.com, although public libraries are great sources of audio books available at no cost. The down side is that waiting lists are long for new and popular books. When I especially love a book, I sometimes treat myself to both the hard-print copy and the digital version. Listening to a beautifully-read book is like watching a piece of well-presented theater. An Unlikely Journey, Julián Castro I had the rewarding experience of seeing Julián Castro at the San Francisco Commonwealth Club in conversation with Abdi Soltani, the Executive Director of the Northern California ACLU. I opted for the attendance fee which included a signed copy of Julian’s memoir, An Unlikely Journey: Waking Up from My American Dream. After the hour-long conversation I got to stand in line with many others and for the opportunity to say hello to Julián and to get my book signed. The audio version of the book is read by the author, who exudes the intelligence, humor, and warmth that were so present during his on-stage interview. Julián is the Former Mayor of San Antonio (elected at age 34, he was the youngest mayor of a top-50 American City, ) and served as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the Obama Administration. He starts his family story with a seven-year old orphan girl and her younger sister accompanied by adult relatives crossing the bridge over the Rio Grande River and presenting themselves to Customs and Immigration Officials in the United States. The girls were brought from Mexico to live with relatives in San Antonio. That seven-year old girl was his grandmother, their beloved Mamo. Julián and Joaquin were raised in a multi-generational family in San Antonio's West Side by their remarkable mother, the highly respected Chicana activist Rosie Castro and Rosie’s mother, their grandmother Mamo. There was so much I related to in the story of their youth -- the disparities between the haves (predominately Whites) and have nots (Mexican-Americans) of South Texas. Julián and Joaquin, smart, hardworking kids had a strong competitive spirit (especially against each other) and were raised in an environment where leaders, beginning with their Mom, worked tirelessly to address the injustices that limited the opportunities of their community. I could especially relate to their story of leaving home for the very first time, flying off to enroll in a college they had never visited before, Stanford. Middle and upper-middle class families take their children on college tours around the country, but for many kids from economically depressed communities, the first time they see the college they’ll be attending is when they arrive for classes. This is an honest and touching story about class mobility, the ups and downs you see when you straddle different socio-economic classes. We learn and grow so much from these experiences, but they are also filled with great sadness as we see first-hand: all that is given and taken for granted by our new peers raised in privileged environments. At the same time we live with the knowledge that many of our friends and family “back home” work so hard just to get their foot onto the lowest-rungs of the ladders of economic opportunity. Julián notes that he had one huge advantage over other kids in similar circumstance. Both at Stanford and Harvard Law he had his brother at this side, so whenever he felt homesick or a sense of not belonging, Joaquin was always there. Lots of ups and downs in this story, tremendous academic success, struggling with how to be a public servant, financial problems, losing elections. But what I was most touched by is Julián’s love for his family, his community and for our country, and his commitment to public service. Will he or won’t he throw his hat in the 2020 Presidential Race? He’s giving it serious thought. He’s certainly got what it takes to lead this country. I highly recommend the book. Becoming, Michelle Obama This book is in a word: sensational, and it is beautifully read by the author. Becoming is also a story about being a class migrant and how education, especially at elite institutions (Princeton and Harvard Law) changes the trajectory of your life. Michelle introduces us to the community of her youth in the South Side of Chicago, proud men and women who saw how their opportunities were limited by the color of their skin, and the segregated communities in which they grew up. In spite of these limitations, these hard-working folks created vibrant communities where children were loved and nurtured by the adults around them. They had high hopes that more was possible for Michelle and Craig's generation than had been afforded to them. I was especially struck by Michelle’s description of feeling like a poppy seed in a bowl of rice while a student at Princeton. A very familiar feeling, one which many of us still experience to this day when we find we are the only brown or black face in a classroom or seminar, the only Latinx lawyer in the room, the only African American in the C-Suite. And women, who are also racial and ethnic minorities, find ourselves in this situation all too often. Michelle's story details her class mobility, through education, and career choices. And by happenstance she fell in love with and married a man committed to public service, who had a bold ambition: to become the first African American President of The United States. There is no question that a key to Barack Obama’s success was the strength, intelligence, political savvy, no-nonsense attitude, and financial security that Michelle Obama, corporate lawyer, spouse, mom, was able to provide to her family. And she was a package deal, backed by her extended South Side Chicago family: folks that were both quite ordinary and remarkable all at once. We get an intimate window into their lives, and one feels Michelle's love, respect, admiration, and gratitude to all these people. One aspect of the book I really valued was learning about her long-standing relationships with her women friends. I hear you loud and clear, Michelle. My posse of women friends is something that has been key to all the good things in my life, personal and professional. And I was thrilled to learn of the work she did quietly in the White House to promote educational opportunities and mentorship programs for girls and young women. Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, a truly remarkable woman. I had the privilege of meeting First Lady Michelle Obama during President Obama's first term. I, along with a group of eight women who headed women’s rights organizations, were invited to a meet with her at the White House, to discuss issues of concern to women in this country, and to be briefed on plans for expanding health care, particularly to low-income communities. I got to sit next to her, and she was all that we see in the thousands of times we’ve watched her on tv: smart, kind, funny, and interested in knowing what others have to say. There are great books about two great individuals, so get them for yourself and pick up an extra one to give as gifts. I loved them both. * * * * * * * * * * PS: Two shows this week at The San Francisco Marsh Theater, Tonight, Thursday, December 6 at 8 pm Saturday, December 8, 5 pm Tickets starting at $20 at themarsh.org Performances resume December 22 and through the end of January. Saturdays only at 5 pm. #equality #Economicopportunity #socialjustice #affirmativeaction #MispronounceMyOwnName

My one-woman show, Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? has been on stage at The Marsh Theater in San Francisco almost a month. Thank YOU to all who have been at one of the performances. A special welcome to those of you who signed up for my newsletter, or are now linked with me on social media. Please tell your friends and colleagues about my show; we built audiences through word of mouth. I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of inviting Talkback Speakers who join me on stage at the end of the show for a 30-minute conversation. Each speaker has shared with the audience astute observations and commentaries on the state of civil rights in our nation. These conversations have been videotaped and they will be posted on my website sometime in the not too distant future. I will let you know when these videos are up. The only one available for viewing, as of now, is my talkback conversation with Rinku Sen. If you aren't yet familiar with Rinku Sen and her work as a racial justice advocate, please subscribe to her blog, https://mavenroundtable.io/rinkusen/, You'll thank me later. Here is the list of the Talkback Speakers featured this past month: The Role of Art in Promoting Social Justice Rinku Sen, Maven, Author, Activist, Thinker and Doer (former Executive Director and Publisher of Colorlines). Rinku's blog about my show and the video of our talkback, available here. How Technology Can Help Us Learn ‘Difficult’ Names Praveen Shanbhag, Founder of Name Coach (name-coach.com) software that enables individuals to record their names and append digital links to social media, email; widely used by educational institutions Implicit (Unconscious) Bias, What It Is and How We Reduce the Impact of Our Biases Christopher Bridges, Attorney, Equal Justice Society Victoria Plaut, Director, Culture, Diversity & Intergroup Relations Lab and Professor of Law and Social Science, UC Berkeley Naming Your Baby: What’s the Law Got To Say About It? Carlton Larson, UC Davis Law Professor, and author of Naming Baby: The Constitutional Dimensions of Parental Naming Rights Wherever There’s A Fight: How Runaway Slaves, Suffragists, Immigrants, Strikers & Poets Shaped Civil Liberties in California Elaine Elinson and Stan Yogi, authors of this book published by Heyday Books and winners of a California Book Awards Gold Medal National Origin and Race Discrimination in Employment Bill Tamayo, the former Managing Attorney of the Asian Law Caucus serves as District Director of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and appeared in his individual capacity MALDEF: 50 Years Fighting for the Civil Rights of the Latino Community Tom Saenz, President & General Counsel MALDEF The Lawyer as Storyteller: Lawyers and Solo Performers Mark McGoldrick, a public defender, reflects on his life and the lives of his clients in his acclaimed solo play, The Golden Hammer Super grateful to these Talkback Speakers for taking time from their busy schedules. I am also very appreciative of all y’all who have provided me feedback at solo performance classes, storytelling groups, Sunday morning hikes, or at various mini-performances where I’ve presented bits and pieces that have shaped the script of my current production. Your support means a lot to me. Gracias. And the icing on the cake is that so many out of town friends: from law school, my first law job as a legal aid lawyer, and traveling companions from various trips, have used my play as a good reason to travel to San Francisco. Y’all have come and are coming from NYC, Seattle, Portland, LA, and parts in between, and we’ve had and will continue to have some great reunions. It is an absolute thrill to get together with you. Another HUGE bonus -- interactions with audience members about the impact of my show on them, and hearing your name stories. At my last show a gentleman came up to me right after curtain call. "I want you to meet my wife; her name is Irma." (he pronounced it URma). As I say in my play although that’s not the pronunciation of my name, I totally respect that this is how some people say their names, and I honor their pronunciation. So I meet my tocaya (namesake in Spanish) who tells me she is originally from Switzerland and that in her home country, her name is pronounced just like mine, and she’d like to start being called that. I very excitedly introduced the newly re-christened Irma to the entire audience, and I’m thinking her husband will be changing how he says her name too. It's your name and you get to decide how it is pronounced. Others might not be able or willing to say it, but why would YOU mispronounce your own name? If you consciously mispronounce your own name, I'd love to hear how that got started and your feelings about it. If you live in the Bay Area and haven’t yet seen my play, please come on out --Thursdays at 8 pm and Saturdays at 5 pm, scheduled to run through December 8th, five more shows left in this run. Some of you have come more than once, bringing friends and family members. I organize group outings when I see something I really enjoy and want to share it with friends. So thanks to those who have done that. So easy to get to The Marsh, close to public transportation (10 minute walk from 24th St. BART) and lots of great restaurants in The Mission District. The show lasts approximately one hour (no intermission), we take a five minute break so those who want to leave may do so, and that is followed by the Talkback which lasts about 30 minutes. This Saturday, the Talkback Speakers are Michael Harris and Jason Okonofua shedding light on The School to Prison Pipeline, and efforts being made to diminish the number of our youth who are pushed into the criminal justice system. Michael Harris is Senior Director, Juvenile Justice at the National Center for Youth Law (NCYL).  At NCYL, Michael has worked on litigating unconstitutional probation practices, reducing racial disparities in statewide juvenile corrections systems, and pursuing cases that challenge the “school-to-prison pipeline” in Texas, Connecticut, and California. Additionally, he works on litigation to address implicit bias, and he has delivered presentations to local and national gatherings on the role implicit bias plays in decision-making within the criminal and juvenile justice systems as well as the school to prison pipeline.  Before joining NCYL, Michael was Deputy Director of the W. Haywood Burns Institute, working in California, and Washington to reduce racial disparities in the juvenile justice system, using a collaborative process to achieve systemic reform. Prior to Michael’s work at the Burns Institute, he was Assistant Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area where he worked on a broad range of civil rights cases. More at https://youthlaw.org Dr. Jason Okonofua is a social psychologist in the Psychology Department at the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Okonofua is interested in science-based and scalable strategies to combat inequality in society. This work spans contexts such as education, criminal justice, and business. It investigates how negative stereotypes can contribute to inequality in these contexts and how that process can be dismantled. For example, some of his research in education investigates how the effects of one person’s stereotyping and another person’s threat reverberate and escalate over time. He asks how stereotypes about stigmatized children can shape how they interact with teachers, administrators, and police officers. He also develops theory-based psychological interventions that protect teacher-student relationships from the deleterious effects of stigma and bias. Dr. Okonofua's work is situated to inform psychological theory, field experimentation, and public policy. Learn more at www.jokonofua.com. Tickets still available, starting at $20, at themarsh.org. Wishing all a wonderful weekend. #socialjustice #equality #MispronounceMyOwnName #discrimination #inclusion #diversity #soloperformance

Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? That’s me, and my director Rebecca Fisher, in front of The Marsh Theater before our tech rehearsal Monday morning. It’s Showtime! My one-woman show starts on Thursday, October 25th, with several preview performances: Thursdays at 8 pm and Saturdays at 5 pm. Formal opening night is Saturday, November 3rd. It’s exciting to see my posters up in San Francisco. Hope to see lots of Bay Area folks at my seven-week run. Tickets start at $20, $5 discount for students with code: scholar, for the Oct. 25 and 27 shows at The Marsh's website. The show is just slightly over an hour (no intermission) and I will have post-show guests for 20-30 minute conversations following each performance. The current plan is to videotape the talkbacks and post them on my website, stay tuned for more information. For a complete listing of my talkback guests, click here. Thursday, October 25th Talkback Guest, Rinku Sen, on The Role of Art in Social Justice, 8 pm show Rinku Sen is a writer and a political strategist. She is currently Senior Strategist at Race Forward, having formerly served as Executive Director and as Publisher of their award-winning news site Colorlines. Under Sen’s leadership, Race Forward has generated some of the most impactful racial justice successes of recent years, including Drop the I-Word, a campaign for media outlets to stop referring to immigrants as “illegal,” resulting in the Associated Press, USA Today, LA Times, and many more outlets changing their practice. Her books Stir it Up and The Accidental American theorize a model of community organizing that integrates a political analysis of race, gender, class, poverty, sexuality, and other systems. She is also a James O. Gibson Innovation Fellow at PolicyLink. Rinku Sen writes and curates the news at her website, rinkusen.com. Saturday, October 27th Talkback Guest, Praveen Shanbhag, on How Technology Can Help Us Learn Difficult Names, 5 pm show As the founder and CEO of NameCoach, Praveen Shanbhag works with a talented team dedicated to bringing software solutions to the problem of name mispronunciation and misgendering. Prior to this work, he completed a BA from Harvard, a PhD from Stanford, and taught Philosophy at both Stanford and Foothill College - where he all too often struggled to correctly pronounce the names of their diverse students. Learn more about NameCoach here. The past ten days have been a whirlwind of activity. Las Cruces I performed two shows on Sunday, October 7, 2018 at Las Cruces, New Mexico’s Black Box Theater. Many thanks to all the folks who came to Las Cruces from El Paso, Santa Fe, and Roswell to see my shows. Appreciative of local friends, Eliza Sanchez and Denise Chavez (Casa Camino Real Bookstore), who helped spread the word about my performances. Special thanks to my talkback speakers: Johana Bencomo, Nia Rucker, and Christine Sierra, who shared important information on various social justice subjects, including immigration and elections. And finally tip of the hat to Ceil and Peter Herman at The Black Box Theater. Always love the questions and feedback from audience members. Most memorable shares: Native American man who noted that he had not known that Mexican-American children were punished at school for speaking Spanish. He was well aware this was the experience of American Indian children, but had not known it happened to other communities. Another audience member, a professor whose grandmother was Japanese said, I know about the internment of the Japanese during WWII, but only recently learned that US citizens of Mexican-American ancestry had been deported to Mexico. Click here to read about these deportations in the 1930s. Why were we never taught this at school? Folks feel bad – either guilty or angry – about all that we don’t know. We can’t know what is outside the world of our experiences if we aren’t provided this information as part of our education. This is why ethnic studies departments at universities are so important. It is a place where we can learn our histories and that of other groups, and where we nurture scholars who research and write about our communities. Knowing our own history and that of each other leads to greater respect, appreciation and solidarity for our shared experiences as residents and citizens of this great big and sometimes unwieldy nation. So important that we vote and that our voices are heard at all levels, from School Board, to Superintendent of Instruction at the state level. While in the Las Cruces/El Paso area, I was able to see a play at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Bless Me Ultima (Rudolfo Anaya’s book adapted for the theater) was beautifully produced with magical sets and lots of great acting. Loved seeing a theater full of brown folks, of all ages. I also managed to get in two great hikes in the local mountains. Ate plenty of green and red chile; and only regret I didn’t bring any back with me. There are few smells as wonderful as roasting chiles. I look forward to returning to this beautiful part of the great Southwest, am hoping to have the opportunity to perform at New Mexico State sometime next year. Times Unseen Initiative This past weekend I performed two shows in San Francisco as part of the Times Unseen Initiative Festival: fifteen performers telling stories about the intersection of the personal and political. My piece, I Want To Sell Democracy, was based on almost two years of interviews with a Stacey Barrera, a social studies high school teacher in Corpus Christi, Texas, whose mother, Diana Barrera had served as County Clerk of Nueces County. After working there her entire life, and then holding the top office, Barrera was challenged and unseated by 534 votes by a conservative white woman, supported by the Republican Party powers that be. Diana Barrera is seeking to return to the post of County Clerk in the upcoming election. It has been a true honor to get to know Stacey and to learn about her life as a high school teacher. She is committed to educating the upcoming electorate to appreciate the value of our democracy and the value of voting. So thrilled to be part of this forward thinking theater project, and I was much touched and informed by the stories told by fellow performers. Special thanks to David Ford, Rebecca Fisher, Stephanie Weisman and The Marsh Theater for bringing this project into world. Please vote in the upcoming mid-term elections. Su voto es su voz. #MispronounceMyOwnName #SFSoloShow #socialjustice #Latinx #HumanRights #VotingRights #ImmigrantRights

One month from today, October 25th, Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? opens for a seven-week run at San Francisco's Marsh Theater. I am so excited. Folks ask me, don’t you get nervous? You bet I do. Before each show, I’m back stage and this voice inside my head yells at me, “what the heck were you thinking? You’re gonna go out there in front of all those people?” I take a few deep breaths, put on my ear buds and start dancing. I especially love the Rolling Stones’ Dancing in the Street, Donna Summers’ Last Dance, and many songs from the Buena Vista Social Club. Dancing calms me down. Believe me, I’ve given plenty of thought to all the things that can go wrong. What if I forget some lines? Well I have . . . and the audience never knows. What if for some reason technology fails and the sound cues don’t work? I had pondered that question and had told myself -- you just keep going. While the lighting at a theater and sound cues enhance a production enormously, at the end, it’s your story, and how you tell it, that wins audiences. Last year when I was performing at the San Francisco Fringe Festival, the house manager announced the show, and left the stage. Audience applause, I’m in the wings, waiting for the music that opens my show to walk onto the stage. And . . . nada, nothing happens. Complete silence for a minute, and then the crowd starts to stir. I walk out on stage and say, “I don’t know what’s going on either.” The audience laughs nervously. The tech up in the booth calls out that there was a glitch, now fixed, and tells me to go backstage and she’ll start the cue. I go back stage and nothing happens. I come back out again and shrug my shoulders. The tech motions me to start the show, without my opening song. I say to the audience, “imagine the song Maria from West Side Story playing right now.” The audience starts singing. “Maria, I just met a girl named Maria. And suddenly that name will never be the same to me.” “OK, this is where the song stops and I start my lines.” The audience laughs and the show is off to a great start. This is live theater, anything can happen. This turned out to be one of the best shows I’ve ever performed. Audiences are so open as they enter your world for the hour-long show. It is a beautiful experience to feel your audience so present. So I’m super excited to be performing for seven weeks in San Francisco, and I am so very grateful to all the folks who have supported me as I’ve developed this play over the past three plus years. It really does take a village. Every time we’re in a theater, we are always reminded to silence, or better yet “turn off our phones.” Please heed that advice, as you’ll note in the attached clip, a phone that goes off during the performance is distracting to the performer and to the audience, and it’s horrifying if it happens to be your phone. So here’s my PSA. Don’t be that person whose phone goes off during a show. I look forward to welcoming you and your silent phones at the San Francisco Marsh Theater between October 25th and December 8th, shows on Thursdays at 8 pm and Saturdays at 5 pm. And if you aren’t a Bay Area resident, please pass the word on to friends and family in this area. Gracias. To purchase tickets click here. #SFSoloShow #Latinx #solotheater #socialjustice #MispronounceMyOwnName #BayAreaSoloTheater #Chicanxartist

Six years ago, I was co-directing the Women Immigrants Project at New America Media in San Francisco. I called a state legislator in Alabama to interview her about the state's anti-immigrant law -- HB 56. After the notorious Sheriff Joe Arpaio pushed Arizona's "show me your papers" law, other states began proposing similar measures. Before I tell you about that phone call with a staff member of the Alabama House of Representatives, let me say a bit more about what was going on in Alabama. Alabama's Anti-Immigrant Law HB 56 sought to make the state so inhospitable to undocumented immigrants that they would self deport. It shared the usual characteristics of similar state laws. It had a “show me your papers,” provision and police parked themselves near Latino neighborhoods and stopped people as they drove to or from their homes. If you couldn’t immediately prove your lawful status, off you went to jail and you were held there until ICE decided what it would do with you. The law prohibited undocumented folks from accessing any government services including registering their cars or applying for a marriage license. It also was unlawful for undocumented immigrants to enter into any contracts: it was against the law for them to rent an apartment, have cell phone service, buy a car, have a bank account. How exactly was this going to be enforced? Some utility companies thought it required them to cut off water, electricity, and gas for customers with names like Garcia and Rodriguez unless they could prove they were here lawfully. The law threw the state into a tailspin because determining someone's immigration status is complicated, and assumptions based on a person's name or appearance will surely mean violating the constitutional rights of large numbers of Latinos. In fact this was the basis of numerous court rulings around the country, issuing injunctions against these state anti-immigrant laws. The Alabama law required schools to inquire about the legal status of parents and their children; and fearful parents quit sending their kids to school. The law did not go as far as to deny them admission. It couldn’t, as it is settled US Supreme Court law that all children residing in the US are entitled to a free K-12 public education. I worked on that case, when I was a young lawyer, at MALDEF. There was an exodus of Latinos, including US citizens and lawful residents -- fleeing the climate of fear thousands left, in spite of federal courts stopping most of the law from going into effect while the lawsuits challenging the law worked their way through the legal system. The law was very unpopular with the business community. The agricultural lobby was up in arms about the millions of dollars farmers were losing as crops rotted in the fields. The coup de grâce was the arrest of two foreign nationals employed by Honda and Mercedes-Benz. Both companies have manufacturing plants in Alabama, and employees from Japan and Germany either lived there or traveled to Alabama for business reasons on a regular basis. First, a German executive with Mercedes Benz was arrested, and detained with an immigration hold after being pulled over at a checkpoint. A traffic stop led to the arrest of a Honda employee, a Japanese man, who was held in jail for three days, until he could be cleared by ICE. Lots of national and international news coverage back then, here's one story. The Phone Call So back to my phone call. According to the person on the other end of the phone, no one answered at the office I was calling, so my call went to the main switchboard of the Alabama House of Representatives. I identified myself as a journalist from San Francisco giving my name its correct Spanish pronunciation. “That is a foreign name, and I am not talking to you.” Click. She hung up on me. I can only conclude that she assumed I was undocumented. I was 2000+ miles from Alabama and that state’s anti-immigrant climate was affecting me. So when I saw Sergio Romo at the 2012 World Series Victory Parade wearing the “I Just Look Illegal” t-shirt, in protest of all these anti-immigrant laws that were sprouting up throughout the country, I could relate. This Alabama story is one of many in my play that explore how people judge us based on our names or appearance. Check out this promotional video -- a snippet of my performance from an earlier show. This vignette is no longer in my play, material comes and goes to make room for new stories. My goal is to keep the performance under 65 minutes. Post Show Talkbacks Following each of the two Las Cruces shows there will be half-hour Talkbacks with local guests. After the 2 pm show, Johana Bencomo, Director of Community Organizing at NM CAFé, will join me on stage. NM CAFé is "a faith-based organization that aspires to create a culture of support that empowers New Mexicans to act on their own behalf towards a better quality of life. Since it’s inception CAFé has been a crucial actor in the political landscape in southern New Mexico creating a “land of opportunity” by challenging our elected leaders to put the needs of families and the common good of New Mexico first. At the helm of CAFé’s efforts are strong spiritual leaders who have played a pivitol role in healing the state and restoring people’s confidence in a responsive government that promotes opportunity for all." Click here to visit CAFé’s website. Johana and I will likely be joined by a representative of the ACLU or from one of the organizations that collaborated with the ACLU’s Border Rights Center on a report released this past week. The facts presented in the ACLU’s Border Wall Report “reveal the increased danger, environmental impact, and economic toll suffered by local economies because of these barriers. The report also evaluates and analyzes the ineffectiveness of border walls to avert unauthorized crossings, prevent criminal activity such as drug smuggling and human trafficking, and safeguard our national security.” Read full report here. Following the 7 pm show, my guest will be Dr. Christine Marie Sierra, Professor Emerita of Political Science at the University of New Mexico. Her expertise is in American politics with a focus on race, ethnicity, and gender. Her most recent publication is a co-authored national study of elected officials of color -- Contested Transformation: Race, Gender, and Political Leadership in Twenty-First Century America. Click here for more info on the book. Dr. Sierra, a pioneer in her field, was the third Mexican American woman to receive a Ph.D. in political science. She has written extensively on Mexican American activism, on immigration policy, Hispanic politics in New Mexico, and the politics of Latinas in the United States. She is a frequent commentator on news programs and is the recipient of numerous honors. I look forward to a very spirited conversation with Dr. Sierra about the upcoming elections and the many important issues affecting the Latino community. Thank you for helping to spread the word about the October 7 performances in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Tickets $12-15, available here. #MispronounceMyOwnName #solotheater #StarbucksNames #LasCruces #BlackBoxTheater #immigration #ACLU

My one-woman show gets an extended run at The Marsh Theater in San Francisco starting two months from today. I am very honored to have a chance to present my play to Bay Area audiences. Following each show, I will be joined by various talkback guests (listed below). These thought leaders -- activists, lawyers, professors, writers -- will be discussing various subjects related to social justice, and answering questions. Grateful to live in a community where folks from all racial and ethnic backgrounds work side by side to tackle the most intractable problems that disproportionately affect marginalized communities. Together. United. We are changing the world. Closer to the dates of their appearances, I'll post more info about these guests. Click here to purchase tickets. Talkback Topics and Speakers The Role of Art In Promoting Social Justice Thursday, October 25, 2018 Showtime 8 pm Rinku Sen, Maven, Author, Activist, Thinker and Doer (former Executive Director and Publisher of Colorlines) How Technology Can Help Us Learn ‘Difficult’ Names Saturday, October 27, 2018 Showtime 5 pm Praveen Shanbhag, Founder of Name Coach (name-coach.com) software that enables individuals to record their names and append digital links to social media, email. Widely used by educational institutions. Implicit (Unconscious) Bias, What It Is and How We Reduce the Impact of Our Biases Thursday, November 1, 2018 Showtime 8 pm Christopher Bridges, Attorney, Equal Justice Society and Victoria Plaut, Director, Culture, Diversity & Intergroup Relations Lab and Professor of Law and Social Science, UC Berkeley Naming Your Baby: What’s the Law Got To Say About It? Saturday, November 3, 2018 Showtime 5 pm Carlton Larson, UC Davis Law Professor, and author of Naming Baby: The Constitutional Dimensions of Parental Naming Rights Wherever There’s A Fight: How Runaway Slaves, Suffragists, Immigrants, Strikers & Poets Shaped Civil Liberties in California (Heyday Books, winner of a Gold Medal in the 2010 California Book Awards) Thursday, November 8, 2018 Showtime 8 pm Elaine Elinson and Stan Yogi, authors of Wherever There’s A Fight National Origin and Race Discrimination in Employment Saturday, November 10, 2018 Showtime 5 pm Bill Tamayo, District Director, (appearing in his individual capacity) Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) MALDEF: 50 Years Fighting for the Civil Rights of the Latino Community Thursday, November 15, 2018 Showtime 8 pm Tom Saenz, President & General Counsel MALDEF The Lawyer as Storyteller: Lawyers and Solo Performers Saturday, November 17, 2018 Showtime 5 pm Mark McGoldrick, a public defender, reflects on his life and the lives of his clients in his acclaimed solo play, The Golden Hammer The School to Prison Pipeline: How to End It Saturday, November 24, 2018 Showtime 5 pm Jason Okonofua, Professor, Psychology Department UC Berkeley Michael Harris, National Center for Youth Law Gender Identity, Name Changes, and Preferred Pronoun Use Thursday, November 29, 2018 Showtime 8 pm Margarita Sánchez, National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), immigrant rights activist Stevie Campos-Seligman, college student and activist Both guests prefer use of the pronouns they/them Navigating Disability: Trump Era's Clarion Call for Advocates and Activists to Come Out of the (Inaccessible) Closet Saturday, December 1, 2018 Showtime 5 pm Ingrid Tischer, writer and disability rights activist, Development Director, DREDEF Immigrant Rights in The Trump Era Thursday, December 6, 2018 Showtime 8 pm Bill Ong Hing, Founder, Immigrant Legal Resource Center and Law Professor USF Karen Musalo, Executive Director, Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, Hastings Law School Lawyer Writers: People of Color Making An Impact Through Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry Saturday, December 8, 2016 Showtime 5 pm Sara Campos, poetry, short stories Adam Smyer, author of novel, Knucklehead #socialjustice #Latinx #solotheater #soloperformance #immigrantrights #civilrights #discrimination #genderequality #lgbt #MALDEF #LanguageStatus #humanrights #prejudice