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Looking for a quick binge-watching adventure this weekend. Check out the Stairwell Teatro page on my website, where you can binge-watch my entire series in one sitting, five episodes. Click here. Since each episode is between three to five minutes, you'll be done in under a half-hour. AND . . . if you want to read the accompanying blogs (I post a blog along with each episode), that will add another 25 minutes. So guilt-free bingeing experience in less than one hour. Money-back guarantee that you will enjoy it. For those of you who have already seen some or all the episodes, gracias. I appreciate hearing your reactions to this new story-telling venture. I love ALL y’all's emails and look forward to your name stories. Coming soon, I'm working on these stories: Hurricane Irma, Name Discrimination in employment, Barbra Streisand’s request to Tim Cook that Siri pronounce her last name correctly, Nick Names, and many many more topics. Have some ideas for future Teatro Episode? I wanna hear about that, so write to me at irmadherrera@gmail.com or via my website. Wishing all a good weekend. Here's the first episode.

Six long years. That’s how long it took for the Associated Press and the New York Times to respect Muhummad Ali’s wishes and call him by the name he took when he became a Muslim. People change names for a variety of reasons: many women (and a few men) change their last names when they marry and later when they divorce. Some folks change first names that reflect their gender identity, and laws are changing to make this process easier, which is a good thing. And many entertainers take on new names, but this is usually done early on in their careers before achieving wide-spread recognition. Navigating a name change is far more difficult for someone who is already a public figure, and Muhammad Ali paved the way for those who followed. It wasn’t just about his name, it was about the religion and the fact that he was a proud black man who didn't back down. When Kareem Abdul-Jabbar changed his name, the press was less hostile, but the experience had some similarities to Ali's. In a thoughtful opinion piece, Abdul-Jabbar speaks about his conversion to Islam and I include it here as it touches on issues I explore in my blog and the Stairwell Teatro episodes. It's about identity, respect, and social justice. Click here to read. When Cassius Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali, he was already quite famous. The 18-year old won the Gold Medal at the Summer Olympics in Rome in 1960. He was 22 when he dethroned the Heavyweight Boxing Champion, Sonny Liston, considered one of the finest boxers ever. Ali’s face had been on the cover of many major national magazines and he had appeared in hometown newspapers, big and small, all over the United States. Not only was he a great boxer, but Ali was also a handsome, charismatic, and a proud trash-talking showboat. He was a magnificent quote machine, who often spoke in rhyme. Among my favorites: "Float like a butterfly, Sting like a bee. His hands can't hit What his eyes can't see." "I've wrestled with alligators, I've tussled with a whale I done handcuffed lightning And throw thunder in jail. You know I'm bad. Just last week, I murdered a rock, Injured a stone. Hospitalized a brick. I'm so mean, I make medicine sick." ~Muhammad Ali Cassius Clay shocked the sports world when he announced he had joined the Nation of Islam, and changed this name. This was just days after winning his first Heavyweight Title. He told the press that Cassius Clay was a slave name. He didn’t pick it and he didn’t want it. Moving forward he was to be addressed as Muhammad Ali, a name that meant Beloved of God. The name was given to him by Elijah Muhammad. Clay was named after his father, who in turn had been named after Kentucky politician and abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay. That Clay, who was from a wealthy Kentucky family, heard William Lloyd Garrison give a speech at Yale and that led him to oppose slavery, which made him very unpopular in his home state. He was friends with Abraham Lincoln and served Lincoln’s Administration as the Representative to Russia and helped the United States acquire the state of Alaska from Russia. Muhammad Ali’s ancestors had ancestral ties to the plantation owned by the Cassius Marcellus Clay family. They had lived there in the 1800s. But I digress. The Heavyweight Champion's wishes were disregarded by the press and other boxing opponents as well who continued calling him Cassius Clay. In a famous Heavyweight Title Fight, Muhammad Ali punished and taunted Ernie Terrell calling out, “What’s My Name?” while landing brutal angry punches. The fight became known as the What’s My Name Fight. There was one notable exception among the press. Howard Cosell, a loquacious lawyer turned sportscaster respected Ali’s wishes and addressed him by his chosen name. The two hyper talkative men were fixtures on television, jousting and insulting each other, and became life long friends. Ali was famous not just as a boxer but also for refusing to serve in the US Military at the height of the Vietnam War. Although he reported to the Induction Center in Houston, Texas as commanded by law, he refused to be drafted because it violated his religious convictions. He also made clear that he had no quarrel against the Vietcong. “My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America,” he told the press. “And shoot them for what? They never called me n-----, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father . . . Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail.” His refusal to serve in the military came with a very heavy price tag. He was immediately stripped of his Heavyweight title and banned from boxing for three years. Two months later he was convicted of draft evasion, a felony, and sentenced to five years in prison and fined $10,000. He was allowed to remain free on bail while he appealed his case. Ali was viewed as a radical and polarizing force by many in this country. Ali preached black pride and never shied away from calling out racism and criticizing the United States for its many shortcomings. “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?" The views about Muhammad Ali changed over time in our country, probably in no small part because the Vietnam War became unpopular, and because the racism that Ali called out became more and more evident to all Americans as the civil rights movement brought greater attention to the inequities and injustices, Ali pointed out. He became one of the most celebrated and recognized people on the planet. He used his fame to raise awareness about issues that mattered to him, among them civil rights and Parkinson's disease. He was a beloved activist, humanitarian, and philanthropist. Muhammad Ali, The Greatest, died in 2016. Click below to watch Episode 6 – Float Like a Butterfly. If you enjoy this Stairwell Teatro Series, please share it with friends. To see a beautiful tribute to Muhammad Ali by Sports Illustrated, click here.

Introducing my new Shelter In Place Project, The Stairwell Teatro Series. We hear and read it everywhere. Quedate en casa, stay home, shelter in place. The Covid-19 Pandemic has most of the nation hunkered down, and that’s exactly where we need to stay for as long as necessary to protect the lives of our loved ones, and our entire planet. This pandemic is taking a huge toll, and it is falling more heavily among the African American and Latino communities. The racial disparities that define our lives and opportunities are right before our eyes, and we must stare right back at them, and do everything in our power to address these inequities. Our deepest gratitude to all the essential workers who are out there providing medical care, harvesting our food, stocking store shelves, and delivering mail and packages of all sorts. They are risking their lives for us. Show your appreciation in whatever ways you can -- tipping generously and above all extending kindness and courtesy to these dedicated workers. Super important that you stay home if you are not an essential worker. Por Favor. And if you must go out, wear your mask and gloves and keep your physical distance. I look forward to being back on stage, quien sabe cuando, whenever the theaters open up again. In the meantime, I will be sharing short video clips (under 5 minutes) from my very own performance venue: The Stairwell Theater at my home in Northern California. These will be stories and vignettes about names, but they are much more than that. These stories are about othering and belonging, and showing respect to each other. Click below and have a look.Let me know what you think. I’d love to hear your name stories and with your permission I might share them with my viewers. You can write to me at irmadherrera@gmail.com. Or you can subscribe to my blog on my website, irmaherrera.com.

Someone you have just met tells you, politely, that you've mispronounced their name. What do you do? The most welcome response is, “thanks for telling me, can you say it again so I can get it right.” Too often, many of us with names that are not considered "real" American names hear something quite different. “Wong? It should be pronounced Wang, look at the spelling it’s W-A-N-G.” Joe Wang well knows the spelling of his last name, and he also knows that his family pronounces it Wong. Take his cue and say it as he does. I think we can all agree that it’s just as easy to say Wong as it is to say Wang. So if Joe tells you it’s Wong, that’s how you say it. It can be confusing; I get that. Take the last name Levine. Some folks pronounce it Lah-veen, others say Lah-vine. Is one wrong and the other right? No, they are just different versions of the same name. You say tomato, I say tomatoh, let’s call the whole thing off. Ever seen Saoirse on someone’s name badge? I wouldn’t know where to start on that beautiful Irish name. “In the words of the very notable actress Saoirse Ronan, who spent her childhood in Dublin and Co. Carlow, her name is pronounced ‘Sur-sha’, like ‘inertia’.” But this article (click here to read) explains that there are multiple pronunciations of this name in Ireland. “In Galway, however, you will likely hear ‘Sair-sha’, while in Northern Ireland, ‘Seer-sha’ is much more common. In another corner of Ireland, ‘Sor-sha’ might be the norm. It really is a matter of dialect.” My friend Paven who is of South Asian ancestry, and as American as apple pie, has heard many attempts at his name: PAY-van, Pave-in, Pah-VON. “It’s like oven with a P in front, it’s pronounced Poven.” Not hard, just need to remember and practice. If you can say oven, you can say Paven. When we are learning to read, we are taught to break a word down into syllables and to sound them out. So it’s natural that native speakers of English will give a word the sounds associated with the letters they are seeing. Our frame of reference for written language is rooted in our native tongue and the sound system associated with that language. We all have experience pronouncing a word in more than one way. take R-E-A-D, for example. I'm going to read a book this evening. Oh yes, I read the Murmur of Bees, last week and loved it. OK, let me get out of the weeds here . . . Getting a name wrong when you first meet someone gives you a pass. You can’t know until someone tells you. You will not be judged as a “bad person” for having said it the "wrong" way. A simple, “OK, thanks for telling me, can you help me say it correctly,” is all that's needed. But once someone tells you how they pronounce their name, it's on you to do your best to say it right. Ask if they have any tips that might be helpful (like oven with a P in front). And it's OK to ask someone to repeat their name and to say it more slowly. Here, however, are a few things, that you best stay away from. And you might be surprised how often people say these. Don’t you have a nickname? Your name is too hard, I just can’t say it. Can I call you something else? Don’t you have an English name? You should change your name to something people can say. Why are you so sensitive about people getting your name right? If you enjoyed Episode 2 of my Stairwell Theater Series or this blog, please share it with a friend. I plan to post two videos weekly. And remember during the Covid-19 pandemic, stay home, quedense en casa, and wash your hands often. If you must go out for essential errands, wear a mask and gloves. Stay safe, stay healthy. Your family and our whole world depend on each of us doing our part.

Today’s Stairwell Teatro Episode is about the Soul Queen of New Orleans: my namesake Irma Thomas, whose first name is pronounced Ur-ma. My parents gave me the Spanish language version where the first syllable is pronounced like "ir" in iridescent. While I'm quite insistent on how I’d like people to say my name, I also stand up for all the Urmas who use the English pronunciation. When I launched my mini-video storytelling series last week, I was not aware there was a performance group called The Stairwell Theater in New York City. Fortunately, I did not get a "cease and desist" letter from them. I learned this in a simple google search which I should have done before using the name. I've renamed mine the Stairwell Teatro Series and since most of my thinking is done in both English and Spanish, that seems a more fitting name. I was pleased to hear your feedback about the first two episodes; thank you for taking the time to watch. If you aren't a current subscriber to my newsletter, which will get the latest installment of a video or blog to your mailbox, please sign up to receive it via my website, irmaherrera.com, or by letting me know at irmadherrera@gmail.com. I imagine it will be many months before my one-woman show, Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? will be back on stage, so in the meantime, I'm sharing stories about names directly with you via three to four-minute videos. Some vignettes are about the ways we show respect when we say a person’s name correctly, and other stories display the dismissiveness some folks encounter daily around their names, and some are just fun stories. I'm a big fan of Irma Thomas' song Time Is On My Side, and love both the Irma Thomas and Rolling Stones' versions. Irma was just 23 when she recorded that song. While touring in England in 1964, Mick Jagger and Keith Richard attended one of her shows in Manchester. In a conversation on the side of the stage, the Rolling Stones expressed their love of her song and told her they planned to record it as well. They did, and it was the Rolling Stones' first Top 10 hit in the United States. When they came on tour in the US with their BIG hit, the Stones invited Tina Turner to be their opening act, which understandably did not sit well with Irma. Time Is On My Side became a Rolling Stones classic immediately and Irma Thomas quit performing it. In 1992 Bonnie Raitt invited Irma Thomas to be part of Raitt's New Year's Eve show in New Orleans and encouraged her to start singing that song again. They sang Time Is On My Side in a duet that evening and Irma Thomas reintroduced her beautiful rendition. To get a fuller picture of how this impacted her early career, click here. In her long and distinguished career, Irma Thomas has recorded many songs and won her first Grammy (Best Contemporary Blues) in 2007 for After the Rain, a studio album recorded shortly after Hurricane Katrina extensively damaged her home and temporarily displacing her and her family. Note that in my video I say her home was destroyed, but in fact, the brick home was still standing, its interior completely destroyed. To read more on her reflections about Katrina and other hurricanes, and how she and other New Orleans musicians fared after the Hurricane Katrina, click here to read this American Public Media story. During the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is important we shelter in place, por favor, quedense en casa. If you must go out, wear a mask and gloves, and get some exercise and sunshine whenever you can. Continue to observe the necessary physical distance and keep any trips for essential errands (groceries/pharmacy) to a minimum. These measures will keep you and your family safe and protects vulnerable people in our communities. Thanks for watching this episode.

Being asked to say your name in English is a bit jarring. Equally astounding was a law librarian (my supervisor at a part-time job during my first year in law school) asking me how I would say the name Granville Cleveland in Spanish. Mr. Cleveland was one of the other librarians. I wondered why someone’s name would need translating. “It’s his name,” I explained, “and If I were speaking Spanish and introducing him, I’d simply say, te presento mi amigo, Granville Cleveland.” The exchange was much more interesting than that . . . but I’ll leave that for a future Stairwell Teatro Episode. If someone were to ask Jaime Cuervo to say his name in English would he say, Jim Crow? Take my name Irma. My quick and dirty research says it derives from the Germanic irmin, war goddess. The Herrera surname originates in Spain’s regions with mines rich in iron ore, where blacksmithing was common, so I suppose Herrera could translate as Smith. When asked to say my name in English do introduce myself as War Goddess Smith? The history of conquest and oppression has stripped people of their language, their culture, their very names. In Roots, Kunta Kinte is beaten within an inch of his life for refusing to call himself Toby, the name he is given by the slave masters. Less extreme forms of coercion existed throughout the Southwest where Anglo teachers and administrators imposed English names on Mexican-American students. Juanita became Jane, Graciela was now Grace, Rodolfo was Rudy. We were also punished for speaking Spanish. There’s a wonderful short movie you can stream on HBO on this very theme: My Name is Maria De Jesus, by Marcella Ochoa. The movie is described as follows: “In 1950's Texas, Mexican American children were forced to abandon their Spanish language and culture. Thirty years later, one mother realizes the impact Americanization has on her child who is struggling to connect with her Latin heritage. Marcella Ochoa wrote, directed, and stars in this short film.” Click here to link to this movie. The right to our names, our languages, and our cultures is very much a social justice issue. A request to say one’s name in English is the subject of Episode 4. If you enjoy reading my blog and watching these mini-episodes, please share them with family and friends. If you are a subscriber to my blog, each new episode will be sent straight to your inbox. Muchas gracias. Here's Episode 4 - Say Your Name in English.

April 1, 2020, was Census Day, the official beginning of the decennial count. Our nation has been conducting a census for 230 years, it was first done in1790. Every ten years, an effort is made to count every person living in the United States. If you haven’t yet completed your online form, there's still time to do so, but don't put it off. It’s more important than ever, that everyone is counted. There are many unknowns as to how the census will be conducted in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. For all us of fortunate enough to have computers and internet access, the task is simple. Log on to the official website and complete the form for yourself and your household. Everyone should have received information by mail, providing what you need to complete your census forms. Even if you have misplaced that piece of mail or never got it, it’s easy enough. Here is one of many interesting articles with useful how-to information: https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/3/12/21168139/2020-census-online-how-to I completed the forms for our family the first week that Northern California’s six Bay Area Counties were Shelter In Place. I decided that each day I would have at least one tangible task completed. Answering the census questions is straight-forward. Is Irma D Herrera of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish ancestry? That’s simple enough to answer but it also got me to reflect on the names and labels adopted by and or assigned to different groups, neutral and derogatory. Think for a minute of the racial slurs you know. YES, all of them, for our own groups, and for others. There’s a scene in my play where I list all many names I've heard white people call Mexican-Americans. When I first say beaners – there’s often a few laughs, and as I add other names -- cucarachas, greasers -- the discomfort is palpable, and the audience grows very silent. I’ll spare you the full litany of names. If you saw my play you have experienced this for yourself. If you are interested in learning more about racial slurs and their known (or likely derivation) look no further, click here for The Racial Slurs Data Base. It is extremely eye-opening to read these obnoxious and odious terms, many of which were unfamiliar to me. There is even an alphabetical listing to make it easier to look up slurs directed at particular groups. Although called “racial” many of the slurs are specific to people from countries of origin whose populations are recognized as whites in this country. Back to the census. My friend Bill from San Antonio called last week: “I’m filling out my census form and I’m stumped. The Hispanic Origin question, that was easy. But the race question, how did you answer that?” I tell Bill that I think it’s the first time the Census has included the word Chicano as a designation for people of Mexican origin, and since I strongly identify as Chicana, I gladly checked that option. If I’m wrong, and Chicano has appeared before, one of you dear readers will let me know. The Census form notes that For this census, Hispanic origins are not races. Hispanic origin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the person’s parents or ancestors before arriving in the United States. People who identify as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be ANY race (CAPS added by me). I hear a sheepish and tentative quality in Bill’s voice: “for race, did you check white?” “I did,” I tell him, “for the first time, usually I just put other. But this time I checked all the appropriate boxes, White, Native and Other. “ And in the area that allows further explanation for “Other,” I noted that most Chicanos are a mix of people with ancestry in the Iberian Peninsula who colonized the Americas and who mixed, usually by force, with indigenous folks whom they subjugated. As I’m typing away it feels somewhat silly, as I imagine a computer simply looking for buzz words, and here I am writing a brief discourse on colonization. Hispanic, Hispano, Latino, Latina, Latinx, aargh, which one to use? Latinx seeks to be the all inclusive gender-neutral identifier for anyone whose ethnic background has roots in Latin America. Some embrace Latinx with great zeal, even to the point of expressing hostility to those who reject the use of the term for themselves or generally. There have been heated exchanges on social media and at universities, often as it relates to the naming or renaming of ethnic studies programs. Should Chicano Studies call itself Latinx Studies? While the use of Latinx is popular among academics and the younger well-educated, particularly in college campuses, it is not the term that most of us gravitate towards. Maybe someday it will be, pero quien sabe? I felt that way about the term “Hispanic,” and I remember the very moment I saw it so clearly. I was at a conference and a keynote speaker, a woman about my age, made the following statement: “As my Hispanic grandmother used to say . . . “ I had never met a Hispanic grandmother. Our abuelas were Mejicanas, Puerto Riquenas, Guatemaltecas or Cubanas – they were not Hispanics. The vast majority of Hispanos, Latinos, Latinx people typically have a strong identification with their family’s country of origin, no matter how far removed we have been from nuestros paises. I don’t love the term, Latinx, but I do find myself using it, as a shortcut to refer all mi gente, nuestra Raza, you know who you are. Yes, those of us who checked the box that asked if you or Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish ancestry. Once, a group of us were having lunch together in the conference room in our office when our co-worker, an African American colleague asked, “what do you people want to be called?” I know the “you people” sounds jarring, but in the context of our lunchtime conversation, it was not. Several of us were of Latinx origin (although the word Latinx was not yet in use). I suggested we answer her question by going around the room and letting everyone say how they identified. One said Colombiana, another Latina, one Mejicana, and I said Chicana. All of us were United States citizens and only one, the Colombian, was actually born in her country of origin and had become a naturalized United States citizen. Plenty of folks, particularly those in urban areas in California, NY, Illinois, Florida, Texas have parents with roots in different Latin American countries. I have friends with one parent who is Guatemalan and another Salvadoreño. A native-born Chicana marries a Puerto Rican or Ecuadoran or a Cuban. So the “what are you?” question (which you really shouldn’t ask) may not yield an easy answer. I am often told by friends who aren’t of the Hispanic persuasion that they feel insecure about which term to use when referring to my group and that they don’t want to offend. What term should they use? I feel for them. I find that many Texas family and friends are likelier to use Hispanic and that Californians prefer the term Latino. Not surprising given that so many people fled the civil wars in Central and Latin America in the Seventies and Eighties and gravitated to urban areas in California. Tejas and California are the two states with which I have closest ties. I’d be interested in hearing from Raza who live elsewhere, East Coast, Mid-West, the South? as to the term you prefer and wish that others would use when referring to our communities. The only guidance I can offer to those of you who aren't sure which term to use: Latino, Hispanic, Latinx, is to be open to the possibility that someone will tell you they prefer a different term. One of the reasons I love the term Raza which simply means our people rather than the literal “race” is that many of us immediately feel the warmth and kinship upon hearing that word. Raza encompasses all people who have roots in Spanish speaking countries and cultures. Latinos are from all racial groups and we are often of mixed racial ancestry We are blond and blue-eyed, indigenous and Asian in appearance. And some of us are Afro Latinos. We come in every shade and hue and our physical characteristics resemble the world. There are two paintings in our home, on opposite walls in our living room. The two girls piece we bought in Antigua, Guatemala, and the older woman is a painting we purchased in Chongqing, China. I think of the older Chinese woman as their abuelita, they look like family, yet they were painted by local artists from totally different parts of the world. Bill and I ended our Census 2020 conversation by comparing notes about our DNA results from the likes of 23 and Me and Ancestry.com. Our findings were quite similar. Mine was 42% Spain, 40% Indigenous American from Northern Mexico and South Texas, 3% European Jewish and 1-2% from places as diverse as Senegal, Turkey, Northern Europe, Ireland, Scotland, and Nigeria. The interesting thing about genetic testing and what I see in the two paintings in my home is that the history of migration and globalization is tens of thousands of years old. People have been coming and going as a result of famine and floods, wars and political upheaval, religious persecution and a desire to seek new fortunes. No matter that borders change and walls are built and torn down, globalization will continue. The Covid-19 pandemic is teaching us the importance of hard data. It is critical for us to know the number of people who live in our cities and counties, and in our state. Who are these folks, how old are they, what type of housing do they live in? Who is unsheltered, how many people are living in our jails, prisons and detention centers. The answers to these and other questions in the Census. And the Census determines the resources allocated for all types of services: schools, free lunch programs, fire and police, hospitals, community clinics. The Census data on race, reveals the racial disparities and access to services and outcomes. We are now seeing through this pandemic that these are matters of life and death. The filling out a form may seem unimportant at this moment, given the major disruptions and extreme hardships so many are facing. But our answers determine how electoral districts are drawn, how and if our voting rights are protected, and who gets elected and appoints federal judges and so much more. I am counting on YOU to complete your form. Please, everybody, let's all do our part.

The version of my play that was on stage for five months through the end of March 2019 poses a series of questions (paraphrased here). Does having a Muslim ban make us safer? Does it add to our nation’s security when we separate and cage immigrant children from parents seeking asylum? What does it say about a country that needs a massive social movement to tell us that Black Lives Matter? And I can assure you that ALL efforts to strip gay, lesbian, and transgender folks of their basic humanity do nothing to make me feel safer. To the contrary so much of what has happened in the past several years has left tens of millions of Americans like me feeling much less safe. Because in fact we are less safe. Black and brown people, both immigrant and native born including our duly elected Congressional Representatives have become the targets of verbal and physical abuse starting from the White House and rolling on down. The hate speech and vitriol directed at us have led to targeted attacks and heartbreak for so many of our families and communities as we reel from killings at synagogues, prayer meetings at church, nightclubs, festivals, Wal-Mart. As I reflect on the changes I will make to my one-woman show for upcoming performances to reflect the growing prejudice and its impact, more than anything I am profoundly sad. It feels so personal to know that people like me are described as vermin, invaders, criminals – the enemy -- less than human. People who can be hunted down at as we shop back to school specials at Wal-Mart merely because we are Mexican. Some days I stare at my computer and ask myself, what is the point of putting words on the page or saying them on stage; what is the value of what I am doing? Should I return to law; can I make the lives of a few children better by being a schoolteacher or tutoring children? Can I help them develop to their fullest potential? Where can I do most good? And then, like a message from the universe, I see this Maya Angelou quote written many years ago. “In today’s climate in our country, which is sickened with the pollution of pollution, threatened with the prominence of AIDS, riddled with burgeoning racism, rife with growing huddles of homeless, we need art and we need art in all forms. We need all methods of art to be present, everywhere present, and all the time present.” ~Maya Angelou So I’ll keep writing and performing. And I thank you for reading and watching. #SocialJustice #MuslimBan #MispronounceMyOwnName #justice #PeopleofColor #CivilRights #Chicanxartist #LGBTQRights

Every time I see those words, New York City, I hear the incredulous and judgmental tone of the cowboys in the Pace Picante Sauce commercials that were popular on TV decades ago. Authentic Mexican salsa was made in San Antonio, NOT New York City. Thanks to Jet Blue’s free wi-fi, I googled and watched several of those old commercials while en route to New York. They were entertaining then and continue to amuse. For a flashback, click on the numbers to watch one, two, three of these commercials. In addition to the commercials, my google search found an article titled: Did the Pace Picante commercials of the 1990s predict our current culture wars? An interesting read, available here. The iconic Pace Picante New York City ad also served as a springboard for a piece about why Michael Bloomberg’s $12 million gun violence ad campaign didn’t fly in regions outside of New York. Read here. But I digress. I’m in New York attending my first Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) Conference and doing a 15-minute showcase of my solo show, Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? Three other Bay Area solo artists are also attending as part of The Marsh on Tour Showcase. The Marsh Theater (San Francisco/Berkeley) is where I had a five-month run of my show in 2018-2019. My APAP performance will be on Sunday night, Jan 12th @ 7:20 pm at The Midtown Hilton, Gibson Suites, 2nd Floor. If you are in New York, you are welcome to attend, no charge. Learn more about The Marsh on Tour and my fellow Marsh performers Candace Y. Johnson, Lorri Holt, and Stephanie Weisman here. There are hundreds of showcases during APAP since the conference brings together performing artists, venues that exhibit their work, as well as agents and managers. It’s an opportunity for presenters of all sizes from different types of venues to see artists they might be interested in booking for their organizations. It’s my first time at APAP, and I am always happy to spend a few days in New York, catching the sights and seeing friends who live here. I am eager to learn and given that I am relatively new to the performance art world, I'm hoping to meet lots of people and to see other showcases as well. On a final note, I was thrilled that the Drama Guy at Bay Area Theater named, Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? as one of the Ten Best Shows of 2019. Read his year in review here. If you haven't yet seen my show, or if you want to see this newest version I have three Bay Area performances as part of Brian Copeland's Best of SF Solo Festival in San Leandro, CA on March 6, 7, and 8. The Best of SF Solo is a subscription-based program, but they have made 25 tickets available for each of the shows. Click here to buy tickets. I'm eager to see what this new year has in store for me and I wish you much success and good fortune in 2020.

Re: Your work is done That was the subject line in the email I received earlier this week from my friend and colleague Eva Paterson. Ha! If only. She attached the tweet posted by Dr. Chirumamilla sharing her delight that her new colleagues had the good sense to learn to say her name. Thanks Dr. Chirumamilla for allowing me to share your tweet with my readers. As she reports, one feels seen and welcomed when people make the effort to learn our names. How I wish everyone was treated with that level of respect. By contrast, a young woman told me this story. Her husband, a recently minted MBA from a highly ranked school, was so excited to start his job with a venture capital firm. Alberto Joshua Garcia (not his real name) used his full name on his resume, but was called Alberto his whole life. First day at his new job he finds a box of business cards in the middle of his desk. His mentor from the previous summer had welcomed him warmly and was showing him his new office. He explained somewhat sheepishly when Alberto picked up the business cards: “We took the liberty of using just your middle name. We hope you don't mind. We think the people you’ll deal with will be more comfortable with that. “ Alberto didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. Starting then, his work name was Josh. Didn’t really feel comfortable with his new name, but perhaps this was what was needed to succeed in this coveted position. One of the greatest joys of performing my work or distributing my blog is hearing from folks. After a recent performance I got this email. “My work colleague and I went to see your play in San Rafael a couple of weeks ago. It was amazing and so powerful!! It touched me in such a personal way. My mom who is in her mid-70s legally changed her name back to her birth name, Maria Eugenia, a few years ago. I have to be honest and say that until seeing your play I had considered her decision to be mostly an inconvenience. She had 60+ years of personal and business documents under the name Mary and getting that all sorted out has been a nightmare for her and my dad. I never understood that she had lost a part of her identity when she became a naturalized citizen as a child and her name was taken from her.” To be clear, the government does NOT force a new name upon you when you become a naturalized citizen. It gives you the chance to change your name without further legal proceedings. I had no idea that the naturalization application provided this option and researched it after reading, America, Say My Name, an NY Times opinion piece penned by Pulitzer Prize winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen. Click here to read the full column. Here's what Viet Nguyen had to share about his own family experience. "When my Vietnamese parents became American citizens, they took the pragmatic route and changed their names to Joseph and Linda. My adolescent self was shocked. Were these the same people who had told me, repeatedly, that I was “100 percent Vietnamese?” “They asked me if I wanted to change my name. There was good reason for me to change my name, for throughout my childhood my classmates had teased me by asking if my last name was Nam. As in “Viet Nam.” Get it?” Viet reports that he gave this much thought and tried out other names, but all the contenders seemed alien. “That, in the end, was the choice I made. Not to change. Not to translate. Not, in this one instance, to adapt to America. It was true that I was born in Vietnam but made in America. Or remade. But even if I had already become an American by the time I took my oath of citizenship, I refused to take this step of changing my name." The author's family came to the US when Viet was four years old. “Instead, I knew intuitively,” Viet Nguyen continues, “what I would one day know explicitly: that I would make Americans say my name. I felt, intuitively, that changing my name was a betrayal, as the act of translation itself carries within it the potential for betrayal, of getting things wrong, deliberately or otherwise. A betrayal of my parents, even if they had left it open to me to change my name; a betrayal of being Vietnamese, even if many Vietnamese people were ambivalent about me. A betrayal, ultimately, of me.” “I render no judgment on people who change their names. We all make and remake our own selves. But neither should there be judgment on people who do not change their names, who insist on being themselves, even if their names induce dyslexia on the part of some Americans.” I share Viet Nguyen's view that it is entirely up to the individual to decide whether they change their names. Likewise, I leave to each person to decide how they want to say their names. I don’t know how old Maria Eugenia was when her parents changed her name to Mary, or if they asked her if she wanted it changed. But somewhere deep inside she knew she wasn’t Mary, and although it took her many years, she did eventually reclaim her name. Felicidades Maria Eugenia, and thank you, Missy Dominguez, for sharing your mother’s story. I love hearing your name stories, so please keep sending them. #Diversity #Inclusion #socialjustice #Prejudice #CivilRights #MispronounceMyOwnName

I'll be performing in the South Bay this coming weekend, November 15-16 @ 8 pm at MACLA located at 510 South 1st Street, right next door to the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles (which I am eager to explore). Although I myself don’t quilt, I have fond memories of watching las señoras sewing and carding the wool to make colchas when I was a muchachita. But I digress. Tickets very reasonably priced -- $20 and $10 students, online purchases at: http://bit.ly/IrmaMACLA. If available at the door, they will cost $25 and $15, so best to get them ahead of time. Last Friday, my director Rebecca Fisher and I drove together to the theater for tech rehearsal and I dropped her and my props off before parking my car a few blocks away. I spotted a café nearby and decided to pick up a cappuccino enroute to the teatro. As I paid, I did what I typically do: told the barista my name was Maria. As she wrote that down I spotted a picture of a coffee cup with the name IRMA on it. That’s odd I thought and then I figured out I was looking at the postcards produced by the theater. I had not previously seen these promotional postcards or the fabulous design. Thrilled with the card, I proceeded to distribute them and introduced myself to the 8-10 folks at the café who enthusiastically peppered me with questions about my show. Must admit I felt a bit awkward when the barista called out “cappuccino for Maria.” Fortunately. the back of the promotional postcard has a picture of me, so the folks at the cafe didn’t think I was some wacky person who walked in from the street claiming to be a performer. The last few weeks I’ve had people who saw my play recognize me. My 15-minutes of fame is perhaps extending to a half-hour. I was getting onto BART @ Oakland West and smiled at a man dressed like a nun; I always smile at men dressed like nuns as I assume they are members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who have been a staple of San Francisco parades, protests and fairs for 40 years. If you care to read more about the Sisters, click here. The gent smiled back and then his companion said, “she’s the woman whose show we saw in Berkeley.” "What? you saw my play?" They had been at the theater the night we lost power, which made for a very memorable evening. No, he is not a member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, they were enroute to a Halloween Party in San Francisco. The following week, while visiting a friend in a hospital in San Francisco a woman greeted me very warmly by name, and I said hello to her although for the life of me I could not remember how we knew each other. She immediately said, “I saw you play in San Francisco, so I know your name.” I introduced myself. It is a bit jarring, and a lot of fun when these things happen. In every case folks share with me how much they enjoyed seeing Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? How could I not feel great about that! If you live in the South Bay or have friends in the San Jose/Santa Clara area, please tell them about my show. Check out this three-minute trailer filmed when I performed at The Marsh in Berkeley. These two MACLA shows on November 15-16 will be my last performance of 2019. Hope to see you there. #StarbucksNames #soloperformance #Inclusion #MACLA #SanJose #Chicanxartist

Last week I had the honor of serving as the Emcee at the Awards Ceremony for the California ChangeLawyers Leaders Summit. Click here to learn more about their work. The event venue at San Francisco’s UC Hastings Law School looked like the United Nations, with folks from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. There we were - gay, straight, trans, disabled, wearing hijab, suits and jeans. I love being in these spaces, which feel so welcoming. It was an informative and inspiring set of presentations, panel discussions, audience participation, and improv performances that asked us to reimagine what a leader looks like. One of the speakers was Kevin de Leon, the President pro Tempore Emeritus of the California State Senate. He was warm, and down to earth, and had so much to say about why we belong everywhere, and why we must work on every sort of challenge, not just social justice issues typically associated with low income communities and people of color. He reminded us that it is much easier to change laws than it is to change a culture, but change we must, and change is definitely underway. In the evening’s awards program, I had the pleasure of presenting three awards. First, to Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who received the ChangeLawyers Leadership & Community Advocate Award for his extraordinary fight against unjust and inhumane federal policies, and his lifetime work advocating for the working poor. I first met Xavier when I was a young lawyer working at The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and he was summer law clerk from Stanford Law. Bright, conscientious, and dedicated to public service, the type of law student we all love having at our offices. Among his remarks at the LeadersSummit that most stuck with me is that the Trump Administration (whom the AG’s office has sued some 60 +/- times) wants to take us from 2019 to 1920 in terms of its policies. And we are NOT gonna let that happen. I was thrilled to present an award to Rocio Ávila, whom I first met when she was a law clerk at Equal Rights Advocates where I served as Executive Director. Rocio is the Policy Director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) and was recognized for her outstanding work shaping and advancing NDWA’s Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in various states. I deeply value Rocio’s friendship and admire her commitment. It fills me with great joy to see career paths that were chosen by so many folks I first met when they were law students. The third award recipient was Rukayatu Tijani, who started the First Generation Purpose Project which helps diverse First Gen professionals “formulate actionable steps in their workplace, their career, entrepreneurship, and in life by using the grit and tenacity that is already in them.” Rukayatu who is Nigerian American is also the first in her family to achieve a professional degrees, and knows first-hand the many personal and professional challenges that we, First Gen folks, encounter. Heartiest congratulations to the California AG, Xavier Becerra, Rocio Aviles and Rukayatu Tijani. California ChangeLawyers also presented scholarships to 56 law students enrolled at universities throughout the United States. As amazing as it is to see a room of several hundred lawyers and law students who are so diverse, I also know that people of color are enormously underrepresented in the legal profession. Kudos to ChangeLawyers for promoting the diversification of the legal profession. On the way home that evening on a standing-room only BART (Bay Area’s subway) train, I was chatting with a friend who had also been at the event. A women taps me on the shoulder and says, “Excuse me, are you Irma Herrera?” (pronouncing my name perfectly). “I saw your play at The Marsh a few months ago, and I loved it. I see you are performing later this month in San Rafael, that’s so great.” Things like this happen to me occasionally. At a friend’s dinner party in San Francisco, one of her guests says: “You look so familiar, I’m wondering if we’d met before?” We concluded we had not, and that she’d seen posters with my photo which were on walls and windows in San Francisco and Berkeley for a few months when my play was on stage. Friends would occasionally snap a picture when they saw my poster and send along to me. One of our son’s school friends from their K-8 years, who now lives in Europe was visiting family and friends in San Francisco over the New Year’s holiday a few months ago. She snapped a picture of my poster and texted our son at midnight. “Hey Tony, saw your Mom hanging out on a wall at the Haight-Ashbury. What’s up with that?” My upcoming show in San Rafael on October 13, 2019 in The Best of SF Solo Series has presented some media opportunities -- radio interviews, invitations to appear on podcasts, and a TV appearance, coupled with ABC’s Latino Heritage Month programming. Click here to watch the five-minute interview on Midday Live. This may be my 15 minutes of fame, which Andy Warhol predicted would come each and everyone's way. I’ll be sharing links of these guest appearances with you over the next few weeks, and if you are interested in watching or listening, you can do so. Although I post some of these links on social media, I know that a few of my blog readers aren’t social media fans. If you haven’t yet seen my play and if you reside in the SF Bay Area, come see it at The Showcase Theater, Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 7 pm (run time one hour, no intermission). If you have friends in Marin County or SF or the East Bay, tell them about it, it’s easy to get to San Rafael. Click here to connect to my website which has a purchase tickets button linking you directly to the theater's website. Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? The Best of SF Solo Series Showcase Theater, San Rafael, CA Sunday, October 13th @ 7 pm One-night ONLY If you'd like my play to come to a theater near you, let me know, and maybe YOU can help make it happen. Wishing all a great week. #LeadersSummit #CaliforniaChangeLawyers #Diversity #Inclusion #MispronounceMyOwnName