Honoring Emma and Eva

"An Altar for Emma," a multimedia performance piece honoring local labor leader Emma Tenayuca, had a three-day run at Our Lady of the Lake University (March 7-9) and the room was packed for the Friday night performance. The production came about through a joint collaboration between OLLU's Center for Mexican American Studies and Research and the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center. Tenayuca, an educated Mexican-American who advocated for the poor, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in San Antonio, is best known for leading the 1938 pecan shellers' strike in San Antonio. She organized and inspired many at a young age and was only 21 at the time of the strike.

The play was more of what I would describe as an "audience experience" and it recounted Tenayuca's life through the use of live theater, song, dance, monologues, audio of a Tenayuca interview, video and still images projected onto a large screen, and audience participation (which I had never experienced). The interactive portion came at the start of the performance and involved the entire audience being led out of the room where the play was being staged and into a room across the hall. Once there, the actresses who portrayed the pecan shellers performed a lively and passionate pecan shellers' dance that showed the shellers -- five young ladies and two children -- marching in a line, slowly breaking down with exhaustion and then retiring to the tables to shell. Two musicians played a corrido to Emma, including the featured accordionist Eva Ybarra, a lifelong musician known as "la reina del acordeon" and "Queen of Progressive Conjunto" (more on her later). (Photo credit: The photo of Emma came from the UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures photo archive. She is shown on June 29, 1937 in the Bexar County jail following the filing of unlawful assembly and disturbing the peace.)

As the pecan shellers discussed their working conditions and a passionate young Emma started the strike, one by one each sheller jumped away from the table where they had sat and began grabbing unsuspecting audience members to join them on their strike. By the time we marched back to the first room where the rest of the play took place,almost the entire audience was walking in a "strike" and shouting "Huelga! Huelga!" Getting pulled into the strike was a surprise but the experience put us into Emma and the other pecan shellers' shoes as we felt a bit apprehensive at first and then as more joined and the strikers moved faster, we let go and joined the chanting marchers.

The young actresses delivered passionate, polished performances and as we heard from the real Emma (she passed away in 1999) and heard her words through the two actresses who portrayed Emma, the play struck a chord. Shocking statistics appeared on the screen toward the finale of the performance about poverty and education among Mexican Americans and reminded us that our fight - the fight that inspired Emma to lead -- for better lives and futures is never over. Following the performance, during a discussion session, audience members spoke of knowing Emma or of having relatives who knew her. They spoke about their family members who worked as pecan shellers and of the struggles they faced. "An Altar for Emma" honored a courageous Latina leader and as I mentioned earlier, Eva Ybarra, the longtime accordionist, will also be honored for her achievements when Premios a la Musica Latina inducts her into their Hall of Fame. Read Ramiro Burr's music column for more details. She will be inducted on March 31.