Silk Road Theatre Project

I recently heard a playwright of Italian descent describing his cultural heritage in terms of the U.S. discourse about race.  It reminds me that we all exist within the frames of history and of appearance, of inheritance and of choice.  What we claim or ignore, what we seek out in our own histories or appreciate in others’, all fits into this bigger picture.

To honor the big picture, here are two more stories of cross-cultural marriages, sent to us in response to our Yohen conversation:

“I am a Jewish American.  My husband is Welsh and from a Christian-but-not-especially family.  Although there have been some moments of confusion caused by our different backgrounds, like when my then-boyfriend told me on the phone about his favorite jumper and I spent all day imagining him in a dress instead of a sweater, or when we had to explain to my grandmother-in-law what a menorah is, overall it has worked to our advantage.  Our families share NO holidays in common, so there is never an argument about where to go for any of them.  And we think our son will have little trouble distinguishing himself on college applications if he speaks both Welsh and Hebrew.  In general, our family enjoys all of our various cultural foibles.  And in the end, while my husband and I may have originally been attracted by our similarities, it is our differences that have kept us interested.”
-Jemma Levy, wife of Steve Smith

“My grandmother is German and met my grandfather, a US serviceman, right after WWII when he was based in Bremen.  They have a great story - including some interesting things I recently found out regarding her citizenship.  And I have a great classic-looking photo of them embracing on the streets of Bremen….her in total 40s look and him in his uniform….”
-LaRonika Thomas

Thank you, Jemma and LaRonika, for sharing the stories of your families!

Down the street from the Silk Road offices, crews are still taking down the tents in Grant Park.

Regardless of who you voted for on Tuesday, you were part of an historic moment.  Not only did we vote in record numbers, we turned out to share the results in record numbers.  How can I help but share some photos of downtown Chicago?

None of the photos can do justice, though, to our cross-cultural blog topic.  Yet they give some idea of what it feels like to be in a large crowd of people thinking, is this a United Colors of Benetton ad?  No, it’s just Chicago.  Integrated.

I lost track of the combinations of age and color and gender and style around me walking the streets that night.  At some point, it stopped mattering.  But I did overhear a woman in a herringbone coat yelling excitedly into her iPhone, “And there were two lesbians standing in front of me, and in front of them, two Muslims!”

When I told my father how exciting and overwhelming it was to be in city in love with its moment, he told me about another moment that he will now think of as linked to this week: he was in the U.S. Senate observers’ gallery in 1957 at roughly 3am when Strom Thurmond sat down after his 24-hour-and-18-minute filibuster.  As soon as he sat down, they voted to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

And I think, oh right, that takes us right back to the idea of why we do theatre.  Because it’s one thing to look at the big picture, but somehow even more satisfying to hear the individual stories of how humans intersect with each other in time.

Got a story of the week, or of the past to share?

Photo by Guido Alvarez.

Another excellent source for discussions about race: Dawn Turner Trice’s newsblog for the Chicago Tribune.  As she puts it, “We have a moment in history to have a national discussion about race. We should seize it and try to mine it for what it’s worth.”

Siblings. Photo by Steve Gatto.

p.s. In this vein, more notes on 1986:

1986 Academy Award for Best Picture: Out of Africa

(The movie’s a classic, of course–and so is the book by Isak Dinesen.  Talk about complicated colonial relations!)

1986 Song of the Year “We are the World” (Different?  Not so different?  Where do good intentions work, and where do they go awry?)

From 1896, in the Library of Congress. Photo by Bob Bobster.

One lovely answer to our call for blending of cultures photos:

From Carolyn Briones:

“…myself, husband, and our son as a baby. I really love this picture, and ultimately for this project, I feel this photo reflects the beautiful result of two cultures coming together.”

Thanks, Carolyn!

Yohen takes place in the year 1986.  In 1986, some states still had constitutional bans on interracial marriages, even though the Supreme Court ruled against these bans in 1967. Some judges were still upholding these anti-miscegenation laws as late as 1999. (”Miscegenation,” by the way, dates back to the 1864 presidential campaign, when anti-Lincoln critics feared “mongrelization”–a term that sounds even more racist today.)  The second half of the twentieth century saw, in this country, police bursting into the bedroom of a married couple to arrest them because they were of different races.

(Mildred Jeter Loving and Richard Loving, subjects of Loving v. Virginia)

1986 turned out to be a significant year for conversations on race.  On January 14 of that year, the Supreme Court barred racial bias in trial jury selection.  And, on September 8, 22 years ago this week, national broadcasts began of a new daytime talk show by an African-American woman named Oprah Winfrey.

Now, it seems the world is full of Oprah.  And a quick glance around the media shows us that the world is also full of couples of more than one race.

Michael Caine says it was “love at first sight” when he first saw his now-wife Shakira in Maxwell House commercial.  David Bowie and Iman prove that rock stars and supermodels can stay together for the duration–and Seal and Heidi Klum are chasing their record.  Even a movie critic and a judge can make it work (Roger Ebert and Chaz Hammelsmith).  The list, of course, goes on and on.  Can we learn from celebrities?

Oprah says yes.

(You can read more about the history referenced above at:

http://www.slate.com/id/2193747/pagenum/all/

and

http://www.lovingday.org/loving_story.htm

The full text of the Loving v. Virginia decision, regarding the marriage of the above-mentioned pulled-from-bed Mildred and Richard Loving, is available at

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/loving.html)

Pundits spend a great deal of time discussing the friction between live performance and mass media.  Yet framing this relationship as adversarial ignores the fact that all culture exists in relation to other culture.

This is my fancy way of saying that many people who work in theatre, just like many people elsewhere, spend their rehearsal breaks talking about the Olympics, and go home to watch political convention coverage at the end of the night.

The character of James in Yohen loves boxing, as does the Ernest Perry, Jr., the actor who plays him in our production.  Ernest talking about boxing sounds like talk about the Olympics–respect and awe of the excellence of athletes at their best, of witnessing moments in history where large groups of people watch a great move, of the pride of feeling connected to that greatness.  Both James and his wife Sumi (played by Cheryl Hamada) negotiate their relationship with each other in balance with their relationship to their culture(s).

Meanwhile, national attention has been focused on race through the candidacy of Barack Obama.  The terminology of “multiracial” or “mixed race” has been expanded and critiqued.  In Obama’s words,  “it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.”  As the Democratic and Republican conventions continue, we’ll hear a number of stories redefining how we define ourselves as a nation.  Yohen is one part of this larger conversation.

We’d still love to hear your stories of multiracial or cross-cultural (or whatever word you choose) relationships.  To contribute photos or stories to our exhibit, email litmanage@srtp.org or post here.

In anticipation of Philip Kan Gotanda’s play Yohen, we invite you to share YOUR photos and stories of relationships and families that bring cultures together:

According to the 2000 Census, almost 7 million Americans identify as multiracial, and the number of interracial couples quadrupled between 1970 and 1995.

Yohen depicts the marriage of an African-American veteran and a Japanese woman who met after World War II, who learn surprising things about themselves and each other after years together.

What are the cultures that make us? Our country, state, city, neighborhood? Race? School? Religion? Political party? Our secret dreams? We all live in hybrid worlds, and cross boundaries every day.

The SRTP family began with a cross-culture alliance: our founders, Malik Gillani and Jamil Khoury.

Now we’d like to see and hear your stories and photos of cross-cultural families and relationships. Selected entries will be part of an exhibit during the production of Yohen, and will be displayed here on our blog.

To submit your stories, add a “comment” to this post. To submit photos, create an account to make a new post. Or, if you prefer, simply email your photos and stories to litmanage@srtp.org.

We look forward to hearing from you!