Where are you really from?
It’s a question that people from ethnic cultures are often asked in the United States, and one that was addressed at Race Relay, a two-part multimedia project in collaboration with USC’s Vision and Voices initiative and USC Price School of Public Policy.
Steven Vargas, a junior majoring in journalism and theatre, performed his own story in a monologue. As a young Latinx, Vargas was angry that his mother didn’t teach him how to speak Spanish. He experienced microaggressions growing up and often struggled with his Latinx identity.
Latinidad, or Latinx identity, is complex and many narratives are often overlooked, Vargas said. Although sharing his story was difficult, “I felt it was necessary to share mine about the assumptions people make about Latinxs, especially in this current political climate,” he said.
The night began with about 50 people gathered inside of the California African American Museum. Musical instruments, like hand drums and maracas, were placed on each seat for people to follow along with Christo Pellani, a master percussionist.
Race Relay is a theatrical production using video, music and drama to start a conversation about race relations in the U.S. Student actors performed monologues portraying different perspectives and experiences from varying cultural backgrounds.
Anita Dashiell-Sparks, a USC theatre professor and an organizer of Race Relay, believes that sharing stories can heal and help people understand our differences. Dashiell-Sparks hopes that this conversation can spark social change for all people, she said.
“It’s so important to talk about race because that’s the only way that we really are going to be able to unpack and process the complexities that emerge through racial tension, conflict [and] different forms of micro- and macro-aggressions,” Dashiell-Sparks said.
USC’s Price created an online platform for the community and organizations, like the National Urban League and the Southern California Library, to anonymously submit stories of how they’ve been affected by racism or how they’ve witnessed it.
Sabrina Sawyer, a junior majoring in theatre, performed a story that went viral last year about a Black woman named Tiana Smalls who shared her encounter with Border Patrol agents on Facebook.
Smalls was on a Greyhound bus on her way to Las Vegas, Nevada, from Bakersfield, California, when the bus stopped at a checkpoint. Border Patrol agents boarded and asked everyone to show documentation. Smalls, as explained in her Facebook post and performed in Sawyer’s monologue, stood up and shouted, “This a violation of your Fourth Amendment rights. You don’t have to show them shit!”
Smalls said she noticed that many people on the bus didn’t understand English, so she used Google translate to help others on the bus.
“It felt really scary in the beginning to give that offering correctly to people,” Sawyer said about her performances. “Afterwards, it feels incredible given how many people were able to tell their stories.”
The second portion of Race Relay will be a community dialogue about race relations and a virtual reality experience of Tiana Smalls’ story. It will be at the California African American Museum on February 22 and March 2 at 7 p.m.
Correction: This story previously said Steven Vargas is a senior. Vargas is a junior.