Extra Credit #2: Karen Anzoategui's performance of Ser

     This is the second time I have seen Karen Anzoategui perform. Catholic School Daze was performed in De Neve Auditorium but Ser was performed in a very intimate theatre in downtown. I had only been to performances in similar rooms a few times before. Like with the end of Catholic School Daze, Karen incorporated the audience by having us kick back a soccer ball to her and hold up signs as well as with us being the clapping audience. Her performances have so much life and everyone in the room feels interconnected.
     I have realized that I am able to map out the stages of mestiza consciousness within characters in other books I am reading and I noticed the stages in Ser as well. The performance had the running influence of Diego Maradona, the Argentine soccer player Karen looked up to and later looked to for advice in his corporeal form of her soccer ball. Karen constantly moves between East Los Angeles and Argentina and is criticized as not really being from either location. She is never enough of one to really fit in. She experiences linguistic terrorism in Argentina as well as in the U.S. Her language is constantly being policed and criticized. We also see the relationship with her parents and her brothers. An absent father personified as James Brown who has control and influence over their life and location who abuses his wife. Karen is always being told that she cannot go to soccer games, that they are not for girls and that they are too dangerous for her. She realizes what her culture does to her and finally is able to go to a soccer game in downtown LA where she and her brother are the only Argentines in the crowd.
    In the end, Karen argues with the undocuqueer from East LA and proudly states who she is and that she does not have to live up to every expectation. She creates a new world, stating that we can create our own spaces by telling our own stories. This is the point where she reaches mestiza consciousness. She knows her borders and is healing herself by accepting herself and telling her story.