Extra Credit #2: "Ser"

Karen Anzoategui’s one-woman show of “Ser” was amazing. She was able to cover certain themes of identity, family, sexual identity, and soccer into an almost ninety minute performance, never once leaving the audience feeling bored or disconnected. What was interesting about her performance was how her borders in her life aren’t that much different then the borders in many of our lives.

Anzoategui lived in East LA but is actually Argentine descent and she used that for much of the show. What I found interesting is that Argentina and Mexico/U.S. aren’t every much different. She mentioned how Los desaparecidos and Las madres de la Plaza de Mayo are still very much alive and searching for their children, effects from La Guerra Sucia in the 70’s in Argentina. She made a comment during the show how shocked she was to learn about this, how thousands of men and women went missing (many were drugged and thrown out of planes into the Río Plata) and said that “the U.S. would never do anything like this” reminded me of how Los desaparecidos reminds me of the mujeres from Júarez and how hundreds of bodies have gone missing along the border.

She also reminded me how Chicanos, first-generation Mexicans, and herself (with her Argentine accent) experience linguistic terrorism. Many would make fun of her accent and question what kind of Spanish she was speaking (from a Spanish linguistic area, which is one of my areas of interest, her accent is called español ríoplatense) and she would have to explain that it was an accent from Buenos Aires. It just goes to show how Argentinians aren’t so different from mexicanos. Anzoategui also experienced, along with Linguistic Terrorism, Internalized Racism from other Latinos who would put her down for being from Argentina. Even though she was raised in East LA and considers herself Chicana, there still seems to be riffs within the Latino/a community as to who can be considered Latino/a and/or Chicano/a. Since she was from Argentina, many would ridicule her for being more European than Latino/a.

She also goes through her stages of Mestiza Consciousness, from being aware of her borders to the Coatlicue State to even achieving Mestiza Consciousness at the end, knowing that she can tolerate and accept the contradictions and ambiguities in her life. That she can be queer and Chicana and from Argentina all at the same time. That she can be a mujer who loves soccer, too. All in all, the performance was touching yet comedic with enough heartfelt situations to make you accept your state of nepantla and enjoy that you are neither from here nor form there, but rather, you are yourself.