By Josie Loza
UNO’s American Multicultural Student Agency will present Yo Soy Latina at 8 p.m. Oct. 30 in the Strauss Performing Arts Center Recital Hall.
The off-Broadway production will explore what it means to be a Latina in America today.
Maliha Imami-Alam, director of AMS, said the program is a humorous, evocative and compelling theatrical journey into the lives of six very diverse Latina women from different nationalities, races and age groups.
“These women try to make sense of what it is to be a Latina in America today,” she said.
The monologue will illustrate issues of stereotypes, cultural bias and examines how Latinas see themselves, which often determines others see them, Imami-Alam said.
Playwright Linda Nieves-Powell will be staging the piece about the women and their search for identity.
“It’s about how different people experience different things,” she said. “The message is so universal.”
Nieves-Powell was named 2003 Entrepreneur of the year by Hispanic Business magazine. She was also named one of the 50 Most Outstanding Latinas of 2002 by El Diario/La Prensa.
Her play has been a featured performance at both the 2002 AT&T Latino Cultural Festival and the 2002 New Works/Latino Voices Festival.
Nieves-Powell has successfully produced her show at prominent New York City venues such as The Nuyorican Poet’s Caf, Manhattan Theater Source and The Actor’s Playground Theater and HERE Arts Center.
Yo Soy Latina has a full fall 2002 schedule and will be produced at George Mason University, American University, Rutgers University, St. John’s University, DePaul University and the College of William and Mary.
Through live performances, audiences will meet six inspirational Latina characters and from the writer’s own voice, they will learn how and why the production was created.
Imami-Alam said she began looking for diverse programs over the summer. She heard about Yo Soy Latina through a friend.
She said the production would be empowering for many. The production encourages people to “take pride in your own identity.”
Imami-Alam said that the production is for people of all races.
“Through the sharing of culture, we enrich ourselves,” she said.
She said that anybody and everyone would learn from it.
“It’s for all women,” she said. “It’s inspirational and educational.”
Tickets are $10 for public, $8 for staff and faculty and $4 for students.
