THE EARLY WORKS

The Early Works



The Early Works

Introduction

El Teatro Campesino (Farm Worker's Theater) was born of the Chicano/a Movement and the need for social participation. The 1960s marked a period of American social unrest. The civil rights movement escalated, as did Chicano and Chicana resistance. These events and circumstances provided the background for the political and cultural struggle that ensued, known as El Movimiento or the Chicano/a Movement. It began as a workers' struggle when in 1962 César Chávez and Dolores Huerta began organizing farmworkers in Delano, California. There in the San Joaquín Valley they cofounded the National Farm Workers Association to protest against the social and economic exploitation and subhuman conditions experienced by the Mexican American field hands. On September 26, 1965, Luis Valdez, a native of Delano and the son of migrant farmworker parents, participated in the grape pickers strike in Delano. There he approached the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) officers Chávez and Huerta with the idea of a theater group that would both educate and entertain the workers and in turn serve as a means of propaganda for the grape pickers' strike and boycott, the union organizing cause, and fund-raising. Valdez, an aspiring playwright, brought to the project his experience with the San Francisco Mime Troupe and within a few weeks had organized a small group together with Agustín Lira, Felipe Cantú, and Olivia Chumacero, among others. This group became El Teatro Campesino, the cultural voice in the farmworkers' struggle for social change.

The key factors of the acto involve the important relationship between the audience and the performers. The performers must convey the feelings of the community. They will serve as the voice for their people, a voice that is not necessarily heard by the dominant culture. As the audience members identify with the characters, they can envision themselves in empowering scenarios, which will (hopefully) inspire them to take action. The problem is quickly presented, and the feelings of the farmworker are expressed. Humor, in the form of slapstick, exaggeration, and satire, allowed for the indictment of both the oppressor and the opposition and even the complicity of the workers in their own continued subjugation. Laced with humor, the critiques were less offensive to the sensibilities of the audience. The agitprop style or agitational and propagandistic methods spoke directly and didactically to the audience. The problem is presented with promises of solutions and concrete examples of how to execute them.

Mythological criticism

Much of the success of the actos is based in their use of stock characters and archetypes. These recognizable characters connected with the farmworkers' background and experience. Characters such as the underdog, the farmworker, the boss, the labor contractor, and the strikebreaker were recognizable types that required little explanation or development. Additionally the use of placards that hung around the necks of the performers or the use of masks also served the notion of the archetype. Perhaps the most salient character of the early actos is the underdog, the ...