Lucia is a strong woman who migrated from Mexico like most in hopes of a better life. Her journey begins with her remembering what freedom felt like, something as simple as feeling the sun on her face. When her mother decides to take her and her sisters to America in search of work the women endure a treacherous seventeen-hour trip that ends with two less stowaways than they started with, a sign of their life to come. For seven years from age 11-18 she worked on a vegetable farm in California living in slave-like conditions until her mother died and she realized that for a second time in her life the only thing she could do to save her life is run. After burying her mother on the property of the field she turns and runs to her freedom, a story of survival and struggle in a present time situation that is not regulated in America. Lucia is the voice of many migrant workers and her story should be told and heard. *Character does speak some Spanish.
DI/ Female- Rising Sun
$50.00Price
- (Lucia stands in front of a window. She takes a moment, a breath, and opens the window to see the sun slowly rising over the horizon.) There is no rooster that crows in the morning to tell me and my family to wake up, that it’s time for work. (Beat) It is the rising sun. It is knowing that if we are not at our stations before the sun comes up that we would be penalized an hours pay even if we are only minutes late. That is what the rising sun meant to me. When I was a little girl back in Mexico I used to love watching the sunrise. I would climb into my parents bed and sit right in the middle of them and peer out of the window as the sun lifted over the desert. I'm not exactly sure what I thought it was as a little girl I just knew that it was so pretty and I knew that if I woke up early enough every morning I could see it. That all changed. The rising sun meant something different to me in America; it meant the beginning of a workday that doesn't end until the sun has gone deep deep into the valleys. I used to dream. I used to breathe fresh air. I used to believe in things. (She peers out of the window again.) The field. Looking out over the field in the morning, how could something so peaceful still bring so much pain?