Harvest of Empire

Directed by Peter Getzels & Eduardo López

 

This is an informative, well-presented story of the Latino migration to the United States throughout the twentieth century and continuing into the present. It makes clear the relationship between the Latin migration to the United States and the economic and political policies of the United States government, examining numerous specific cases in great detail: Puerto Rico, Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Each case is somewhat different, but the basic pattern is consistent: the United States destabilizes popular governments, engineers coups, promotes civil wars, and supports repressive dictatorial regimes that promote the economic interests of large U.S. corporations who exploit the citizenry of these countries, extract their resources, pervert the local economy, and corrupt the government and the judicial system. The citizenry then flee poverty, repression, war, hopelessness, and despair, and where do they come? The United States. People do not leave their homes, their cultures, their languages, and their national identity easily. They do so reluctantly and often at great risk. In a great many cases they are not coming to seek work or to make money, but to flee terror and genocide. The United States trains, arms, and supports the repressive governments that brutalize the civilian population and create the intolerable conditions that promote large scale migration. This film documents this pattern with many vivid examples. It is based on the book Harvest of Empire, by Juan Gonzalez, who is featured as a commentator throughout the film. Anyone who is Latino should see it. Anyone who isn’t Latino should also see it, because it might help to discredit some of the paranoid nonsense being promoted in politics and the media — which is also portrayed in the film — about securing the borders with fences and drones and armed patrols and criminalizing undocumented immigrants and deporting them by the thousands and millions, which is not feasible and not in our interest in any case. It is a powerful and important story that will have lasting implications for the future of our nation. There are about 51 million Latin immigrants in the United States right now, with about two thirds of them from Mexico. According to the Pew Research Center, by 2050 the Latino population in the United States will triple in size and make up 29% of the population compared to 14% in 2005. Nearly one in five Americans will be an immigrant in 2050, compared to one in eight in 2005. It is a major long term demographic and cultural shift underway in the United States: an inadvertent, unforeseen consequence of short-sighted, misguided economic and political policies carried out by our government over many years. This film provides a clearheaded, historically informed, constructive look at the issue that is interesting and rich in examples of the many varied impacts it has on individual human lives.

HAIR

Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

The Encinal Drama Department courageously explores the radical sixties via the American Tribal Lock-Rock Musical HAIR.

The musical visits the incubator of many cultural and political elements that we take for granted today: the anti-war and anti-draft movement, environmental protection, women’s rights, mysticism, broad based humanism, sexual liberation, tolerance and cultural pluralism.

These features of the American landscape were brought to you by the Hippies; a utopian subculture that looked beyond materialism for a vision of what we could become.

Diane Keaton was part of the 1968 Broadway cast of HAIR; strangely, to this day she reminds us that although she played a Hippy on stage, she was not a Hippy.

Remarkably, the Encinal production seems to capture the very essence of the Hippy movement; to the credit of Director Robert Moorhead, the show—despite the enormous cast—achieves an intimate cohesive feel, a harmonic convergence of creative spirit and enlightened hope; the unifying tribal force is palpable.

The rousing opening song, Aquarius, boldly led by Brazjea Willard-Johnson with an exuberant Tribal chorus, asserts that planet Earth is governed by a celestial clock—the precession of the equinoxes—and humanity is getting its wake-up call; peace, love and understanding are about to usurp the old evil gods of greed, war and hate.

Just as the Christian era is believed to have been ushered in by a Virgin, the Aquarian Age too has its Madonna only in HAIR it is simply Donna and Berger—played marvelously by Darryl Williams—is desperately singing and searching for “my Donna.”

While drugs have been a part of the American experience since the Jamestown Colonists discovered the hallucinogenic properties of Jimson Weed, it was the sixties that brought on a proliferation of every “mind expanding” toxicant known to the recreational pharmacist and sorcerer; the song Hashish, performed by the Tribe in an eerie and trippy haunting howl, signals the audience that mystic revelation can spring from psychedelics much easier and quicker than yoga, asceticism and rigorous self-denial.

While the United States was busily bombing the Ho Chi Minh Trail and trumped-up body counts filled the evening news, the nation remained priggish about S E X; the song Sodomy drags words before the Klieg Lights that were hitherto only uttered in locker rooms, pajama parties, frat houses and confession booths; words like … like … well you know.

Woof—superbly played by the unassuming leading man of Encinal Theater, and Encinal’s West Point selectee, Raymond Cole-Machuca—lyrically runs through the entire Scortatory Dictionary trying to find the basis of its shock value.

Whether intentional or not, Raymond’s Woof is the oak tree about which the Tribe seems to hang its Teepee; he is both the Oberon and Puck of this musical.

Relentlessly threaded through the musical, submerging and reemerging repeatedly, is the problem of the Draft: compulsory military service; most likely in Vietnam.

The lead character, Claude, is inexorably ratcheted closer and closer to boot camp and the nightmare that lies beyond.

Claude—as played by Ryan Borashan is brilliant casting.

Ryan is an amazing young gentleman actor not to be under-estimated; he is so capable and expansive on stage that his own teachers have difficulty recognizing him.

Claude does his best to dismiss reality; he dives into a false identity in the song Manchester England as if to momentarily escape the Selective Service who has issued him a draft card.

Ryan’s rendering of the song betrays the desperation of a draft eligible teenager trying to suspend his sense of disbelief to buy one more day in protracted adolescence; neither his parents nor the Tribe fully comprehend the enormity of his crisis.

Later as reality begins to infiltrate Claude’s denial mechanism, Ryan wonderfully sings what is arguably the finest song of the show: Where Do I Go.

One of the most startling voices in HAIR is Kalyn Evans; when she chimes into the number Ain’t Got No, the song leaps a full octave qualitatively; this reviewer spent the rest of the evening anxiously waiting for an encore from Kalyn.

As previously stated, the environment was moved to the front burner by the Hippy Movement and the environmentalist in HAIR is the amply Pregnant Jeanie—played by very talented Miss Ruby Wagner.

Miss Wagner—one of the bright beacons in this show—perhaps acceding that there were vagaries in the sound system, not only sang mellifluously, but she communicated her song, Air, to the audience with expression, articulation and earnestness while never compromising on melody.

In a subjective debate over the virtues of Black Boys versus White Boys and in a nod to Motown and Phil Spector, Emani Pollard, Kalyn Evans and Jayla Velasquez delightfully shimmied in shimmering minis.

Costuming and make-up deserve major kudos.

Initially one might think this is a parody of the sixties until one realizes that this is how it really was, equally audacious and outrageous in the sixties as it is on the Encinal Stage.

To connect or reconnect to a time when expectation and hope trumped the status quo and the military-industrial complex, get thee to HAIR.

The show runs through Saturday March 23 and should not be missed.

Period dressing is encouraged.

Call Encinal High at 748-4023 for more details.