A common language: immigrant women perform their stories

Bouchra, an immigrant and mother who lives in Sunset Park, was visiting family in her native Morocco with her children and her infant son when Covid hit. Because of visa issues, and the fact that the baby had no passport, Bouchra made the painful decision to leave him with her parents and return with her other children to her husband in the United States. It was seven months before they were finally able to bring their youngest home.

Bouchra, who asked to be identified by her first name, was one of nine immigrant women who shared intimate stories from their lives in a community performance at L’Wren bar on Fifth Avenue on March 29. The show, which combined storytelling and ensemble acting, was the culmination of a theater and English language workshop called “Our Ways With Words.” The women, hailing from Mexico, Algeria, Yemen and Morocco, and now living in New York City, many of them in South Brooklyn, had been working together weekly since October to develop their stories and bring them to life for the stage.

Our Ways With Words was started in 2021 by Obie Award-winning director Michael Leibenluft as part of his organization Gung Ho Projects, which uses performance to create contexts to bring people together from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Leibenluft, who is fluent in Mandarin, said the idea for a workshop combining theatermaking and language learning grew out of his experience training and working cross-culturally as a theater director in China for two decades.

Beginning online during the pandemic, Our Ways With Words eventually found a home in Sunset Park through collaborations with RaisingHealth and the Center for Family Life. The concept, he said, was that “because we’re all doing the story together, we have to find, what is the common language in the room? English and theater become the common languages.”

Leibenluft sees much overlap between his work in professional theater, often on bilingual productions, and the community workshops, which are rooted in the belief that we all have the capacity for creativity and self-expression. “Everyone is an artist,” Leibenluft said. “They may not necessarily see themselves that way, but we really emphasize that everyone has a story worth sharing. It’s a gift they can give to the community.”

The participants’ stories were not all related to immigration, but many evoked a nostalgia for the sensory details of the places they had left behind: the taste of fig, a waft of jasmine in the air, the foods and sounds of a busy zocalo in the evening. And, like Bouchra, many of the women told of difficult or painful experiences. There were stories of house fires, a traumatic childhood dog bite, and the devastation of losing a young sister. But along with the pain came resilience and growth.

Ana Juárez Vazquez told how, after helping her child and brother through cancer (they both survived), she learned to better take care of herself by making boundaries with relatives who were demanding of her time and money.

Recognizing over the years that the workshop was a space where people were often processing significant trauma in their lives, Leibenluft was inspired to go back to school to study social work. He is now exploring how in the future he can more intentionally offer mental health support to participants in tandem with language learning and dramatic arts.

Along with his co-facilitators, immigrant theatermakers Erika Marland and Zinc Tong, Leibenluft is committed to creating a safe space for the group’s work that carries into the performances. “It’s OK for you to cry onstage. It’s OK for you to laugh,” he said. “Supporting the group in holding that emotion is part of the whole experience.”

And in fact, along with some tears, there was also laughter in the room at L’Wren. For example, when during the story of a mysterious orb in the sky the audience’s gaze was directed to a conveniently located disco ball. And especially when clown school graduate Marlen Castillo pulled on a homemade clown suit and shared about the bumpy road to finding her audience in Sunset Park.

There was also evident joy in the work and play of theater, and in the friendships across linguistic and cultural divides that had formed because of it. Eshraq Alsabri, a journalist and former NGO worker, said she valued learning to express herself in a new way. And Olivia Cerón, who has done the workshop three times now, talked about how meaningful it has been to connect with the other participants. “I know them now,” she said. “We’re friends forever.”

The next cycle of Our Ways With Words will begin in the fall and is open to immigrant English language learners who can commit to weekly rehearsals and a final performance. This year’s workshop happened to be all women, but all genders are welcome. The program is free and includes a small stipend. For more information, contact Gung Ho Projects (https://www.gunghoprojects.com).