Migratory Journeys to the United States as Seen through Contemporary Mexican Theater

The Moynihan Institute's Program on Latin America and the Caribbean present Iani del Rosario Moreno from Suffolk University. 

The era of refugees and migrants, encompassing most of the 20th and 21st centuries is characterized by displaced and transient human masses. They come crowded in boats, trains, trucks, cars, on foot or, even swimming through bodies of water. Some travel alone, while others travel with their families, or in groups. This is an experience few would have chosen, but due to forces beyond their control—poverty, repression, war—they have become migrants, refugees or exiles.

Through the lens of contemporary Mexican theater the journeys these migrants engage as they search for a better life are presented in plays written by Mexican dramatists such as Hugo Salcedo, Victor Hugo Rascon Banda, Angel Norzagaray or Manuel Talavera Trejo. Their plays depict thousands of anonymous actors in heroic, treacherous and tragic Journeys across some of the most unwelcoming topography between Mexico and the United States. 

Iani del Rosario Moreno is an associate professor of Spanish and Latin American studies and history at the Language & Global Culture Department at Suffolk University. Moreno holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic studies from the University of Kansas, and has taught a variety of courses in Spanish language, culture and literature at the University of Denver and Salve Regina University.

Her interests include contemporary Latin American theater; Brazilian language, literature and culture; U.S.-Mexico Border studies; Spanish and Portuguese language and literature; and contemporary Latin American cinema and music.

Her publications discuss contemporary Latin American theater and U.S.-Mexico Border dramaturgy with emphasis on the theater done by Teatro del Norte and especially internationally recognized dramatist Hugo Salcedo of Tijuana, Mexico. Professor Moreno has directed University productions of contemporary Latin American plays and has also traveled extensively in Latin America and lived abroad in Brazil. In 2005 she was selected by Rotary International to be an Ambassador of Goodwill and Understanding in Brazil.