by Emma LaPlante
When this year’s Carnaval skit writing team sat down at its earliest meeting, one question, posed by Co-Chair Cecilia Joy Pérez, hung in the air. “If you had a platform to say something to the entire school about Latino issues, what would you say to them?” the Washington University senior asked her fellow executive board members.
With this crucial question, a show was born -- one that swayed significantly away from the precedents set by the past few years. “I really wanted to reinvigorate the skit writing process, kind of come up with a more substantial show, that I think would speak to the experiences that more of the Latinos have on campus,” said Joy Pérez. “Last year’s skit dealt with Brazil and World Cup spending…I was like, ‘Yes, this is an issue, but I know we can go further,’” agreed sophomore Alejandro Martinez, Joy Pérez’s Carnaval Co-Chair.
While this year’s show still dealt with globally relevant political issues, they were addressed in a more personal and intimate way. The skit, which followed the lives of several Latino and Latina Wash. U. students, tackled important new realities, such as generational divides between parents and children in the Latino community over LGBT issues and dating, machismo in Latino culture, detainment of undocumented immigrants, and the intersectionality of complex identities -- represented most explicitly by a character who identified as sometimes Black, sometimes Latino, and sometimes both.
“[With] everything that’s been happening on campus, I figured intersectionality and identity issues are what are prominent right now,” Martinez said. “[I thought] it would be perfect to include that in Carnaval somehow.”
A New Philosophy
Carnaval has always been dedicated to celebrating Latino culture, which has traditionally meant sexy dances, flashy costumes, and lighthearted humor. This year’s show did not disappoint on this front, featuring dances like Belly Dancing, West African, Samba and Cha-Cha. But the show did not only highlight these performances because they’re fun. Rather, Carnaval, a show run primarily by the Association of Latin American Students (ALAS), needs to appeal to Wash. U.’s mainstream population. For Carnaval to be the major campus event that it is, it needs to attract both a wide audience and dozens of dancers and performers, Latino and non-Latino.
“In the past, [Carnaval has] been very focused on making [the show] fun and making it entertaining, especially for a wider Wash. U. audience,” said Ana Paula Shelley, a senior who choreographed this year’s Lyrical Latin Fusion dance. There has always been a need for the Carnaval planners, especially the skit-writers, to make sacrifices, and a careful balance has been struck between ideals and practicality. “In the past, I think — and this is my personal opinion -- we sacrificed a lot of our more strong feelings, because we were afraid that they won’t relate to the Wash. U. audience.”
This year’s show threw caution to the wind.
“We don’t care, essentially,” Shelley said. “We don’t care if some our stories don’t relate to everyone, because that’s not really the point…Carnaval did a good job this year of saying, ‘you know what, talk about what you want to talk about.’ It doesn’t need to be fun all the time.”
Ayotzinapa and Lyrical Latin Fusion
Perhaps this newly embraced philosophy was most obvious in this year’s Lyrical Latin Fusion, a relatively new dance that combines traditional Latin styles with ballet. When Shelley was asked in the fall to be the new Lyrical Latin Fusion choreographer, she thought she would simply follow the example set by the dance’s choreographers in years past, when Lyrical Latin Fusion was an upbeat and graceful dance that fit in well with Carnaval’s other exciting dances. However, as she considered what she would do for this year’s performance, she became increasingly involved with a budding student activist group called AltaVoz, which was coalescing in the aftermath of the mass kidnapping of students from Ayotzinapa, Mexico.
Last September, 43 teaching students from a teaching college in Ayotzinapa went missing in Iguala, Mexico. While they were riding buses to a protest in Mexico City, the students were abducted and presumably killed. The mayor of Iguala and his wife are widely suspected of arranging the students’ disappearance, most likely because they wrongfully assumed the students were planning to disrupt an event held by the mayor’s wife. The tragedy inspired an international outcry against police brutality, corruption and suppression of free speech.
In September, Wash. U.’s AltaVoz, including Shelley, held a vigil for the missing students. Then, over winter break, while visiting her family in Mexico, something clicked for Shelley. “During December, when I went home to Mexico, my godmother actually had gone to Ayotzinapa and had gone to the school and helped students. She came back to me with these experiences, and she basically made me feel a lot closer to the events than just hearing about it on the news in the United States,” Shelley said.
Meanwhile, the writers of the Carnaval skit knew about the Ayotzinapa tragedy, and they considered putting it in their script. However, the entire scandal was still shrouded in mystery, and most of the details were unknown (and still are today), so they decided against including the issue in the show’s skit. But after returning from Mexico, the tragedy felt too real for Shelley to ignore. She decided to address the Ayotzinapa kidnapping in her dance. “I was like, ‘I have an opportunity to talk about these things that the skit isn’t covering,’” Shelley said. Still unsure of exactly how she wanted to approach the issue, Shelley turned rehearsals into a collaborative process with her dancers, bringing in her own choreography but continually tweaking it to make it as powerful as possible.
By the time the Lyrical Latin Fusion dance was performance-ready, Shelley’s choreography had evolved into a political outcry against corruption and state violence. Eleven dancers began onstage, but halfway through their second song veiled individuals dressed in black ran onstage and violently dragged the dancers off the stage, one by one. After the final dancer (Shelley) was snatched, the curtain fell on an empty stage, giving way to intermission.
The dance, which brought many viewers to tears, represented a serious departure from the previous way of doing things in Wash. U.’s Carnaval. Although this year’s Lyrical Latin Fusion dance was certainly the most dramatic example, other moments in the show demonstrated the show’s newfound boldness, including a subtle critique of Wash. U.’s disproportionately small Latino population. “We, as Latinos, have to fight for our recognition in a place where there are so few of us,” said a skit character at the end of the show.
In Their Own Voices
For many Latino students, this statement was all too relatable, partly because the notion of a minority group (in this sense of a coherent and unified bloc of people) does not really exist. Although small, the community of Latinos at Wash. U. includes incredible diversity, with ties to countries all over Africa and Central and South America. It is impossible to fit all of Wash. U.’s Latinos into one generalized narrative.
“The proximity to the country, or the generation that you’re from, changes the way that you self-identify. And all these identities are valid -- it’s not like saying, ‘having Latinos means diversity,’ there’s diversity within that. There are some experiences that, as a Latino on campus, will resonate with you, and some that won’t. That’s why the low amount of Latinos here makes it difficult to satisfy all those needs,” said Joy Pérez.
But that didn’t stop this year’s Carnaval’s scriptwriters from trying. “We didn’t want one long story -- we wanted segments and different stories because we felt there wasn’t just one issue, there isn’t just one identity, one experience. It was really interesting to see, as the script was written, how all these different experiences and stories interwove with each other, and how everything connected still,” said Martinez.
Figuring out these diverse and complicated characters wasn’t easy. The scriptwriters wanted to explore different cultural heritages and address real experiences without reiterating stereotypes or confirming people’s prejudices about Latinos. “I didn’t want it to be taken as like, ‘Oh, we’re either super fun and pretty and colorful, or we’re super violent,’ because those are two very big stereotypes that are shown about Latinos,” said Shelley. Joy Pérez said that, when collaborating on the script, she was “trying to highlight what attitudes among Latinos I think are problematic.”
The storyline about a female student and her mother that represented the effects of machismo on Latina women, for example, revealed a more multifaceted approach than initial appearances would suggest. With these characters, the writers wanted to deal with machismo (male chauvinism within Latino cultures) and its real influence on Latino family dynamics. But at the same time, Joy Pérez stressed their desire to not place the mother character into the stereotype that all Latinos are chauvinistic.
To capitalize on their insights into the nuances of the Latino experience, Joy Pérez and the other writers decided to set the skit at Wash. U. and to derive storylines from their own personal experiences. Joy Pérez explained that she felt the machismo in Puerto Rican culture at her own family dinner table, where she has been told that her intelligence can be intimidating toward men. This is primarily what inspired the relationship between the mother and daughter in Carnaval’s skit. “We focused it a lot more on our personal experiences as students on a campus like Wash. U.’s,” Shelley said. “This year, it was very related to ourselves.” In the end, the care and personal investment that the writers put into the script paid off. The characters felt authentic and relatable, not just embodiments of Latino stereotypes.
Home
Finding a home at college is difficult for every student, but it is often immensely harder for members of marginalized minority groups. Latinos at Wash. U. understand this more than anyone because their community is so small. Although programs like the Annika Rodriguez Scholars Program are actively recruiting Latino and Latina students to increase the size of Wash. U.’s Latino community, Latinos are possibly the most marginalized and disproportionately underrepresented minority “group” on campus. Because of this unique status, Carnaval offers something different from other student-run cultural shows like the Lunar New Year Festival and Diwali. Since Asian Americans and Indian Americans have a significantly larger presence on Wash. U.’s campus than Latinos, Latino issues are more often overlooked. In fact, ALAS and Carnaval are some of the only places on campus that give these students a platform to speak where a large audience will actually listen, and Carnaval is the only time that thousands of people in the Wash. U. community come out to listen to Latino voices.
“There is a void, or rather a lack thereof, [of Latino] presence on campus,” said Joy Pérez. “So I think a show like this is important, because it is one way in which thousands of people show that, ‘Hey, we care about Carnaval, we care enough to come,’ and that’s an important function on this campus.”
Part of feeling at home means finding a place to express your feelings and needs, a place where your voice is listened to and deemed important. For many students, Carnaval can become this new “home,” a place where Latino voices are spoken from center stage.
“I think Carnaval, for a lot of people, offers a chance to share with people what ‘home’ means to you,” Shelley said. “For a lot of people, it feels like home not just because they’re interacting with other people who share similar experiences, but because they get a chance to say, ‘Hey, this is my identity. Look at it. Appreciate it.’ That’s a good feeling to be able to do that at Wash. U.”
In a society where systemic prejudice as well as threats of alienation and deportation continually silence Latinos (and a society that usually ignore Latino voices when they do choose to speak), Carnaval is a singularly beautiful thing. When thousands of students show up to see what ALAS has created, the student body is saying, however implicitly, “I see you.” And when Carnaval uses its visibility to highlight complex Latino realities, the student body sees that, too.
While this year’s show still dealt with globally relevant political issues, they were addressed in a more personal and intimate way. The skit, which followed the lives of several Latino and Latina Wash. U. students, tackled important new realities, such as generational divides between parents and children in the Latino community over LGBT issues and dating, machismo in Latino culture, detainment of undocumented immigrants, and the intersectionality of complex identities -- represented most explicitly by a character who identified as sometimes Black, sometimes Latino, and sometimes both.
“[With] everything that’s been happening on campus, I figured intersectionality and identity issues are what are prominent right now,” Martinez said. “[I thought] it would be perfect to include that in Carnaval somehow.”
A New Philosophy
Carnaval has always been dedicated to celebrating Latino culture, which has traditionally meant sexy dances, flashy costumes, and lighthearted humor. This year’s show did not disappoint on this front, featuring dances like Belly Dancing, West African, Samba and Cha-Cha. But the show did not only highlight these performances because they’re fun. Rather, Carnaval, a show run primarily by the Association of Latin American Students (ALAS), needs to appeal to Wash. U.’s mainstream population. For Carnaval to be the major campus event that it is, it needs to attract both a wide audience and dozens of dancers and performers, Latino and non-Latino.
“In the past, [Carnaval has] been very focused on making [the show] fun and making it entertaining, especially for a wider Wash. U. audience,” said Ana Paula Shelley, a senior who choreographed this year’s Lyrical Latin Fusion dance. There has always been a need for the Carnaval planners, especially the skit-writers, to make sacrifices, and a careful balance has been struck between ideals and practicality. “In the past, I think — and this is my personal opinion -- we sacrificed a lot of our more strong feelings, because we were afraid that they won’t relate to the Wash. U. audience.”
This year’s show threw caution to the wind.
“We don’t care, essentially,” Shelley said. “We don’t care if some our stories don’t relate to everyone, because that’s not really the point…Carnaval did a good job this year of saying, ‘you know what, talk about what you want to talk about.’ It doesn’t need to be fun all the time.”
Ayotzinapa and Lyrical Latin Fusion
Perhaps this newly embraced philosophy was most obvious in this year’s Lyrical Latin Fusion, a relatively new dance that combines traditional Latin styles with ballet. When Shelley was asked in the fall to be the new Lyrical Latin Fusion choreographer, she thought she would simply follow the example set by the dance’s choreographers in years past, when Lyrical Latin Fusion was an upbeat and graceful dance that fit in well with Carnaval’s other exciting dances. However, as she considered what she would do for this year’s performance, she became increasingly involved with a budding student activist group called AltaVoz, which was coalescing in the aftermath of the mass kidnapping of students from Ayotzinapa, Mexico.
Last September, 43 teaching students from a teaching college in Ayotzinapa went missing in Iguala, Mexico. While they were riding buses to a protest in Mexico City, the students were abducted and presumably killed. The mayor of Iguala and his wife are widely suspected of arranging the students’ disappearance, most likely because they wrongfully assumed the students were planning to disrupt an event held by the mayor’s wife. The tragedy inspired an international outcry against police brutality, corruption and suppression of free speech.
In September, Wash. U.’s AltaVoz, including Shelley, held a vigil for the missing students. Then, over winter break, while visiting her family in Mexico, something clicked for Shelley. “During December, when I went home to Mexico, my godmother actually had gone to Ayotzinapa and had gone to the school and helped students. She came back to me with these experiences, and she basically made me feel a lot closer to the events than just hearing about it on the news in the United States,” Shelley said.
Meanwhile, the writers of the Carnaval skit knew about the Ayotzinapa tragedy, and they considered putting it in their script. However, the entire scandal was still shrouded in mystery, and most of the details were unknown (and still are today), so they decided against including the issue in the show’s skit. But after returning from Mexico, the tragedy felt too real for Shelley to ignore. She decided to address the Ayotzinapa kidnapping in her dance. “I was like, ‘I have an opportunity to talk about these things that the skit isn’t covering,’” Shelley said. Still unsure of exactly how she wanted to approach the issue, Shelley turned rehearsals into a collaborative process with her dancers, bringing in her own choreography but continually tweaking it to make it as powerful as possible.
By the time the Lyrical Latin Fusion dance was performance-ready, Shelley’s choreography had evolved into a political outcry against corruption and state violence. Eleven dancers began onstage, but halfway through their second song veiled individuals dressed in black ran onstage and violently dragged the dancers off the stage, one by one. After the final dancer (Shelley) was snatched, the curtain fell on an empty stage, giving way to intermission.
The dance, which brought many viewers to tears, represented a serious departure from the previous way of doing things in Wash. U.’s Carnaval. Although this year’s Lyrical Latin Fusion dance was certainly the most dramatic example, other moments in the show demonstrated the show’s newfound boldness, including a subtle critique of Wash. U.’s disproportionately small Latino population. “We, as Latinos, have to fight for our recognition in a place where there are so few of us,” said a skit character at the end of the show.
In Their Own Voices
For many Latino students, this statement was all too relatable, partly because the notion of a minority group (in this sense of a coherent and unified bloc of people) does not really exist. Although small, the community of Latinos at Wash. U. includes incredible diversity, with ties to countries all over Africa and Central and South America. It is impossible to fit all of Wash. U.’s Latinos into one generalized narrative.
“The proximity to the country, or the generation that you’re from, changes the way that you self-identify. And all these identities are valid -- it’s not like saying, ‘having Latinos means diversity,’ there’s diversity within that. There are some experiences that, as a Latino on campus, will resonate with you, and some that won’t. That’s why the low amount of Latinos here makes it difficult to satisfy all those needs,” said Joy Pérez.
But that didn’t stop this year’s Carnaval’s scriptwriters from trying. “We didn’t want one long story -- we wanted segments and different stories because we felt there wasn’t just one issue, there isn’t just one identity, one experience. It was really interesting to see, as the script was written, how all these different experiences and stories interwove with each other, and how everything connected still,” said Martinez.
Figuring out these diverse and complicated characters wasn’t easy. The scriptwriters wanted to explore different cultural heritages and address real experiences without reiterating stereotypes or confirming people’s prejudices about Latinos. “I didn’t want it to be taken as like, ‘Oh, we’re either super fun and pretty and colorful, or we’re super violent,’ because those are two very big stereotypes that are shown about Latinos,” said Shelley. Joy Pérez said that, when collaborating on the script, she was “trying to highlight what attitudes among Latinos I think are problematic.”
The storyline about a female student and her mother that represented the effects of machismo on Latina women, for example, revealed a more multifaceted approach than initial appearances would suggest. With these characters, the writers wanted to deal with machismo (male chauvinism within Latino cultures) and its real influence on Latino family dynamics. But at the same time, Joy Pérez stressed their desire to not place the mother character into the stereotype that all Latinos are chauvinistic.
To capitalize on their insights into the nuances of the Latino experience, Joy Pérez and the other writers decided to set the skit at Wash. U. and to derive storylines from their own personal experiences. Joy Pérez explained that she felt the machismo in Puerto Rican culture at her own family dinner table, where she has been told that her intelligence can be intimidating toward men. This is primarily what inspired the relationship between the mother and daughter in Carnaval’s skit. “We focused it a lot more on our personal experiences as students on a campus like Wash. U.’s,” Shelley said. “This year, it was very related to ourselves.” In the end, the care and personal investment that the writers put into the script paid off. The characters felt authentic and relatable, not just embodiments of Latino stereotypes.
Home
Finding a home at college is difficult for every student, but it is often immensely harder for members of marginalized minority groups. Latinos at Wash. U. understand this more than anyone because their community is so small. Although programs like the Annika Rodriguez Scholars Program are actively recruiting Latino and Latina students to increase the size of Wash. U.’s Latino community, Latinos are possibly the most marginalized and disproportionately underrepresented minority “group” on campus. Because of this unique status, Carnaval offers something different from other student-run cultural shows like the Lunar New Year Festival and Diwali. Since Asian Americans and Indian Americans have a significantly larger presence on Wash. U.’s campus than Latinos, Latino issues are more often overlooked. In fact, ALAS and Carnaval are some of the only places on campus that give these students a platform to speak where a large audience will actually listen, and Carnaval is the only time that thousands of people in the Wash. U. community come out to listen to Latino voices.
“There is a void, or rather a lack thereof, [of Latino] presence on campus,” said Joy Pérez. “So I think a show like this is important, because it is one way in which thousands of people show that, ‘Hey, we care about Carnaval, we care enough to come,’ and that’s an important function on this campus.”
Part of feeling at home means finding a place to express your feelings and needs, a place where your voice is listened to and deemed important. For many students, Carnaval can become this new “home,” a place where Latino voices are spoken from center stage.
“I think Carnaval, for a lot of people, offers a chance to share with people what ‘home’ means to you,” Shelley said. “For a lot of people, it feels like home not just because they’re interacting with other people who share similar experiences, but because they get a chance to say, ‘Hey, this is my identity. Look at it. Appreciate it.’ That’s a good feeling to be able to do that at Wash. U.”
In a society where systemic prejudice as well as threats of alienation and deportation continually silence Latinos (and a society that usually ignore Latino voices when they do choose to speak), Carnaval is a singularly beautiful thing. When thousands of students show up to see what ALAS has created, the student body is saying, however implicitly, “I see you.” And when Carnaval uses its visibility to highlight complex Latino realities, the student body sees that, too.
The author was fortunate enough to dance alongside Ana Paula in this year's Lyrical Latin Fusion.