For Acclaimed Playwright Luis Alfaro, Central Valley Is a Place of Contradictions
For acclaimed playwright Luis Alfaro, whose parents were farmworkers and whose family roots run deep in Delano, California’s Central Valley, the region is a site of both hardship and abundance. Its fertile fields and lush landscapes coexist with punishing conditions for workers and a complex history of family struggles.
Alfaro’s grandfather, who built a local Pentecostal church in Delano, met a tragic end, killed along with two of his sons by a train in the notorious Tule fog, a phenomenon that haunts the valley. “There’s something so profoundly powerful and hurtful about the land,” Alfaro reflects, “and then there is the juxtaposition that it feeds us and nurtures us. It’s all about the growing and the picking and the hard living of it.”
The Chicano playwright, a 1997 MacArthur Fellowship ("genius grant") winner, returns to the Central Valley in his newest play, "Speaking in Tongues," which premiered on October 17 with the Latino Theater Company at the Los Angeles Theatre Center.
The play, set in a church beside a cornfield in Earlimart, explores a crisis of faith in a community grappling with poverty, immigration enforcement, and a changing climate. Through drama and comic banter, it delves into the meditation on stage of these folks who are wondering what their future holds.
"Speaking in Tongues" also highlights the impact of immigration raids on the local agricultural community and the decision of younger family members to leave for a secular life in Los Angeles. The story unfolds against the backdrop of a changing climate, with the Central Valley facing drought, flooding, and all the consequences for agriculture nationwide and beyond.
The title has multiple layers of meaning. It refers to the charismatic religious phenomenon of spontaneous speech, “elevated language that’s created by spirit, meaning it’s built in absolute faith”, according to Alfaro.
Personal losses, including the recent deaths of his parents and his brother’s passing from cancer, have inspired the play. Alfaro’s father, for instance, embraced his Indigenous Nahua roots in his final days, opting for burial rites performed in the Nahuatl language.
Alfaro’s play is his fourth set in the Central Valley, a region that continues to hold both profound memories and a sense of uncertainty for him.