Fronteras Americanas by Guillermo Verdecchia

Author:Guillermo Verdecchia
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Drama, Latin America, America, Latinos, migration, globalization, theatre, Canada, DRA013000
Publisher: Talonbooks
Published: 2012-12-10T00:00:00+00:00

The Other

VERDECCHIA: I would like to clear up any possible misimpression. I should state now that I am something of an impostor. A fake. What I mean is I sometimes confuse my tenses in Spanish. I couldn’t dance a tango to save my life.

All sides of the Border have claimed and rejected me. On all sides I have been asked, “How long have you been …? How old were you when …? When did you leave? When did you arrive?” As if it were somehow possible to locate on a map, on an airline schedule, on a blueprint, the precise coordinates of the spirit, of the psyche, of memory.

Music: “El Mal Dormido” by Atahualpa Yupanqui

As if we could somehow count or measure these things.

These things cannot be measured – I know I tried.

I told the doctor, “I feel different. I feel wrong, out of place. I feel not-nowhere, not-neither.”

The doctor said, “You’re depressed.”

I said, “Yes, I am.”

The doctor said, “Well …”

I said, “I want to be tested. Sample my blood, scan my brain, search my organs. Find it.”

“Find what?”

“Whatever it is.”

“And when we find it?”

“Get rid of it.”

Projections (images): X-rays, brain scans, MRIs

They didn’t find anything. “Everything’s absolutely normal,” I was told. “Everything’s fine. Everything’s where it should be.” I wasn’t fooled. I am a direct descendant of two people who once ate armadillo. Armadillo has a half-life of two thousand years; you can’t tell me that isn’t in my bloodstream. Evita Perón once kissed my mother, and that night she felt her cheek begin to rot. You can’t tell me that hasn’t altered my DNA.

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