“Once upon a time, I was a little girl with a secret and wonderful power. I could see things in a way no one else could see.”
The 1960’s witnessed the immigration of a generation of Filipino professionals — many of them doctors, engineers and nurses — who had been educated in an English-speaking school system strongly influenced by the Philippines’ “big brother,” the United States. These Filipinos poured into the U.S. at a time when their qualifications were welcome and not viewed as competition to those of domestic workers; many of them settled around the big cities and aspired to re-create their own version of the American Dream. These new modern immigrants quickly took to U.S. conveniences, replanted their cultural mores in U.S. soil, and gave birth to a whole generation of children who knew only of the U.S. — and yet heard from their parents and saw in their own faces the mark of the Philippines.
Rosie Macadaeg lived in Brooklyn, with her busy family and her ordinary life. But at night, when she dreamed, she began to see visions, visions that she learns her visiting Grandmother shares: about the dark past of her family, her ancestors, and her mother country, the Philippines. Till Voices Wake Us follows Rosie as she gets to know her grandmother, her family’s true story, and her own mixed-culture identity.
Till Voices Wake Us was first performed by the Ma-Yi Theatre Ensemble at the Soho Repertory Theater, NYC, in September 1992, and directed by Kay Gayner.
Performed by Echo Theatre, 1992, and directed by Doug Miller.
Anthologized in:
Contemporary Plays by Women of Color: An Anthology, By Kathy A. Perkins, Roberta Uno (editors), Routledge
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Great Scenes from Minority Playwrights: Seventy-four Scenes of Cultural Diversity by Marsh Cassady, Meriwether Publishing
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