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Archetypes Flow Through 'Tears'   Albuquerque Journal Sunday, September 9, 2007

By Aurelio Sanchez
    Some believe the Rio Grande is haunted; others believe it has become a river of tears.
    A performance group dramatizes these beliefs to try to raise awareness about numerous women missing or murdered since the early 1990s from border town maquiladora factories in "River of Tears / Rio de Lagrimas."
    There are conflicting estimates of the number of victims in the Ciudad Juárez, Mexico area, but various online accounts say at least 400 women have been raped, murdered or have been missing since 1993.
    The play is being presented by the performance group Las Meganenas, an outreach program of Teatro Nuevo Mexico.
    It will be presented for the first time outdoors in the amphitheater at Albuquerque Museum, 2000 Mountain NW.
    "I really feel like raising awareness is having an effect; there have finally been some legitimate arrests, and more and more people are learning about these women," said Soledad Marjon Hindi, who wrote a performance piece about them.
    One of the central characters in the play is La Llorona, an archetypal wailing woman, believed by many to be haunting the Rio Grande and all waterways in search of the children she murdered.
    The story begins with the telling of the Meso-American "Eve," or La Malinche, and her journey coinciding with the colonization of Mexico, continuing to present day.
    As La Malinche, she takes on the suffering of her people, and then she continues north along the path of the Rio Grande, where she discovers hundreds of women working in factories on the El Paso-Juárez border.
    Along the way, she transforms into La Llorona, and then at last into a victimized factory worker.
    Marjon Hindi said hundreds of mostly U.S. companies sprang up along the border in recent decades, spurred by low tariffs and cheap labor.
    That started an exodus of women, and some men, traveling long distances from small towns within the Mexican interior to work at the factories, she said, many of whom didn't have sufficient security to protect them.
    Directed by Sabina Zuniga-Varela, "Rio de Lagrimas" features performances by Meganenas repertory troupe members Soledad Marjon Hindi, Vivian Fernandez, Apryl Sandoval, Valerie Borrego, Sabina Zuniga-Varela and Michelle Otero.
    The performance will be trilingual: in English, Spanish and Nahuatal, an official language in Mexico.
    This year's performances have added a new character: La Muerte, or Death. Depicted as a woman, Death is not seen by the other characters, but meanders throughout the play on stage and through the audience, as a reminder that death is always present.
    A reception following the performance will feature food and music.
    The Albuquerque performance will benefit two organizations working on behalf of the maquiladora workers: Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa, and Justicia Para Nuestras Hijas. The two organizations were founded by and run by the mothers of young women who have disappeared from the factories.

   Río de Lágrimas  /  http://www.feminist-reprise.org/blog/     March 10, 2007

We have just returned from seeing this wonderful agonizing trilingual "multimedia presentation" at the National Hispanic Cultural Center and I am damn near speechless. It's a wonderful, beautiful, brilliant, strong, devastating portrayal of the way that the colonization of Mexico has been played out on women's bodies, beginning with the role of Malintzin in the Spanish conquest by Hernán Cortez, and continuing today with the Juárez femicides. I started crying when I walked in and was handed a stone with the name of a murdered woman on it: Merlin Elizabeth Rodríguez-Sáenz, dead of capitalism and male supremacy. According to the play, more than 450 women's bodies have been found, and more than 3000 women are missing since 1993. I haven't really stopped crying yet, even though there were parts of the play that were hilarious and bawdy, spine-tingling, ethereal, and filled with magic and mystery at the same time that the totality was completely devastating.

A fantastic image: The United States as the "gringo bridegroom," como Cortéz, and the father of the bride the "corrupt Mexican government officials" feeding the monster as many Mexican women, as many Malintzines, as necessary.

A great line: "¡Ese pinche cabrón Bush!"                                          And another: "Eso es como nos chingaron."

Review of “ River of Tears ”( Monday, 13 March 2006 ) - Contributed by Barry Gaines  

Two performances of “ River of Tears ” (“Rio de Lagrimas”) at UNM’s Theatre X were sold out, and an extra performance added because of community interest. Yet this tri-lingual, multi-media event, written and performed by five Hispanic  women who call themselves Las Meganenas (the big girls), is as much sermon and civics lesson as show. The four performers meld song, dance, and instrumental improvisation with evocative lighting and computer-generated images projected on a screen. The old finger harp, concertina, cajon hand drum, cello, and guitar mingle with the new PowerPoint presentation.  

Apryl Sandoval plays a political activist who voices concern about the Juarez violence. As she sleeps center stage, she is visited by spirits played by Valerie Borrego and Vivian Fernandez who transform her into La Malinche, a strong and beautiful indigenous Indian woman. Soledad Hindi narrates in English and Spanish. When Spanish conquistador (conqueror) Cortéz arrives, she acts as his interpreter and, eventually, his lover. She has two children, the first mestizos. Cortéz betrays and abandons her, and fearing that her sons will become slaves, she kills them and cries herself to death. Her soul wanders the riverbanks.  

The mythic story of La Malinche morphs north of the border into the powerful tale of La Llorona (The Wailing Woman). She is now a Mexican who has two sons by a gringo and, in a jealous rage, drowns them in the Rio Grande . Clad in white, her hair tangled and fingers grotesquely distended, the weeping figure of La Llorona also searches the rivers. The mourning figures of La Malinche and La Llorona are combined and extended to weep for contemporary victims of violence in Juarez, some of whose names--written on stones--are distributed to entering audience members. A moving portion of the play comes toward the end when spectators come forward, read the names, and place the rocks on an altar. For Las Meganenes, audience participation is vital. The troupe wants to educate and shape attitudes rather than simply to entertain. They manage to do both.

Jasmina Wellinghoff  Special to the Express-News  There is a difference between art and advocacy, but sometimes the two join forces and it can be a good thing. Such is the case with " River of Tears ," a short play performed by five Albuquerque women who call themselves Las Meganenas (The Big Girls). The group brought its brainchild to the Guadalupe Theater Friday night as part of the 2006 TeatroFEST.  Las Meganenas' message is urgent and compelling. Since 1995, 450 women along the Mexican side of the border have been found dead and many more are missing. Most were workers in the maquiladoras (assembly plants), far from home, poor and vulnerable.

To that end, playwright Soledad Marjon Hindi enlists the help of legendary folk figures such as La Malinche and La Llorona, whose stories and mythical transformations take much of the action. A real historical figure, La Malinche was an Aztec woman who became Cortes' translator and mistress, and ultimately entered folklore as the mother of the new mestizo race. In "River" she morphs into La Llorona, the weeping mother who haunts riverbanks in search of her drowned children. This mythical composite mother is shown grieving for the murdered Juarez women whose bodies, abandoned in the desert, tell a tale of horror. Yet, the Mexican government, local police and the owners of the maquiladoras all seem indifferent to their plight.

Director Sabina Zuniga-Varela beautifully integrates past and present, myth and reality. And beautiful, often mournful, ballads sung in Spanish by various cast members and accompanied by musician Vivian Fernandez on several instruments, greatly enhance the impact of the presentation.

  A chilling reminder of the fate suffered by women and girls along the Mexican border is portrayed in 

                                                                                            ‘ River of Tears ’   By Virginia L. Clark  

  "The “Weeping Woman” of North America has many faces, but the one we may know best is La Llorona. Now, an even more powerful myth about the despised Feminine has been created by blending La Llorona with her ancient Mexican-Aztec counterpart, La Malinche and suddenly “la via dolorosa/the way of sorrow” has a voice that will not be silenced. “River of Tears/Río de Lágrimas” is a chilling performance by Las Meganenas (“the big girls” Vivian Fernández, Valerie Borrego, Soledad Marjon-Hindi, Apryl Sandoval and Sabina Zuniga-Varela), an outreach group of Albuquerque ’s Teatro Nuevo Mexico . The production focuses on the unprecedented rise in the murder of women and girls along the Mexican border since 1993. Thousands more women have vanished without a trace.
     In a brilliant synthesis so apt you’ll wonder why it has never been made explicit before, poet and photographer Soledad Marjon-Hindi took the true story of Malinche, an indigenous slave in Mexico who was made interpreter and concubine to Spanish conqueror Hernando Cortéz in the 1500s, and wove it with the legend of La Llorona, the Weeping Woman scorned by her husband who wanders the waterways, wailing and searching for the souls of her dead children, children murdered by her own hand.    Malinche is known to have had a child with Cortéz who abandoned them when he returned to Spain . History records that her child was sold into slavery, but the mythical Malinche drowned her son in the river, death being preferable to slavery. Malinche drowns in her tears and her soul everafter wanders the riverside in search of her child, a mirror-image of the La Llorona legend.
     In Las Meganenas’ trilingual version, La Malinche in Mexico dreams of herself up the Río Grande as La Llorona and eventually into Juarez as a maquilladora, a factory worker, where the show uses La Malinche and La Llorona to convey the working conditions and inequities found in the factories (maquilladoras) of Ciudad Juarez .
    This is not a polite tale. Rather, it shines an unwavering light on the atrocities against these women as part of the monstrous culture of human rights violations that breeds virulently when left hidden in the dark.    “It’s a very powerful play, almost a tear jerker,” Jimmy Cisneros said. Cisneros is a native of Taos and owns Gecko Ponds and Landscaping, one of the sponsors of the two performances Saturday (April 29) at the Taos Community Auditorium. “I think American companies are taking advantage of the fact that they don’t have the American government standing over their head” forcing them to treat workers humanely or be shut down.
    Most of the murdered and disappeared women and girls worked in the approximately 4,760 assembly or finish-production plants which sprung up after the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), of which almost all are owned and managed by Americans. Prior to the passage of NAFTA, the murder rate of females averaged three per year. After passage of the trade agreement the murder rate rose to at least three per month. In case after case, plant owners denied culpability for the welfare of their workers outside of the workplace.
    “I think it raises awareness of what’s going on in other countries because of NAFTA,” Cisneros said, adding that he has seen the play several times. “The people are gonna love it so much they’re going to want them back” again and again.   Since she joined the troupe last year, Sabina Zuniga-Varela said she has seen that the play wants to go everywhere. As Cisneros’ response attests, it hits a nerve so deep, people instantly see an urgency for the performance in their own communities. The only problem is that most of the “big sisters” have day-jobs: Fernández (Ph D) is a professor of  psychology and a cello and guitar player for Salsa band “Calle 66,” Borrego is a CPA, Marjon-Hindi is self-employed .  Apryl Sandoval is currently working on an MA in Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Zuniga-Varela is a middle school teacher who is also a founding board member of the three year-old drama company Teatro Nuevo Mexico .
    “It’s hard. Because we’re all working women, it’s like herding cats” to get everyone together to take the show on the road, Zuniga-Varela said. With the exception of two grants by the McCune Foundation and individual sponsorships or donations, the women never know if they are going to have enough gas to make it to the next venue. Yet they still manage to donate some or all the proceeds of their work to organizations working to stop the slaughter of women in Juarez and other border towns.
   “Their hearts are so into it. They’re willing to sacrifice whatever’s necessary,” Cisneros said.
   Since Zuniga-Varela started directing and acting in the play last year she said they have brought the musicians out front on stage and made them characters.    “We broke up the storyteller’s lines and distributed them among the musicians who are now called ‘mystical beings,’” Zuniga-Varela said. “We’ve been workshopping it, editing the script, making sure things are very clear. I like it, it’s very pure. (The actors) are in it for the message and that way the creativity is able to flow.”
    As for what impact the show is having, the actors have no illusions. No matter whether the murdered women are victims of organ harvesters, snuff filmmakers, bus drivers and/or machismo run amuck, as theories have propounded the mothers and families of the victims say “Ni una mas/not one more.” In solidarity with the victims’ families and women everywhere, Las Meganenas are committed to keeping the world’s attention on this dreadful state of affairs.    

   “We don’t have any answers. We’ve had women at the show who’ve had family members affected by the murders and they are very grateful to have this (showcased). And there are people who didn’t know this is going on. This is just one more example in the world of how Woman has been used and abused all because she is trying to fulfill her life and the life of those around her,” Zuniga-Varela said.

   La Voz  del Norte      by Juliana Henao,  March 24, 2005  p. 21

El Llanto de La Malinche y La Llorona” 

"A la historia la entretejen canciones y melodías melancólicas en Espaňol cargardas de sentimientos que inspiran dolor".

"The history is interwoven with  songs and melancholic melodies in Spanish  charged with feelings that  inspire pain". Translation of the above. 

  Grief Factor, Santa Fe Reporter,    

According to Latin American folklorico, La Malinche is the symbolic mother of the Mexican people. She sometimes becomes La Llorona, the Wailing Woman, especially since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994. As a result of NAFTA, hundreds of women have died or disappeared while suffering unjust working conditions in maquiladoras, or border sweatshops. Rio de Lagrimas (River of Tears) is a trilingual piece created by five New Mexican women to increase awareness of this harrowing reality. The 50 minute performance will be accompanied by powerfully improvisational music, with instruments including guitar, cello, percussion, and finger harp. Twenty percent of the proceeds benefit two organizations working on behalf of female maquiladoras.

   Santa Fe New Mexican,   February 5, 2006,  Section C  p. 1

  Ciudad Juárez slayings: Chilling tales take center stage

By NATALIE STOREY | The New Mexican February 5, 2006

With her eyes closed, Sabina Zuniga-Varela, an actress playing La Llorona, sat in the middle of the stage in front of a small altar. She listened to the names of girls and women who have been killed near Ciudad Juárez , Mexico . Rocks were dropped near her feet.
About 50 audience members dropped the rocks at the conclusion of a production called Río de Lágrimas, or River of Tears , at El Museo Cultural in Santa Fe . Hundreds of names of women were written on the rocks. The production, put on by a group of women from Albuquerque called Las Meganenas, is a tribute to the hundreds of maquiladoras, or female factory workers, who have lost their lives along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"Really, it's the spirit of all these women who have disappeared that have made this possible," Zuniga-Varela said. "Every time we put on this show, their memory is evoked." Zuniga-Varela played a central character in the play Saturday afternoon, which was written by Soledad Hindi, another of the actresses. Zuniga-Varela's character begins to study about the disappearances of women near Juárez when she falls asleep. Two spirits take her on a dream journey during which she becomes La Llorona.  In Las Meganenas' version of the story, La Lorona has two sons by conquistador Hernando Cortéz. Because she feels Cortéz has betrayed her and worries her mixed-race children will not be accepted, she drowns them in a river. She wanders north to New Mexico and Texas , looking for her lost children. She begins to mourn the lost maquiladoras of Juárez. Since 1993, about 400 women have been murdered near Juárez. More than 70 are still missing, according to Amnesty International. At least a third of the women found dead were victims of sexual assault. Many groups, including Amnesty, claim both the U.S. and Mexican governments have not done enough to solve the crimes. The women of Las Meganenas said their play is not meant to provide answers. Instead, they want to keep the spotlight on the murders in the hope that many of them will someday be solved.

  Santa Fe Journal Venue,  Friday, February 3, 2006, Section S p.1

Play Addresses Violence Near the Border

By Emily Van Cleve
    Television stations and newspapers across America let the public know when one of its members is mysteriously missing. Thousands of Mexican women along the border, however, have vanished without a trace of their whereabouts and without a word of publicity.
    Many worked in maquiladora plants, which are production facilities that process or assemble components into finished products. A maquiladora assembly or manufacturing operation can be partly or entirely owned and managed by non-Mexicans. There are currently about 4,760 maquiladoras, mostly located around the border, that are producing a wide array of products.
    "Can you imagine a woman leaving an Intel plant after a night shift and disappearing?" said Albuquerque performance artist Valerie Borrego. "That's what has happened to many women working at these Mexican plants."
    Borrego and performance artists Soledad Marjon-Hindi, Apryl Sandoval, Vivian Fernandez and Sabina Zuniga-Varela created the play "River of Tears (Rio De Lágrimas)" to address this issue, deplorable working conditions in the factories and the violence that Mexican women experience in their daily lives. Two performances take place Saturday at El Museo Cultural.
    The quintet of women call themselves Las Meganenas (the big girls), and storytelling is their mission.
    "It is through storytelling that a culture's values, beliefs and spirituality are conveyed," explained Marjon-Hindi. "It's how we learn to put ourselves in others' shoes. We tell stories through performance pieces related to global issues to help audiences experience the trauma and inequities of those who cannot tell their stories."
    Researching the inequities that border women live day in and day out has included contacting various organizations such as the Mexico Solidarity Network and Amnesty International, talking with family members of women who have died, been abused or vanished and listening to reports by Americans who have spent time in border towns.
    The show begins with eyebrow-raising statistics that document the number of women who have been reported dead or missing during the past decade. It uses two female archetypes in Latino folklore— La Malinche and La Llorona— to convey the working conditions and inequities found in the maquiladora plants in Juárez and the mistreatment, disappearance and death of hundreds of women in the state of Chihuahua.
    "The show is meant to inform and help raise awareness of the atrocities," said Marjon-Hindi. "We would love it if audience members contacted our New Mexico legislators about looking into the horrendous working conditions and lack of environmental regulations at these plants."

     The Santa Fe New Mexican,  Letter to the Editor,  November 20, 2005 p. 43  

I want to congratulate El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe and everyone involved in its professional, sensitive and insightful Day of the Dead celebration activities. The altars were both inspired and inspirational, the Nov. 2 evening a real community celebration. And I can’t speak more highly of the incredible presentation of Rio de Lagrimas by Las Meganenas — please bring them back for an encore. What a gem we have in the Museo Cultural. Let’s do everything we can to support this crown jewel of the Railyard District”.
Bette Booth Santa Fe, NM

C    Co         Comments from former inmates from Grants Prison  

..so beautifully told—slavery, the history of our country...the suffering of women being victimized and the suffering of men victimizing, women separated from their children...all of these stories combine and my eyes overflow.  The passion with which you delivered both the history and current injustice was both tragic and a beautiful tribute to women.

  As a woman who has been a victim of abuse and rape, I feel the sadness, hopelessness, and pain.  The sharing and support we can offer each other as women can be very powerful.  

  It opened my eyes to see the sacrifices and degradation we as women have gone through and continue to suffer.  But people like you that are willing to use your talents and time to be the voices do and will  make a huge difference for our daughters and granddaughters.