We are Soame Citlalime (Brilliant Women of the Stars, in Nahuatl). We are members of the Migrant Family Support Center, and we make up part of the Women's Community Action Committee (now known as Families Without Borders). For the past two years, rather than be found in ourhomes with our families, we are now marching in the streets, organizing our friends and neighbors, and traveling legally to the United States to promote freedom of movement for migrant families.
Over 2,500 people from San Francisco Tetlanohcan have left our village in the last 5 years to find work in the United States, most of them settling in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and southern California. As a result of this phenomenon, the social organization IIPSOCULTA built the Migrant Family Support Center under the mission to support migrant families in Tetlanohcan using education, organizing, and solidarity work. Quickly after its creation, we found a place to educate ourselves about the history of immigration and its social, political, and economic implication in our village. Many of us also found help at CAFAMI when our family members in the United States were hospitalized, arrested, or got deported.
The purpose of Families Without Borders is to work to address the causes of unfair and unjust immigration by promoting, art, culture, ecology, and the preservation of the traditions of the central valley of Mexico. The Committee has grown to incorporate members from over 50 migrant families. Twenty-nine mothers, daughters,and wives from this group formed Soame Citlalime in February 2009 as a result of our desire travel to the United States to promote our project and reunite with our families.
Soame Citlalime is our artistic name. We became Soame Citlalime after participating in a Community Theater Program at CAFAMI and creating an original theater play, "La Casa Rosa". Soame Citlalime's objective is to use theater to bring awareness to the stories of families and communities affected by globalization in order to empower the people and help them understand the opportunities that exist in their country for development. The play serves to raise consciousness in the United States about the true causes of migration to the United States and bring awareness about the people who stay’s struggle of resistance. The philosophy behind this Program Families Without Borders is that simply we cannot advance on both sides of the border without solidarity. This play both as a tool to raise consciousness as well as a tool of direct action for change.
The play was written by Daniel Carlton and Soame Citlalime and is based on the real life stories of migrant families of San Francisco Tetlanohcan. The play incorporates many of the traditional sounds, rhythms, tastes, and smells of the village, which is located at the base of the mythical volcano La Malinche.
With the support of the New Haven Sister Cities, three universities and several non-profit organizations, IIPSOCULTA is bringing this group of woman for the first time to perform their play in the United States in April 2010. See our schedule for showtimes and locations.
