By Sharrif Simmons
An Old Globe Teaching Artist on the work our Arts Engagement Department did with unaccompanied minors detained at the border and housed at the San Diego Convention Center.
Friday, May 14, 2021, 9:30 a.m. After clearing COVID-19 protocols and passing through security, we settled into a large open space at the southeast corner of the San Diego Convention Center. Our group consisted of four Teaching Artists (TAs) and Lisel Gorell-Getz, our Education Coordinator. Freedome Bradley-Ballentine, The Old Globe’s Associate Artistic Director and Director of Arts Engagement, assigned us a task with a distinctly unique set of challenges: to make theatre matter for a community of unaccompanied minors separated from their families at the border. They were being housed temporarily at the Convention Center pending reunification with their families.
Our small group’s efforts were part of the ongoing American conversation surrounding immigration, human rights, and the deleterious effects of intentionally separating children from their parents. We were assigned to the Convention Center intent on engaging the situation in creative ways. The five of us—TAs Valeria Vega, Gerardo Flores Tonella, Veronica Burgess, Catherine Hanna Shrock, and I—attended a planning meeting via Zoom with Tara Ricasa, a Los Angeles–based TA commissioned to develop course outlines for our weekly workshops. To achieve the goals of our assignment, we would have to mitigate any personal opinions on the matter and rely on our chemistry as a team, all the while adhering to the Globe’s mission of providing impactful experiences to as many diverse communities as possible. To this end, we started the first of our five workshops planned for the day.
At 10:00 a.m., the first pod of students showed up. The group consisted of 50 adolescent girls primarily from Central America: Nicaragua, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Honduras. Spanish speakers Valeria, Gerardo, and Veronica took turns introducing us and the workshop. We were all a little nervous, the students and the TAs alike. Without the benefit of seeing their faces (COVID protocols required masks at all times), we proceeded with the program as planned.
As I played by acoustic guitar in the corner, I witnessed a collective light go on in just about everyone in the room.
About 20 minutes into our 45-minute workshop, something magical happened. As I played my acoustic guitar in the corner, I witnessed a collective light go on in just about everyone in the room. It was clear that Valeria, in particular, was occupying a unique place in the student’s imagination. Their trust in her leadership, her confidence, and the very sound of her voice drove the workshop forward, transforming the process into a visceral exchange of human emotions. It was truly amazing to both witness and be an active participant of.
Everyone in the space spent the remaining time of the session cocooned with organic humanity. We spoke to each other through the language of creativity. Knowing each other’s native tongues, being of the same age, or even seeing the fullness of each other’s faces was bypassed, replaced by a trust in our mission’s honesty and the truly transformative intention of the theatre arts. The students were free from their circumstances that day. There would be many more magical moments to come.
Sharrif Simmons is a poet, musician, and teaching artist. He has performed all over the world and is the author of Fast Cities and Objects That Burn. He is currently working on his forthcoming book An American-African Story.
