"Oh, but you’re not one of those ghetto Mexicans, right?"

Right? Right? How does someone even answer that? How do I respond to a question that assumes I must prove I am not “of lower-class manner”? That I must separate myself from some imaginary, shameful stereotype? She is staring at me, waiting, expecting reassurance - because I don’t have an accent, because I don’t wear what she thinks are the wrong clothes: low-rise jeans paired with crop tops from discount stores, flashy gold hoops that swing like punctuation to every word, sneakers scuffed from real life, not curated for aesthetics. Because my makeup isn’t “ratchet”- not thickly drawn-on brows, not glittery highlighter spread like stardust across sharp cheekbones, not lip liner in bold, defiant shades that say “I won’t shrink for you.”

I wonder where she learned to think that way.

Stories shape the way we see the world. They teach us who matters, who is worthy of admiration, who is dangerous, who is invisible. They tell us who gets to be the hero and who is only ever seen as a problem. And for immigrants and their descendants, the stories that dominate the stage - the ones that make it into the spotlight - rarely belong to them.

Even when they are represented, they are often reduced to tropes: the tragic immigrant, the criminal, the maid. And when they do get more, when a production finally puts Latinos at the center of a story, there is always an asterisk. Take “West Side Story” - a classic, yes, but originally performed by white actors darkening their skin to “play” Puerto Ricans. Or “In the Heights” - a celebration of Latin culture, yet one that still left out the full spectrum of Afro-Latino representation. Even in their own stories, they are edited.

That’s the power of storytelling, and that’s also the danger of it. Because people believe what they are shown.

"One of America’s biggest problems is the rapists, drug dealers, and criminals crossing the border."
My head snaps up. My white English teacher just said that. Her voice is calm, casual. Like it’s a fact, not an insult. And because she is married to a Mexican man, she thinks that gives her the right. To label immigrants as criminals. To love their culture while washing her hands of their struggles. She sees no dirt under her nails, no burden on her conscience.

But she doesn’t see him. The man with dirt caked under his nails, sweat rolling down his face in the brutal sun. The man who works for a future he may never get to enjoy, for a daughter he prays will flourish in a country he once believed could be home. He wipes his hands on his jeans, but the dirt never really comes off. It clings to him, to his skin, to his labor, to his sacrifice. It clings to the forty percent of Latinos in the workforce who keep this nation running - building homes, maintaining streets, harvesting food, doing the jobs no one else wants to do.

And yet, they call him dirty.

I think about my great-grandmother, my Gigi. She was the child of an immigrant. I once told her about the things people say to me, the way they look at me, the way they question my existence as if I have to prove I belong here. She sighed and told me:
"Racism gets better, but it never leaves."

She knew that. She lived it. She carried that fear so deeply that she refused to teach her children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren how to speak Spanish. She worried that the sound of their voices, the roll of an "r," the softness of their vowels, would make them targets. That their words, their language, their culture, would mark them as outsiders in a country that should have been theirs, too. Some might call it cowardice, the erasure of something beautiful. But I know better. It was the strongest thing she ever did - to protect her family, even at the cost of something so fundamental to who they are.

Theater has the power to rewrite stories like hers. To bring voices like hers back into the narrative. It has the power to remind the world that immigrants are not statistics or caricatures - they are human beings, with dreams, with fears, with stories worth telling.

We see glimpses of this in the works of playwrights like Luis Valdez, whose “Zoot Suit” challenged stereotypes of Mexican-Americans, or Quiara Alegría Hudes, whose “Water by the Spoonful” explores the intersections of Latinidad, addiction, and belonging. These are the stories that push back against erasure, that demand to be seen in all their complexity.

But why are these stories still the exception, rather than the rule? Why do Latino, immigrant, and marginalized voices still have to fight for space in an industry that claims to represent the human experience?

Theater, at its best, reflects truth. It gives people a chance to see themselves—to recognize their struggles, their joys, their realities on stage. It fosters empathy. It challenges perspectives. And yet, when it comes to the immigrant experience, it has too often failed them. Because when their stories are told, they are too often told for them, rather than by them.

I don’t want to be a supporting character in someone else’s narrative. I don’t want my great-grandmother’s sacrifices to be reduced to background noise. I want their stories - the real ones - to take center stage because stories are powerful. They change the way people see the world. And if we don’t start telling our own stories, someone else will.