Island of Dreams, II

This was the scene I wrote for the annual theater production at Union College. The play, titled Fifty Years Later, was more of a vignette aimed at reviewing events of the civil rights movement fifty years ago and its implications for today.

Act one was a narration of key events leading to the March on Washington, aided with music and songs from the movement. For act one, I had lines in only two scenes: one, in which I explained the way that the antebellum laws of America were shaped around the belief that (shamelessly borrowing from George Orwell) all people are created equal, just some people are more equal than others. The second scene I was in I recited a City of Lincoln mayor's respond to criticism after banning non-whites from a new city pool. I felt terrible, being non-white myself.

Act two consisted of short scenes written by a group of cast members dealing with civil rights in today's environment. Native American rights (the most polarizing line: "we are not a mascot of a football team"), stereotypes on blacks and women and immigration were all  touched.

My scene was inspired by a short documentary of Ellis Island. I saw how immigration has always been a touchy subject. Times may have changed, but circumstances of today's immigrants at the Southern border are not unlike those on the East Coast 100 years ago.

Burma is mentioned because they are the largest growing minority group in Lincoln.

I tried to put in as many hidden things in the scene. The chalk number, 1907, was the year with the greatest number of immigrants coming through Ellis Island. Anyone with a number at the station was held  overnight because they were deemed unhealthy and with the probability of spreading disease in America.

It was awesome that after the play one night some girl came up to me and told me she understood what the number meant. I felt like a movie director that had hid an Easter egg in a movie and someone caught it and understood it. (I did the same sort of thing as editor of the Clocktower when the last sentence of the last page of the last issue I was in charge of read "This newspaper was tested on animals. They couldn't read it.").