American Jornalero

By Lou Fancher

A chain-link fence cuts through American Jornalero, Ubuntu’s site-specific production written by playwright Ed Cardona Jr. and directed by Tioni Collins. One of several plays Cardona has written about undocumented immigrants and located in unusual settings — his La Ruta placed audiences and actors in a 48-foot-long tractor-trailer to humanize the plight of smuggled border crossers — American Jornalero tells the hope-and grit story of immigrant day laborers and blue-collar workers in America. Ubuntu’s production, American Jornalero’s West Coast premiere, will be held in an outdoor space under a freeway overpass near Mandela Parkway in West Oakland. Featuring a six-member cast, the play blurs racial, class, and economic divisions as the men struggle to recognize their common humanity. Are the barriers scalable? As Collins says about immigrant laborers, “We see them, but do we really see them?” This play may be one step toward doing so.d