Indigenous Ecology and Chicanada Coalition Building in the dramatic works of Cherríe Moraga: “Living Models” for a Sustainable Future

Abstract: This study focuses on three recent dramatic works by Cherríe Moraga’s written in the same period as her essay and poetry collection, The Last Generation. Heroes and Saints, Watsonville: Some Place Not Here, and Circle in the Dirt: El Pueblo de East Palo Alto draw from indigenous ecology and the historical archive of Chicano struggle that provide models for a sustainable future she envisions. The author shifts from poetry and essay - the lyrical, reflective mode of self-inquiry and expression for which she is so well known – to a collective dramatic dialogue allowing her to represent the diversity of perspectives that have always existed within and around Chicano communities. Through this plurality she is able to give voice to marginalized perspectives and exhibit the ingeniousness and courage behind a long tradition of Chicano coalition building that will be necessary for global alliances of collective resistance. As Chicano activist theater originated with Luis Valdez’s Teatro Campesino associated with United Farmer Workers Union and later with the Chicano Movement, Moraga’s plays are situated within the tradition of Chicano environmental political struggle. These works are infused with the author’s interpretation of an indigenous ecology that conflates her interlaced political discourses on race, sexuality, gender, community, nationalism, and art with a holistic view of the earth. Contributing to a tradition of Chicano environmental discourse and the global indigenous struggle for sovereignty, her work brings together and challenges the assumptions of ecocriticism, ecofeminism and American environmental and naturalist writing particularly in terms of race and class. In these works, Moraga prioritizes the wellbeing of those who dwell in or work the land as opposed to “pristine” open spaces perceived as untouched by human hands