"¿Mujeres – saben hacer "Pico de Gallo?” asked one campus visitor Tuesday Night.    Well, Jade Esteban Estrada knew how to make comedy, according to audience members of his one-man show. Estrada presented several monologues, bringing laughs to topics such as bilingual education and illegal immigration.

    “He does a good job of presenting controversial issues in a humorous way,” said Andrea Luthi, event co-coordinator and senior biology, chemistry and Spanish major. “He does an awesome job of taking his voice, tone and mannerisms and bringing them to life.”

    Estrada switched as rapidly between characters as between languages. In the space of a little more than an hour, he portrayed a teacher, a Spanish-language talk show host and an accountant, among others.

    Cynthia Camacho, a flight attendant on a language strike, was a character who assisted the audience of students and area residents on a mock flight to Mexico City.

    “People assume I speak Spanish because of the way I look,” Estrada said in character. “[But] they don’t pay me to speak Spanish. I’ve been a non-Spanish speaker for three years now.”

    Another character, a Latino cook with an attitude, faced a staffing shortage after his co-workers couldn’t provide proper documentation during an immigration raid.

    “Llegó la migra, and they deported all my workers,” Estrada said as the cook. “Here at the People’s Taco, everyone has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of pico.”

    A few students reported needing the right sense of humor to accept the outrageous, stereotypical nature of some of the characters.

    “I found it funny,” said Leobardo Guerrero, graduate student in music. “I think it’s really interesting because he said the truth.”

    With the character Noe, Estrada portrayed an eight-year-old boy.

    “My mom works at a store called ‘La Segunda’ and she has another job cleaning houses,” he said. “I watch a lot of TV in English – if there’s a novela [Spanish-language soap opera] on, I change it.”

    Estrada responded to the possibility of negative stereotypes in his show by saying the characters were modeled from observations of the media and real-life issues faced by Mexican-Americans.

    “I look at my job as being a hand mirror – I reflect,” he said. “[Hispanics in the United States] are part American and we’re part Mexican, and we’re trying to be both. If something is funny, it’s true.”

    San Antonio native Estrada said he performed his first one-man show about 10 years ago. He came to Emporia State last year to perform “Tortilla Heaven,” a show about conflicts within a multi-generational Mexican family. Coordinators of both programs hope to make his ESU visits a campus tradition.

“We definitely want to have him back next year,” Luthi said.

 

©2007 Emporia Bulletin