The Brown Girls’ Chronicles: Puerto Rican Women and Resilience is a collection of the stories, voices, and songs that long to be heard: the stories of how race, ethnicity, gender, and colonialism shape the lives of marginalized women. Written and directed by Yolanda Nieves and performed by the all-Latina Vida Bella Ensemble, Brown Girls’ Chronicles is based on a collection of interviews from scores of second generation Puerto Rican women and is an embodiment of their struggles for independence of mind, soul, heart, and body.
Join us for this special performance featuring excerpts of Brown Girls Chronicles and an intergenerational post-show conversation with Yolanda Nieves and the Vida Bella Ensemble and will be moderated by Chicago Public Radio’s Natalie Y. Moore.
This program is free and open to the public. Reservations are required and can be made online, by email at events@prairie.org, or by calling 312.422.5580.
The Vida Bella Ensemble features:
Natalie Mia Bermeo, Diana Cruz, Esmeralda Cuevas, Anabel Duarte, Norma Mateo, Marisel Melendez, Laura Magdalena Nieves, Yolanda Nieves, Yvonne Nieves, Sandra Posadas and Elizabeth Rodriguez.
More about this event and our panelists
Natalie Y. Moore is a reporter for Chicago Public Radio. She’s co-author of Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation and an adjunct instructor at Columbia College. Prior to joining the Chicago Public Radio staff in May 2007, Natalie was a city hall reporter for the Detroit News. She has also been an education reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and a reporter for the Associated Press in Jerusalem.
The Vida Bella Ensemble is an all-female Chicago-based collective of intergenerational artists committed to communicating the stories of the trials and triumphs of the urban woman. In collaborative partnership the stories of such experiences are told through the performance of poetry, dialogue, monologue, song, and movement. For more information on them, email browngirlschronicles@gmail.com.
Little Village Lawndale High School opened its doors to four hundred students in the fall of 2005, just four years after community residents of Little Village neighborhood staged a nineteen-day hunger strike demanding the construction of a new high school. The campus is comprised of four autonomous small schools: Multicultural Arts H.S., World Language H.S., Social Justice H.S., and Infinity: Math, Science, and Technology High School. Each school has its own principal and teaching staff. Each school houses approximately 385 to 400 students from the neighborhoods of North Lawndale and Little Village. Students from every school participate in the same sports and after school activities. All four schools are public, neighborhood schools, open to every student within the boundary area. All teachers and staff are Chicago Teacher’s Union Members.
This event is presented in partnership by Little Village Lawndale High School (LVLHS)/ Enlace Community Schools and The Public Square.
For more information, call 312.422.5580.