These are challenging times for people of color in the U.S., including Latinx people (“Latinx” is even one of the words this administration seeks to ban from public discourse). Yet, if you’ve been to Broadway lately, there’s a breath of fresh air for our Latinx community in the musicals Buena Vista Social Club and Real Women Have Curves. Together, they’re a call to Hollywood and mainstream media that it is possible to represent Latinx communities with depth and authenticity.
With a rare Latinx-dominant production and creative team, these Broadway productions feature actors and musicians from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, ages, and body sizes. They both take us to the past and to a world of possibilities where people meet struggles with resilience and joy. They stand out as powerful and timely visual celebrations of the richness and diversity of Latinx art and culture in this country.
With ten Tony nominations and four wins – including Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Natalie Venetia Belcon – Buena Vista tells the story of the Grammy Award-winning album that brought Cuban rhythms to international prominence in the 1990s. Most of its tracks have since become mainstays of world music playlists. Set in Havana, the musical spans the musicians’ lives from the 1950s to the 1990s, culminating in their 1997 collaboration on the landmark “Buena Vista Social Club” album.
Real Women Have Curves, which earned Justina Machado a Tony nomination for Best Lead Actress, is also a product of the 1990s. Set in East Los Angeles in 1987, it is based on the groundbreaking play written by Josefina López in 1990, later adapted into a critically acclaimed 2002 film directed by Patricia Cardoso and starring America Ferrera in her breakout role. The film became a coming-of-age must-see for generations thanks to its early portrayal of body positivity and successfully mirroring the generational strife and longing of first-generation youth and their immigrant parents.
As products of the 1990s, these Broadway shows took me back to this moment when we celebrated one of our Latinx “cultural booms.” At the height of Selena, J.Lo, and Ricky Martin, U.S. audiences were falling in love with Latin music and popular culture, a moment that many felt would mark a significant change in Latinos’ place in this country. How naive.
Yet seeing these shows feels like a balm from the ongoing assaults on our communities. Buena Vista even includes a thoughtfully crafted pamphlet accompanying the Playbill, delving into the origins, musical heritage, and significance of each song – a real treat for any teachers in the room! Audiences are immersed in the rhythms of son, danzón, and bolero, and introduced to the composers behind the classics of Latin America’s musical canon. I’m particularly glad the show features talented and passionate Afro-Cuban musicians such as Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo, who led millions around the world to fall in love with Afro-Cuban rhythms.
The musical honors these timeless songs with outstanding performances in their original Spanish. In Buena Vista, the bulk of the narrative is communicated in Spanish, with English dialogue in the middle honing in on the meaning for non-Spanish speakers in the room. Against English-dominant mandates, everyone present at the performance I attended seemed to follow every word, song, and beat – a united love fest where Spanish-language music reigned supreme. Buena Vista Social Club is a love letter to our community, a universal statement about the power of art, and an assertion of the unstoppable genius of Latinx musicians, artists, and creators, both past and present.
The musical also communicates a timely message of authenticity. Shunning the tourist-oriented carnivalesque versions of Cuban music popularized in the 1950s, the musical reminds us that the brilliance of the Buena Vista musicians lay in their uncompromising connection to Afro-Cuban rhythms and folklore.
The Real Women Have Curves Broadway musical presents a more sanitized, feel-good version of the movie. Yes, the realities of sweatshops and immigration raids are still part of it. Yet the central tension between mother and daughter is ultimately resolved, giving us a feel-good, crowd-pleasing ending. In contrast, my generation cried during the film’s powerful and honest portrayal of daughter and mother strife – especially in the moment when the mother refuses to say goodbye, unable to accept her daughter’s departure to Columbia University. In the film, the tension is left bare and unresolved, as it likely remains in many immigrant families.
Real Women Have Curves harks back to another historical moment when the U.S had a very different policy approach toward immigrants. Reagan’s 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) included an amnesty plan for undocumented immigrants who had entered the U.S. before January 1, 1982, and could prove they had lived continuously in the country. This measure gave millions of people a pathway to citizenship. The show illustrates the limits of this policy – Ana’s sister is unable to apply for amnesty because of a traffic infraction, permanently barring her from the opportunities Ana enjoys as a U.S. citizen. It is a stark reminder of the fate faced by so many mixed-status families today. Yet, the production serves as a testament to the fact that this country is indeed capable of passing bipartisan immigration policy that includes paths to legalization and is not solely punitive or cruel.
These productions do not erase the history of racial exclusion of diverse playwrights, actors, producers, and narratives in mainstream American theater. As theater scholar Brian Eugenio Herrera, reminded me, Buena Vista and Real Women Have Curves marks the ten-year anniversary of the last – and only other – season in which two new Latinx-authored musicals opened on Broadway (On Your Feet and Hamilton). Plus, Broadway audiences didn’t embrace Real Women Have Curves, and it ended its short run already.
Still, these works could not have arrived at a better time. They offer powerful visual celebrations of the richness and diversity of Latinx art and culture in this country. They are redefining inclusive storytelling and revealing the power of art to reflect and reshape our communities. To Hollywood, they serve as a call to action, spotlighting the classic stories and new narratives still waiting to be invested in, produced, and serialized. And to everyone else, they offer a reality check: Aquí estamos, and this too is our home.
