EDWIN ROSALES: My definition of home
is really being with people that I love and that inspire me,
and those are my friends, my professors, my playwriting
classes, my theater classes.
Have really allowed me to tell the stories
that I feel need to be told about being
a minority on this campus, in this country,
about being an immigrant, about feeling out of place,
about searching, about figuring out identity.
My name is Edwin Rosales.
I'm an English major earning certificates
in creative writing, theater, and Latin American studies.
I'm originally from Guatemala, but I currently
live in Norwalk, Connecticut.
I'm writing two theses, a collection
of short stories for my creative writing
and Latin American studies certificate and then a brand
new play that's being produced by the Lewis Center for my theater
certificate.
I have four advisers on my two theses,
Jhumpa Lahiri is my English and creative writing thesis
adviser.
Bob Sandberg is my playwrighting thesis adviser.
Suzy Agins is a faculty director on my play,
and Brian Herrera is a faculty adviser
on casting and dramaturgy for the play.
The big question at the end, which
is what want to leave the audience with.
BRIAN HERRERA: And what do you need to give your collaborators
to get to that --
EDWIN ROSALES: Right.
BRIAN HERRERA: I started hearing stories
about a young man who was interested in writing plays.
And so we talked, and Edwin and I -- he's never been in a class
I've taught, but we built a relationship, mostly
in conversation with him as a writer who understands himself
as a Latino writer, but doesn't have a lot of role models
on campus.
And the idea of what is if he wants to write a Latino
play, what is a Latino play?
And so that's sort of how we first came together
was talking about the contemporary realities
of Latino theater.
EDWIN ROSALES: These two theses wouldn't have been possible
without the many opportunities that Princeton
gave me to be able to write both the collection of short stories
and the new play.
I was able to go to Guatemala twice during my Princeton
career to do research.
I had a reading of my new play with Equity Latino actors.
I had a reading of my collection of short stories
at Labyrinth Books, a local bookstore,
and I'm ending my senior year with a fully staged production
of my new play "Spring on Fire."
ACTRESS: Can you hear me?
My voice --
EDWIN ROSALES: My play, "Spring on Fire,"
is based on stories from the Guatemalan civil war.
It follows a Maya family living in the highlands in Guatemala,
a pair of Guatemalan soldiers from the capital who
come to the village to carry out a massacre, and the spirits
and the gods who guide them on their journeys
throughout the play.
"We haven't been able to find them since the night he left,
and we're only looking because we have to.
If it wasn't for the notice that came in the mail,
we would have just let him be, let him be,
but now we need him --"
My collection of short stories "The Art of Stones,"
is inspired by my own family's story.
The characters in the collection emigrate from Guatemala
to the United States, but struggle
to stay together as a family as they discover
that the father has developed a drug and alcohol addiction
problem in the new country.
"…When you last kissed me there,
and I thought I miss him.
We pulled up to a parking spot right
in front of the restaurant, and thank God
the restaurant had big windows.
Who knows if this story would be different without them.
It was through these windows that we
could see him sitting at the bar, even before my mother --"
I was scared to write the two theses.
I was scared of finally owning my story
and owning what I've gone through.
The two theses with the help of all my advisers
was an amazing challenge to understand myself better
through my country's history and also just through my own family's
story.
I'm leaving Princeton with these two great projects
that I'm still working on that I'm
going to take years to finish, if I ever do.
But I feel more confident than ever in telling my own story.
The arts here really empowered me,
and I am leaving Princeton a different Edwin than I came in.
[MUSIC PLAYING]