Looking for Yakima

Yakima is changing even as I begin trying to understand what it's all about. After welcoming folks for decades the Palm Springs sign seen here in an earlier photograph, is no more. Am I too late to see the real Yakima? Perhaps.

But I am getting to see a lot of it. That is how my time is now spent-- getting into a very hot car and driving around looking at stuff and wondering where might we do a piece of theater and with whom? While I have a whole list of ideas I am remaining open. At least sort of. For what use is a analysis of a community if you already have ideas set in stone?

Of course I am thinking immigration-- how could I not be? I read the letters to the editor of the local paper which are full of shrillness from both the "run 'em out-- they are illegal felons" to "Yeah well, we were not very welcome either when we came over during the potato famine." These are those who write letters to the editor of small town newspaper; not exactly a representative body.

When I ask well heeled Anglos if they have Hispanic friends they say they do not. And not because they are enemies but because they lack a way to become friends. It is as though there are two worlds running on parallel tracks. This was, of course, music to my ears because a theater project could be just the thing for both groups to work on together. Connections and relationships could be built through this. Which, is after all, the point of the work.

I also have been meeting with many members of the artistic/education/civic structure community which has been informative. Some of the art is very much from outside- as in Best of Broadway tours (see you at the upcoming tour date for The Producers!) and some of it is of the valiant struggling underfunded arts programs for youth variety. I have been compiling a long list of people I should meet from the people I have already met. It takes a while for me to explain what DXM actually does in a community. This difficulty is because the work does not fit into any handy categories which is why we are doing it in the first place. Not exactly bringing coals to Newcastle. More like snowballs to Fiji.

Mostly what I spend my time doing is just living here in Yakima. Getting to know how people spend their days, what the town sounds like, what are the ways the communities gather, where is this same community resistant? All those questions which are best pursued in looking for bakeries, going to daily Mass, and reading a book under a shady tree in the park.