PJAS 18-11
Grzegorz Welizarowicz
Calafia and Ramona in the Garden of Freeways: Carlos Morton’s Los dorados as the Wasteland of Memory and Alethic Frontier
Polish Journal for American Studies, vol. 18 (2024), pp. 151-169
Abstract: The article is situated within the field of Chicanx theater history and is part of a larger project dealing with the question of Indigeneity in the Chicanx theatrical practice. The paper appraises the significance of Carlos Morton’s early play Los dorados. It is argued that, unlike other, more famous examples of Chicanx works using Native elements the play does not call up nor romanticize Indigenous roots of Mexico. Rather, by revisiting the history of a specific place in California, by using reflexivity and irreverent discursive dialogism, and by calling attention to the Indigenous absent presence Morton offers an autopsy of California’s historical imagination and contemporary identity as a wasteland of memory and alethic frontier.
Keywords: Chicano theater, Carlos Morton, alethic, wasteland, Calafia, Ramona, coloniality, epistemic rupture, prophetic love
DOI: 10.7311/PJAS.18/2024.11