Background of Author
Milcha
Sanchez-Scott was born on the island of Bali (1955) and her heritage reflects a
diversity of ethnic and cultural influences. Her mother is of Indonesian,
Chinese and Dutch ancestry and her father was born in Colombia and raised in
Mexico. She attended a Catholic girls school near London, while her father was
working in Europe. However, she also spent time in Colombia and Mexico before
the family move to La Jolla, California, when Sanchez-Scott was fourteen years
old. She attended the University of San Diego, where she earned a degree in
literature, philosophy and theatre.
After
graduation she worked at the San Diego Zoo and later in an employment agency
for maids in Beverly Hills. She began collecting the stories of the immigrant
women who were applying for work, and it was from the experience that
Sanchez-Scoot’s first play, Latina, evolved. It was also around that
time that she was hired by the L.A. theatre works to act in project at the
women’s prison in Chino.
“The Cuban Swimmer”
Milcha Sanchez-Scott’s work
frequently explores women’s experiences in a Hispanic American bicultural
context. Her plays are a combination of gritty realism with surrealistic
fantasy. Hispanic American means Hispanic
and Latino Americans have origins in the countries of Latin America and the
Iberian Peninsula consisting of Spain and Portugal.
The Cuban Swimmer is a story about a long-distance ocean swimmer; Margarita Suarez was
aided by a magical intervention while she races from San Pedro to Catalina
Island. This drama is a dramatic irony that there is difference exists
between what we think will happen and what really happen. The characters in
this drama show the ambition and struggle at the same time. Eduardo
Suarez, father of Margarita drive his
ambition for his daughter Margarita to win and success, Eduardo says, “She’s
stroking seventy-two, with no problem. (He throws a kiss to the sky) it is a
beautiful day to win. Aida : Que Hermoso! So clear and bright. Not a cloud in
the sky. Mira! Mira! Even rainbows on the water…. A sign from God.” (3.8-9), he
projects his own complex set of needs and desires (as father, immigrant, and
exile) on Margarita. The swimmer also has to deal with hardships like an
oil slick, hallucination of fish bitten her and her father’s dream, Margarita
says “the fish are all biting me… they hate me… they whisper about me. She
can’t swim, they say. She can’t glide, she has no grace… yellowtails, Bonita,
tuna, man-o’-war, snub-nose, sharks, los barracudas…. They all hate me… only
the dolphins care… and sometimes I hear the whales crying… she is lost, she is
dead. I’m so numb, I can’t feel. Papi! Papi! Am I dead?” (5.25). margarita
fells the hallucination by the fishes that make her lost concentration.
Margarita Suarez as the swimmer is
one of daughter of Cuban immigrant
family who place their hopes for the family's future on her, as a long-distance
ocean swimmer. She is a hard-worker;
loyal and obedient to his parent especially her father. "Eduardo :
rainbows on….. Ay cono! It’s an oil slick! You… you… (To Simon) stop the boat.
(Runs to bow, yelling) Margarita! Margarita! On the next stroke, Margarita
comes up all covered in black oil. Margarita : papi! Papi….! / Aida : Swim,
hija, swim or the aceite will stick to your wings. Margarita : Papi?”
(3.13-14.30-31). Margarita is a nineteen years old, however, she acts like a younger
looking to her father Eduardo for explanation when she gets caught in an oil
slick, constantly asking him what to do.
Eduardo Suarez, her father, the
coach, the mentor. He is an ambitious father, he pushed his daughter to reach
his dream, to be a winner. “Aida : (interrupting) Pues, do something Eduardo.
You are the big coach, the monitor. / Eduardo : vamos, baby, punch those arms
in. come on… do you hear me? Margarita : papi… papi…. Forgive me….”(3.20/5.26-27)
Eduardo still push his daughter to swim and put in concentration when her
daughter was tired and need to rest, like her mother said “Aida : Por supuesto
she’s tired. I like to see you get in the water, waving your arms and legs from
San Pedro to Santa Catalina. A person isn’t a machine, a person has to rest.”
(5.13). Simon Suarez, Eduardo’s son, makes a lot of joke and frequently becomes
immodest to his parent, he who steers the boat. “Eduardo : you’re stroking
seventy-two! Simon : (singing) mama’s stroking, mama’s stroking seventy-two…. Eduardo
: you comfortable with it? Simon : Seventy-two, seventy-two, seventy-two for
you.” (3.2-5)
Aida Suarez is Margarita’s mother,
over-protective and very sensitive. As in these dialogues, “Aida : Eduardo,
that person insulted us. Did you hear, Eduardo? That he called us a simple
people in a ragtag boat. Did you hear…? / This person comes in his helicopter
to insult your wife, your family, your daughter…” (2.52,55) describe Aida as a
sensitive mother. Abuela, Margarita’s grandmother is very religious, she
sometimes speak in Spanish or mix in English-Spanish, both them believe in
magic. “Abuela : Mi hija, insulto a la familia. Desgraciado!! / Si, a big hug
to all my friends in Miami, Long Beach, Union city, except for my son Carlos
who lives in New York in sin! He lives…. In Brooklyn with a Puerto Rican woman
in sin! No decente….” (2.71,44), it perhaps because she is still influenced by
culture heritage, and in the following dialogue, we will read the pray of Aida
and Abuela in Spanish, “En el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espiritu Santo
amen. (3.1)
The
Cuban Swimmer is to represent a realistic portrait of a family who oscillates
between adversity and triumph; frustration and hope. At the beginning of the
play, margarita is swimming and her family follows her on the boat. Suddenly, a
sound of helicopter is heard. There are two reporters of English Television,
Mel Munson and Mary Beth White. They seem underestimate Suarez family, “Mel’s
voice : look at that enthusiasm. The whole family has turned out to cheer
little Margarita on victory! I hope they won’t be disappointed.”(2.48) Aida hears
the reporter insult her family, saying that Margarita has no chance to win,
“Simon : Yo Margo! You know that Mel Munson guy on TV? He called you a simple
amateur and said you didn’t have a chance.”(2.70) though, the family still have
the spirit to win, they are still energetic, cheer Margarita on victory.
Although
one by one the obstacles arise to prevent Margarita to be the winner, she then
appears to be the epitome of struggle from the outset of story. It is when the
reporter came and insult Margarita, and at the time she swims around the oil
slick, it means that family’s boat is leak, “Aida : swim, hija, swim or the
aceite will stick to your wings.”(3.30)
In the
scene four, while Margarita swims, Aida and her husband discuss the night they
came to America on a boat and Aida describes the dream she had that night,
"the dream of a big country with fields of fertile land and big, giant
things growing. And there was by a green, slimy pond I found a giant pea pod
and when I opened it, it was full of little, tiny baby frogs"(4.31)
However, in the scene the hallucination comes from Margarita, where she feels
that all fishes biting her and exile her. “the
fish are all biting me… they hate me… they whisper about me. She can’t swim,
they say. She can’t glide, she has no grace… yellowtails, Bonita, tuna,
man-o’-war, snub-nose, sharks, los barracudas…. They all hate me… only the
dolphins care… and sometimes I hear the whales crying… she is lost, she is
dead. I’m so numb, I can’t feel. Papi! Papi! Am I dead?” (5.25). So after that,
Eduardo still force her to keep on swimming even when she needs a rest.
Finally, Margarita is disoriented and falls to the bottom of sea. “ya no puedo…
I can’t…. a person isn’t a machine…. Es mi culpa…. Father forgive me…. Papi!
Papi! One, two, one, two. Papi! Ay Papi! Where are you…? Don’t leave me… why
don’t you answer me?”(5.45)
At the end of the story, where the
family feel very sorry and the father blames himself of losing his daughter,
“Eduardo : forgive me, forgive me. I’ve lost our daughter, our sister, our
granddaughter, mi carne, mi sangre, mi ilusiones. Dios mio take me… take me, I
say…. Goddammit, take me!”(7.3) and so the previous reporters come and
reporting the accident, but suddenly and magically, they received word from
Catalina that Margarita is the winner of the Wrigley Invitational Woman’s race.
“Mary beth’s voice : Ah… excuse me, Mel… we have a winner. We’ve just received
word from Catalina that one of the swimmers is just fifty yards from the
breakers… it’s oh, it’s Margarita Suarez!”(7.10)
