Sample Essay "The Cuban Swimmer"

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)