Speculative fiction is a concept that playwright Gonz\u00e1lez has always wanted to work with, as an avid fan of novelist Octavia Butler and the 1989 sci-fi show \u201cQuantum Leap.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked myself, are we just repeating history in different regions?\u201d says Gonz\u00e1lez on a call with De Los.\u201dWhen will we ever disrupt harm to one another?\u201d <\/p>\n
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As a member of the Latino Theater Company\u2019s \u201cCircle of Imaginistas,\u201d a writing circle aiming to uplift early and mid-career Latinx voices, Gonz\u00e1lez looked to encapsulate what it means to be Black and Indigenous in a world that often looks to pigeonhole people for their identities \u2014 or erase them entirely from mainstream narratives. <\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aFor Indigenous people, African American people, and Black people in many parts of the world, a lot of our records have been burned,\u201d says Gonz\u00e1lez, whose family is African American and Mexican. \u201cThere is this calling to find what you can to remember and remind yourself of the path that people before you have paved.\u201d<\/p>\n
The history of the Mascogo people can be traced back to Florida \u2014 then under Spanish control \u2014 where runaway slaves integrated and banded with Indigenous Seminole groups around the 17th century, forming a unique ethnic group with parallels to the Gullah people,<\/a> known as Black Seminoles.<\/p>\n Following the Indian Removal Act in 1830 and the Second Seminole War (1835\u20131842), both Indigenous and Black Seminole groups were forced to relocate west of the Mississippi. However, fearing re-enslavement<\/a>, Seminole leader Wild Cat and Black Seminole Chief John Horse led an exodus to Mexico in 1850, where slavery had been outlawed since 1829.<\/p>\n Settling predominantly in the Muzquiz, Coahuila, municipality<\/a>, the Mexican government granted Black Seminoles land in exchange for military protection against northern frontier raids, including against the Lipan Apache and Comanches<\/a> tribes in Texas. The Mascogo<\/a> term comes from the Muscogee language, which is spoken by many Seminoles, though many elders in the community also speak Afro-Seminole Creole.<\/p>\n By 1852, the Mascogos established Nacimiento de los Negros (meaning: \u201cBirth of the Blacks\u201d), an Afro-Mexican village in the Coahuila region that exists today. Many of its residents have retained oral traditions, including knowledge of English-language freedom hymns from the U.S<\/a>. For more than 100 years, Mascogo descendants in the town have also celebrated their own version of Juneteenth<\/a>, which commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S, although in Spanish it is referred to as \u201cEl D\u00eda de Los Negros\u201d<\/a> or \u201cDay of the Blacks.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aWhen I was commissioned to write a play about the Underground Railroad to Mexico, this particular place was what intrigued me the most,\u201d says Gonz\u00e1lez, whose Yaqui <\/a>grandmother was born in M\u00fazquiz, Coahuila, near Nacimiento de los Negros. \u201cIt really was something that I felt really resonated with my DNA and I felt compelled to write it in this framework.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2017, the Coahuila government officially recognized<\/a> the Mascogos as its own Indigenous tribe, which would allow the group to receive federal funding allocated for Indigenous communities. Many Mascogos have moved away from the small town to seek better opportunities elsewhere \u2014 especially as droughts have impacted the area\u2019s agricultural economy<\/a>.<\/p>\n The struggle for Afro-Mexicans \u2014 who make up 1.2 % of the country\u2019s population<\/a> \u2014 continues as they are often faced with structural racism<\/a> that prevents many from gaining economic and educational advancement. The demographic as a whole had not been federally recognized in the Mexican census until 2020<\/a>, which followed decades-long campaigns by grassroots organizations and advocacy groups.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat it means to be Black and Indigenous in this world is about searching for resources, comfort, safety, connection and the right to celebrate who we are,\u201d says Gonz\u00e1lez. \u201cFor whatever circumstances, whether its system, environmental, we are not allowed to be fully expressed because of our bodies, because of how we look, because of the assumptions.\u201d<\/p>\n The Chicagoan storyteller hopes the themes in \u201cMascogos\u201d can spark curiosity about one\u2019s ancestral lineage and bring audiences closer to humanity.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of us have forgotten what it\u2019s taken us to get to where we are today,\u201d says Gonz\u00e1lez. \u201cWe are forgetting our humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n