Beyond Borders: When Speaking English Isn't Enough

There is this moment I remember vividly—it was years ago and I was standing outside of a major theater in Boston, my English competent but my cultural vocabulary nonexistent. I had been emailing people in the Boston theater scene for ten years with hopes they would engage with me. Ten years! Nobody would reply. Not one response.

Why? Because I didn't belong there. I couldn't crack the code.

WE/US Documentary Theater Production @Arlekin. Directed by Igor Golyak. photo Irina Danilova

This is what it means to be an immigrant artist in America. You may speak the language, but you don't speak the language—the unwritten rules, the invisible handshakes, the way things are done. And when you finally get your foot in that sacred door, you grab desperately at any opportunity, because who knows when it will come again.

The Scarcity Mindset

A day finally arrived when my company had finally gotten somewhere—we had somehow gathered enough money— and we were going to perform at that same theater.  We were inside. By we, I mean my troupe of non-professional immigrant actors, people who spent their love on this art, who weren't getting paid. Our immigrant community had created something from nothing, carrying our baggage like snails and turtles with our homes on our backs.

Being inside this theater, performing there, meant something unimaginable to all the immigrants in our company—it was something out of this world. We believed we didn’t belong at this level of arts. We had developed what I now recognize as a scarcity mindset: "Oh my God, we're here—we have to grab anything and everything. We have to get the reviewers in. It has to be a perfect show. We're going to die if we don't do this."

This mindset comes from trauma. It comes from pain. It comes from the desperate knowledge that opportunities for people like us are rare and fleeting.

I staged a show once with my company called We/Us, where immigrants who came to this country never truly arrived—they were stuck at the baggage claim area, waiting for their baggage. This is not just theater; this is our lived experience. We have physically crossed borders but remain caught between worlds.

The Cost of Desperation

This desperation has a cost. When you operate from trauma, you can hurt people around you. You can push too hard, demand too much, forget that others aren't operating from the same place of existential urgency. You can—I have—demanded when you should listen, push when you should pause.

There is absolutely no excuse for that. That should never happen.

But understanding why it happens is part of the journey toward true inclusion. Because true inclusivity isn't just about letting diverse voices into the room—it's about understanding what it took for them to get there.

I have encountered this understanding over the past few years from some extraordinary people, mentors, and collaborators, and I’m grateful to them. But there is a larger opportunity here for the leaders in the American theater space to truly understand this perspective and change things to create true inclusivity.  Without this change, inclusivity may remain a buzz word and a pipe dream. That, too, has a terrible cost.  There is enormous talent, passion, culture, training, important content and powerful artistic approaches with the immigrant artist community, and in other artists who are outsiders here.  We, the outsiders, have a lot to offer the American theater, and if embraced, transformative things could be happening onstage and off in our field. This is what we want to contribute, what is being missed out on, and it is worthy of attention.

Beyond Token Inclusivity

American theaters talk extensively about diversity and inclusion. There are statements and committees and initiatives. But too often these are about good intent but without any real understanding of the lived reality of artists who come from different backgrounds.

True inclusivity means recognizing that immigrant artists might approach creative work differently:

• We might push harder because we've had to fight for every opportunity

• We might be more protective of our vision because it represents not just our art but our identity

• We might have different expectations about process because we come from different theatrical traditions

• We might expect something different from a theatrical experience - theater might mean something different to us - because of what it represents for us, where we come from, what we have endured, and the art that has shaped us

• We might make mistakes in how we communicate because we're navigating multiple cultural contexts and norms simultaneously

From institutions and from our American collaborators, I am seeking understanding and a different way of looking at how we work, behave, and what it means. Beyond understanding, there is action - true inclusivity means providing not just opportunity but support as artists from different backgrounds might need different kinds of scaffolding to succeed. It means having patience when we don't know the unwritten rules. It means recognizing when we're operating from trauma or are disoriented by a foreign system. It means embracing some of the gifts, approaches, and types of artistry we bring.  It means some grace and generosity to help us find our footing.

A Shift in Perspective

And as my company has grown, I have made a deliberate and concerted effort to create a different kind of environment for making theater multinationally — one where we can take creative risks without creating casualties. I’ve learned, sometimes painfully, that we can make groundbreaking art without breaking the people who help you make it.

When I think back to that person standing outside the theater, desperate to be let in, I feel compassion. I understand why he pushed so hard. I understand the fear that drove him. And I know now that belonging isn't something you seize—it's something you build, together with others, through mutual respect and understanding.

True border-crossing in the arts happens when institutions learn to meet artists where they are, and when artists like me learn to translate not just our language but our approach. It happens when we all recognize that making theater is about building bridges and being open to something new—not just on stage, but in every interaction, in every rehearsal, in every production meeting.

The same empathy we bring to our characters, we must bring to each other.

This is what I dream of now, and am working to build during Arlekin’s next chapter—a theater landscape where immigrant artists don't have to spend ten years sending unanswered emails, where we don't have to operate from desperation, and where we can bring our full artistic vision and approach to this work forward without compromising our humanity or anyone else's.

Our dream is to transform what we all believe theater can be, here in our new homeland. When neighbors meet and work to find understanding, they can change each other and that’s where the magic happens.  American theater could use some magic right now. This can’t happen if people are waiting at the baggage claim forever.