Amalia is a Mexican poet, performer, and theatre artivist raised and based in Nueva York.
2024 Culture & Narrative Fellows Our Fellows
Amalia Oliva Rojas
(she/her/ella)
About
Amalia Oliva Rojas is a Mexican poet, performer, and theatre artivist raised and based in Nueva York. Her work centers and archives the stories, myths, and legends told by her family, her community, and fellow WOC/immigrant women. Her plays include Tonantzin On the 7 Train, A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Succeed in the Myth-Making Business (Lehman College), How to Melt ICE (or How the Coyote fell in love with the lizard who was really a butterfly) (New York Women’s Fund Grant, New Perspectives Theatre Company and Boundless Theater Company, Latin American Theater Award for Outstanding Playwriting), and In The Bronx Brown Girls Can See Stars Too (Titan Theatre Company Future Classics Festival, Columbia University, upcoming: Lehman College, Fall 2024) Amalia is proud to be an Inaugural Lily’s Lorraine Hansberry Fellow, and CUNY MSI Lydia Mendoza Fellow. She is a third year MFA Playwriting candidate at Columbia University.
Medium: Theater
Amalia on Her Project
I am currently revising my first one-woman show titled, “DREAMing and The City: a New American Handbook on Love and Immigration.” This one-woman show follows a slightly fictionalized version of myself. This version of Amalia Oliva Rojas is still a writer but she’s also an expert on love. Much like her hero Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and The City, Amalia gives advice to those seeking to find love despite their immigration status. As Amalia further talks about her love story, she unravels the love story of her parents. Shedding light on the many women and men whose hearts are broken by migration. Set on the evening before her naturalization appointment, Amalia invites the audience to her home for dinner and asks them to keep her accountable as she struggles to finish the application. As the night progresses through humorous anecdotes and heartfelt moments, she shares insights on the universal themes of identity, belonging, who gets to love freely, and the cost of the pursuit of happiness.
I wrote this play as a continuation of exploring the parallels between the immigrant experience and the struggles faced by anyone trying to find their place in the world, for those who have been heartbroken. From the highs of new beginnings to the lows of homesickness and uncertainty, the play aims to be a reminder of the resilience and strength that comes from embracing change and facing the unknown. I believe this project is a great way to create dialogue because love and heartbreak are common denominators. We all in some form and shape have experienced these feelings on some level. I use the N-400: Application for Naturalization as the format for this play as a way to prompt my own love story and to survey audience members on their understanding of immigration. This allows audience members who may not be familiar with the exhaustion and frustration of these questions to be exposed to these legal forms. Providing further insight the invasion of privacy. Focusing on the intersection of love and immigration I am challenging the stereotypical immigrant narratives by creating and exposing the complexities of navigating relationships that came across borders and that were born because of borders.
