by Sam Storey, ’13
Imagine for a moment that one day you are forced out of your home, either out of economic necessity or actual coercion. You are ripped from your children, some of them still infants, and taken to a country that speaks a foreign language and engages in mysterious cultural practices, where you are hired to take care of someone else’s child. Missing your own babies every day, you are forced to provide someone else’s child with the love and affection that you know they are not receiving from his or her own mother. You are effectively denied the ability to raise your own children as you are forced to raise someone else’s for little pay or respect.
This is a lived reality for countless immigrants who are hired as nannies by American mothers. These brave women have voices, stories to tell that tend to be ignored or pushed aside particularly at Stanford, where we often live jaded, myopic lives, blind to all those who sacrifice for our happiness. But tonight, that all changes. This evening, at 8:00 P.M., actress and playwright Lisa Ramirez will be performing her critically-acclaimed play Exit Cuckoo at The Nitery, opening up a dialogue about these women’s lives. Continue reading
