“Cruzar la frontera del norte”: el exilio de los “indocumentados” en el teatro mexicano (Hugo Salcedo, Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda, Jaime Chabaud)

Abstract

“Crossing the Northern Border”: illegal immigration depicted in Mexican drama (Hugo Salcedo, Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda, Jaime Chabaud)

This paper presents a comparative study of three Mexican dramas: Los ilegales 1979 by Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda, El viaje de los cantores 1988 by Hugo Salcedo, and Oc ye nechca érase una vez 2008 by Jaime Chabaud. These plays share the theme of Mexican citizens’ immi­gration to the USA. The ways in which parts of a dramatic play such as character, time and set­ting are constructed, will be examined to decipher how the authors’ focus on the most alarming feature of the Mexican reality, namely mass migration. The reasons behind the mass emigration from Mexico to the USA are both economy and people’s lack of sense of security. As this study delineates, the mass emigration depicted in the presented dramas is characterized as illegal and inhumane. The analysis of the three dramas demonstrates that their dramatic structures convey a definite ideological message.