is an immersive performance piece and installation in development by immigrant rights and reproductive justice organizer Alejandra Pablos, in partnership with Donkeysaddle Projects.
Yo Te Esperaba tells Alejandra’s story of fighting deportation for twelve years, providing a window into thousands of similar stories of community members impacted by this manifestation of state violence. Two of those years Ale was caged in ICE detention in Eloy, AZ. Growing up in a community that’s over-policed, over-surveilled and intentionally under-resourced, Ale has been targeted by police not just for her immigration status, but also for being brown, queer, a woman, and speaking Spanish, like so many others in her community.
Part workshop and part performance, the piece invites audiences into Ale’s family’s fight to stay together and their journey in confronting the shame and fear inflicted by the system. Yo Te Esperaba rejects the question “What did you do?” that people who have been criminalized so often face, and instead creates a space that demystifies stigma around incarceration. The play also invites community members into her abortion story–where Ale’s choice about whether or not to create a family safely was already taken away by the state, by enforcing poverty on her community, by hunting her for deportation, and criminalizing family planning. The project exposes intersections between im/migrant and reproductive justice, visualizing a world where people exercise autonomy over their bodies, production, sexuality, and lives.
