Coffee and Me

ARTIST STATEMENT

Creating this piece of work was about representing the immigrant people who came here to the United States, especially New York. They come in on those red-eye flights with dreams of creating a better life for themselves. I noticed reading and watching a lot of media there isn’t a show or a movie or a play or musical that describes these people's lives in a way that’s not super depressing. This play-ish is meant to touch on the life of both my parents meeting and finding love in the city that can be so cold and rough. This is also a love letter to my parents, to celebrate their love (and my eventual creation) and not just their love but the love of people who come into a new world, finding someone to share coffee with, to be able to hold them when you need them most. This is the story of the real American Dream.

SCENE 2: MOTHER'S POEM

(Enter RAFAEL & MAMI)

RAFAEL: Hola Mami!!!!! Como estas, bein? Good Good. Thank you for sitting here and letting me ask you these extremely personal and revealing questions about yourself. I thank you or being the amazon loving mother that you are. Yes, indeed.

(Both Laugh)

RAFAEL: So I know you tell me this all the time but what was it like to come to New York, what was that life? What was the plane ride? The sounds? The…smells?

(Quiet, she takes a deep breath, she thinks, and then she says…)

MAMI:

(End Scene)

Mami & her son, 1997. © De La Cruz Family Photo

SCENE 3: UNDERSTANDING

RAFAEL: My mami, my mother, my mama. A hard-working woman, the definition of a Matriarch. When she first came to New York my mother would quickly enroll my cousin and my older brother in classes. They would settle on a school near Bushwick around there my mother would find work and then find a small temporary living situation with her two children. She would work a variety of jobs, some difficult and some that paid her well. We’ll come back to her. During the same time my father, Mr. Rafael Alejandro De La Cruz. An interesting man with all the intentions to be successful in New York in short succession. But here's his story.

RAFAEL: Now my father is a “scary” man. Many would consider the family man to be the Six Foot lumberjack-looking man but NO! My Papi is quite different, he’s the Five-foot-three handyman cook of a family man. SCARY STUFF I say. But my Pops is also, a gambling man, yes he is. Similar to my mom my dad came to Nueva York. By himself, this time, with no children to boot. He was better off than my mother of course, when you’re riding solo you don’t have to worry about taking care of children. You don’t have to worry about the financial burdens of America just yet. He came to NYC to care for his family at home, he was a risky and giving man. Whatever type of work he could he’d do it. Do you need someone to fix your roof? He got you Need someone to be your line cook? I best believe he can. Need someone for anything that requires labor, for a beer and a shot he’ll do it as quickly as he can. He’s a gambling man, I didn’t forget that part. A part of him always wanted to strike big, to hit the mega-million and become a mega-millionaire. To show that he could do it, being the smallest big brother had something on his soul, he had a chip, he didn't want the help of his family. So years pass by and year by he pays and he fights for his family to get to the United States. I mean over fifteen boarding tickets from the Dominican Republic to New York City. First his mom, then his sisters, and then his brothers. And with all of them, not even a single Thank you.

PAPI:

(End Scene)

Mami & Papi holding my niece, 2015. © De La Cruz Family Photo

SCENE 4: THE MOMENT

RAFAEL: Years would fly and Mami is now a manager at McDonald's, staying put with two boys who grew up into smart young adults. They were able to be self-sufficient, finally. My mother would also finally find housing inside of Brooklyn, after years of house hopping and meeting people, she would make a home near Farragut. A two-bedroom apartment with space for her and the young adults to play. During this time a man known as Rafael A De La Cruz AKA my father, was living next door, at apartment 1D. He was working as a handyman at the Chinse supply store, yes you heard correctly. My father and mother were both friendly neighbors and would always watch out for one another. They were just friends. Mami had become a complete workaholic. She would start her day early to end it getting home, she’d take extra shifts and stretch herself thin, almost to death. The start of Mami and Papi’s collaboration would begin when she knocked on his door at 7 AM begging PApi to take her kids to high school because they had been cutting class. She says, she believed he was going to say no but he didn’t, he smiled and went to get ready. This would go on for weeks until the summer. My father would then invite her for coffee on a random morning, she’d reject the offer. She had to go to work. Yeah ok. He would continue to invite and invite until one day she budged. She took the chance. She took a sip, and with a sip, she loved the coffee. So they would start to meet every Friday around 2 PM before her sons came back home and she would sit down with my pops and share jokes and coffee. This would go on for months and months. Months became years and there was a bond and a special relationship built by them, something you can call love. Something was blooming between them, they would go to nightclubs and drink more than coffee, they would walk around DUMBO, and they would run errands together. My mom and dad were just having fun, two middle-aged people finding love in a weird brand new world. My mother was in her early 40s my father was in his late 40s. Thoughts of marriage would spring up and maybe moving out and finding a home but something else was brewing.

SCENE 5: CONCEPTION

RAFAEL: It’s 6:00 AM on Septemeber 11th, 2001. Papi and Mami both get ready for their day. Coffee and the discussion of who’s going to vote for who, today was the primary elections. The talk of dinner and maybe going out. My mother heads for work, in then the McDonalds on 23rd St. My father stays home, it’s his off day. Now, my mom gets to work around 7:30ish and she starts her preparations, it was a normal day. And a story heard thousands of times by different people the first plane struck the tower around 8 or 9. My mother was in complete shock, she didn’t know what was happening, being a woman who barely speaks English hearing everyone panic frightened her.

MAMI:

It was a moment of silence

Fear followed

Fear who what was lost

Fear of if I would survive

Fear of my children

My lover

Would I survive to see them?

Where am I?

RAFAEL: My mother would then start to call my father and the school, she was able to reach the school and confirm that her boys were doing well and were safe. She called my father over and over again but he didn’t pick up, she said she called him around 30 times in that hour alone. During that time my father was frantically walking around Dumbo walking to the Brooklyn Bridge, he wanted to go see if my mother was even alive. He was scared, he didn’t know what was happening. By the time the second tower was hit, panic set amongst my parents, both didn’t know what was happening. The life in New York that had brought them so close scared them, they thought it was the last time they would see each other, and they thought war was impending.

RAFAEL: After what seemed like days, my mother finally made it across the Brooklyn Bridge. Standing there was the five-three, scary line cook handyman that she grew to love. Relief and a somberness hit for them. For there my mother saw my father to be a true husband. They walked back home, shared coffee, and comforted one another.

(End Scene)

© De La Cruz Family Photo

SCENE 6: 9 MONTHS LATER

RAFAEL: Well, my mom starts to gain weight, starts to crave weird foods, like Popeyes and cup noodles at the same time, hot dogs and shrimp. Gross. But something was going on. My mami was pregnant with me! Yes, she could not believe it my father couldn’t believe it, it was thought that my mother could not bear any more children. This scared my father, at the time he had never been a father, and he was scared to even have a child. 9 months pass and we are all at the hospital, I’m ready to come out, my mom's ready for me to come out, but my dad would rather me stay in the womb. This man had so much fear in his stomach that he forgot to add a middle name and put JR on my certificate. He was frozen with fear. And I came out, silence filled the room. Then confusion, how did these two brown-skinned people produce a pale ginger child, to this day, I can’t give you an answer. But I can give you an answer about me and my familia, my Mami and Papi. I love them very much and I want to give them special thanks for being a part of this, appreciate them very much, and making this has given me a new understanding and appreciation for them. Thank you for everything and the hard work you’ve both put in. Los amo.

(End Play)

© De La Cruz Family Photo

MORE ABOUT RAFAEL De La Cruz

Rafael De La Cruz is Afro-Latino Artsit and Actor. He’s active in the New York theater

community being a working actor and an aspiring poet. He writes for the community that

raised him and created him. He’s continuing his acting career at the Brooklyn College

BFA program. He would like to thank Bijoyeta Das, Tram Nguyen, and the people who’ve

seen me bomb the most Mami and Papi.