Archives West Finding Aid

Because You Are Here was a performance based on interviews with immigrant and first generation members of the Walla Walla community. Whitman College Assistant Professor of Theater Jessica Cerullo, and social choreographer and performance artist Tia Kramer, worked with 8 students in the Devised Theatre and Social Practices Course to create Because You Are Here. The play was performed at the Harper Joy Theatre in fall 2018.

For the hour-long production, the students along with Kramer and Cerullo, interviewed about 35 people in Walla Walla. Ten of those interviews became the script of the play. The performance centered on questions and experiences of migration both on a national and local level. The interviews with community members focused on the themes of exclusion, belonging, invisibility, and courage, and the interviewees were invited to contribute as collaborators, editors, observers and creators in the theatre-making process.

The audience was also invited to talk with representatives from the Walla Walla Immigrant Rights Coalition, a community organization focused on ensuring the rights of immigrants through education, access to legal counseling and moral and social support services. After the Saturday matinee performance, the cast and a few interviewees who were willing to be identified, joined the public for a discussion about the making of the work and the impact of the work on their individual and civic lives.

After each performance, audience members were invited onto the stage to listen to a story phone line, Hear Here WALLA WALLA, which was created in tandem with the performance as another means to share excerpts from the featured interviews. The story phone line is available to access online, and it allows you to listen to stories and navigate through the topics of Belonging, Exclusion, Courage, Invisibility, Change, Tradition, Legacy, Sunrise, and the question: if you knew you would be heard, is there one last thing you would like to say? A physical phone booth where community members could listen to the stories was also placed at different locations around Walla Walla.

The projects were sponsored by the Whitman College Innovation in Teaching and Learning fund and the Andrew W. Mellon foundation.