Girl’s Family Tale Has Makings of Good Opera

Sagrario Gil’s brown eyes suddenly filled with tears when she began talking about her family’s struggle to begin a new life in this country.

“I think about their suffering,” said the 13-year-old girl, who was not yet born when her parents and five older siblings made a harrowing journey from their home in Jalisco, Mexico, 15 years ago to the United States.

But in writing a fictionalized account of her family’s ordeal, the shy but articulate eighth-grade student made herself a character in a vivid retelling of this dramatic time in her family’s past.

“I was imagining myself right there with them, looking at them,” the Carr Intermediate School student said as she quickly wiped away a tear. “I was crying when I was writing because I thought about their suffering.”

Her story, “Proud of Being Brown,” beat 108 other entries last week to win Opera Pacific’s Building Bridges Storywriting Contest. Her powerful words will be turned into a children’s opera to be performed at the Yost Theater in Santa Ana next April.

“It makes for good opera,” said composer Hector Armienta, who will set the story to music that will reflect Mexican rhythms as well as folk music.

“It has strong characters like her father, it has villains and it has a protagonist--a child making a journey with her father,” Armienta said. “It will have to be modified a bit for dramatic purposes but the story itself is wonderful. It’s about having faith and using that to overcome obstacles.”

The opera will be written for young audiences and performed at schools throughout Southern California. Armienta said it will carry a message of tolerance and understanding of the difficulties faced by the new immigrants in the United States.

“There’s a lot of good material,” he said. “There’s such a sense of realism, particularly about the violence that children see and that families encounter as they make their way to the United States.”

Sagrario, who spent several weeks sitting at a school computer last spring laboring over the final manuscript, said that although she added a few imaginary details and gave new names to some of the characters, “Proud of Being Brown” is based on the stories told to her by her parents and older siblings.

But some of the detailed recollections are her own, and they have left lasting impressions on this serious young girl who dresses conservatively and wears her long, dark hair in a single braid.

Sagrario remembers at one point having to live in a crowded room in the home of a relative in Santa Ana with all the members of her family for two years until they could finally afford a home of their own.

This followed a traumatic episode in which both her parents were arrested by immigration agents and separated from the family for three days before they were able to straighten out their residency status.

Sagrario said the ordeals left the family of nine closer and stronger in their Roman Catholic faith.

Her shiny, teal-colored notebook is not only filled with assignments, but also with personal mementos she said she is rarely without. They include several drawings of Jesus Christ, a $2 bill her mother gave her years ago and photos pasted onto notebook pages of each of her parents and six siblings, with their names artistically sketched next to each picture.

“All of my family is in here,” she said proudly. “Sometimes we fight, but we are very close.”

A talented artist who loves to paint and draw, Sagrario said she likes to spend her spare time working on her art or “writing nice poetry.” She plans to attend college to study journalism.

Sagrario was one of three students at Carr Intermediate School who entered the writing contest last spring. Teacher Susan Schelvan said she wasn’t surprised when her prized pupil was among the 30 students chosen as finalists.

“This is what I love about teaching,” said Schelvan, who cried when Sagrario was announced the winner. “It makes it all worthwhile when you have kids like this. Sagrario is an exceptional student and a superior writer.”

The student’s story is filled with descriptive detail that Schelvan said is remarkable for such a young writer.

“I like to describe things,” Sagrario said. “You put a lot of yourself into writing. It makes you think about things that happen these days. You let everything out.”

The success and recognition that has come from the story has been a bit overwhelming for the teen-ager, who was presented with her contest trophy by actor Edward James Olmos, who Sagrario said she greatly admires.

“I was so excited to meet him,” she said after naming several of the actor’s films.

Sagrario also received a $250 check. She said she resisted the temptation to buy new clothes and put the money in the bank on the advice of her mother.

Her parents, Andres and Lucia Gil, will attend today’s meeting of the Santa Ana Unified School District Board of Education, where their daughter will receive special recognition for her achievement.

“My mom cried when I read her the story,” Sagrario said. “She said I should write more stories. My dad didn’t say very much, but he was very proud.”

Although the family’s struggle is the emphasis of “Proud of Being Brown,” Sagrario also decries racial prejudice in the piece and talks about the pride she has in her heritage.

“I want people to treat each other equally,” she said. “I still feel people treating me bad sometimes, but I don’t say anything. It hurts you, but you don’t say anything.

“You shouldn’t be embarrassed of who you are or where you come from. You should be proud.”

A Daughter’s Deeply Felt Story

Here are some excerpts from “Proud of Being Brown,” written by Sagrario Gil:

I covered my sorrowful, red eyes that had been crying for many long hours. I began asking myself in a soft weeping voice, “Why can’t people treat Hispanics the same way that they treat their own kind? Why are our streets full of so many prejudiced people that like the idea of sinking other people’s happy feelings?”

Not one single bite of bread was in their mouths. They started getting hungry. The following day was horrible. Large amounts of strong men noticed that they were in the truck, so they kicked them out. Ignacio, the youngest of all the three, was trying to defend his father when he was being beaten up by two rough men. It hurt him to see his father being beaten up, it made him feel like he was the one receiving those harsh punches.

They got everything that they needed, they even took with them the small, yet meaningful statue of the Virgin Mary. That was their most valuable possession, not jewelry, not a special doll, but a religious statue. The statue that their grandmother had left behind. They kissed it and began to slowly walk down the streets of the city of Tijuana.