In reality, many of us were born here. Like Close Encounters, Pinate's play riffs on the notion of borders between people and nations. In The Mex Files, special agents Mendez and Sanchez investigate the abduction of illegal aliens in Silicon Valley, colliding with corporate fat cats, racist cops and the Immigration and Naturalization Service as they go. The piece was recently staged as part of the Cuentos y Cantos performance series in downtown San Jose. The word is used for a reason.
People use it to make someone seem less human, space aliens and undocumented aliens.
The Mex Files story line is fueled by Mendez's obsession with the loss of his mother who, despite being a citizen, was deported during an INS raid on a Super Kmart. Skin color is certainly a central theme in Resident Alien, a Stuart Spencer comedy beaming into the City Lights Theater tonight. Only the color in question happens to be green. The resident alien of the title is a low-brow refugee from a snooty species. He instantly feels at home in small-town Wisconsin but when he tries to marry a local woman, Priscilla, she objects on the grounds of race.