Variedades: Little Central America, 1984

Feature reported, edited, and mixed by Andrea Gutierrez

» Orig­i­nal­ly aired on Octo­ber 3, 2019, on KPC­C’s The Frame


Los Ange­les is home to more than half-a-mil­lion Cen­tral Amer­i­cans, many of whom arrived dur­ing the 1980s dur­ing a peri­od of polit­i­cal unrest in their home coun­tries. Faith com­mu­ni­ties across the Unit­ed States played a major role in receiv­ing asy­lum seek­ers back then, offer­ing sanc­tu­ary when migrants’ options were few. One of those church­es in L.A.’s Echo Park neigh­bor­hood will host “Var­iedades: Lit­tle Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, 1984,” a the­atri­cal per­for­mance of music, poet­ry, film and move­ment that puts today’s migra­tion cri­sis in con­ver­sa­tion with the past.