My Princess Grace Award acceptance speech
This is for all the kids who...
As you may have seen yesterday (from me, because I posted it everywhere), I won this year’s Princess Grace Awards’ Playwriting Fellowship! And while His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco will come down to the colonies to give the winners a check in a fancy ceremony, I don’t believe we’ll be allowed to make speeches during it, which curtails my opportunities to hog the spotlight. So I’m using this week’s newsletter to do that instead!
(My name is announced. My date hugs me euphorically as I just stare at the screen)
(I walk up on stage with Halle Berry-level shock—which I did feel in real life when the Princess Grace people called me with the news)
(I catch my breath as attendees laugh with endearment at just how disoriented I am. I crack a joke about it, like I did during the call, saying something like “I’m not in my body right now)
(I put on glasses, which I don’t really need to read my speech, but it’s a time-honored tradition amongst award winners)
Thank you to the Princess Grace Foundation and New Dramatists for this incredible honor. It’s one I don’t take lightly, for several reasons:
Rear Window is one of my favorite movies ever, in no small part because of how amazing Grace Kelly is in it. While the late princess is not officially involved in choosing winners, I’d like to believe her spirit guides the proceedings, and I’m thankful to be even remotely connected to her.
It comes with money! Some of it will go to taxes and the rest to paying for my next visa application, but still. It’s sadly very rare to get paid for writing, let alone paid well.
Speaking of visas—this is the first year that visa holders have been eligible; up until now only U.S. citizens and permanent residents could apply. I engaged both institutions personally in dialogue about it earlier this year, and it’s incredible to me that they went ahead and changed the rules, a change that means other visa holders in the future will have one less hurdle to go through.
I know the vibe is shifting and I’m starting to get serious, but it’s because this last part is really important to me. My journey, from the moment I decided to pursue my writing as a profession and to do it in New York City, has been one of people saying “no” (if they answered at all). I hope, if you’re not an immigrant yourself, that you can empathize with this in your own way, because I’m not sure I can communicate how upsetting it is to want something so badly and have people keep telling you it’s impossible.
I’ve written about this at length, so I won’t take up too much of your time with it, but basically: imagine growing up bombarded with movies, books, and TV shows that promoted a country, and a city in that country, as being the mecca of all success and creativity—not to mention encouraging you to follow your heart and chase your wildest dreams. Imagine visiting that city and immediately falling in love because early displacement in your life caused you to feel like you don’t belong anywhere and this city has people from all over the world living in it. And then… imagine being told over and over that you can’t come, you can’t stay, you can’t work, you can’t get paid, your writing cannot be seen. “America First.” “Only U. S. citizens and permanent residents.” “Pay thousands of dollars and we’ll review your case—no guarantees.” Those are the rules. That’s how the industry works. It’s no one’s fault. “No one forced you to come.” “Why don’t you go back?”
The play with which I’m winning this award, Machine Learning, is one of the first scripts I ever wrote. It focuses on an immigrant family, a computer scientist who’s forced to take care of the dying alcoholic father he hasn’t spoken to in years—and invents a nursing app to do it in his stead. When I first wrote it, I was inspired by my love of science fiction, but more than anything else, I was exploring the ways in which migration at a young age affected my relationship with my dad (I was 12 when my family moved from Argentina to Brazil). When people gave me feedback on those early drafts, they tended to note that the father character was too inaccessible, almost villainous, and I didn’t know what to do about it—I couldn’t relate to his experience. But the longer I lived here, the more I started to access his pain.
There’s something… humiliating, maybe? That word sounds so strong, but I can’t find a better word. There’s something humiliating about being an immigrant in this country. The way I know so much about America, but Americans know so little about my culture. The insensitive, ignorant things people say to me about where I come from, and I can’t get super mad because they are good people (well, some of them are) and they just don’t know any better. The way people infantilize me because of my accent. The way people afford me no room to play around with language in my writing because they assume I’m making mistakes. The naturality with which people correct my English even in instances (too many for comfort) in which they are wrong. The way I’ve been treated every time I’ve set foot in an American consulate for my visa appointments (and on this, I refer you to Asiimwe Deborah Kawe’s brilliant play Appointment With gOD).
The more the humiliations piled on, the more I started to understand the father character—a proud patriarch who “graduated” from his home country to the big leagues of the United States of America, only to find out that all he had achieved so far counted for nothing here, and that he was starting from scratch in a game rigged against him. His dignity was stripped away, and he had no one to blame but himself, for dreaming too big.
It cracked the play open for me. It became so much more nuanced, made it so much harder to condemn or condone either character. The script started getting attention from the industry. And, seven years after I arrived in the US, I’m winning my biggest award yet with it.
(The orchestra wants to play me off, but they feel like it would come off as xenophobic)
I had actually been a semi-finalist and a finalist for the Princess Grace before, and both times I had lied and checked the box that said “I am a U. S. citizen or permanent resident” in the application. My plan was to get to the final round and say “Syke! You now like me too much to disqualify me.” This did not happen—I have a history of being a finalist for things and then not getting them. Which may have been what emboldened me to take a stand this year: since the odds had not been in my favor in the past, I figured I wasn’t losing much by speaking up (great activism, Francisco). So when I got an email from the award administrators saying that applications would open soon, I responded: “Can I ask - why is it a requirement that all candidates be U.S. citizens or permanent residents?”
That simple question started a conversation with people who turned out to be (shocker) very nice, and whom it didn’t take a lot of work to show why the restriction a) made no sense and b) was unfair. The bigger question on their end was whether the change could be effected in time, as non-profits can have their status jeopardized by working with undocumented people, and that has sometimes resulted in rules that simply exclude everyone but citizens or permanent residents (Actor’s Equity, in fact, did not allow visa holders to join the union until 2021, a change that was spearheaded by the amazing Jessica Wu).
I was promised that if the change could not go into effect this year, it would definitely happen by the next. I responded:
I understand if it’s not possible to implement it this year. I just ask you a heartfelt plea to really look at all the options (including changes to the dates) before making a final call. To open submissions with this rule in place is to accept one more year of an exclusionary practice. I of course hold in my mind all the factors you have to consider, and how admirable the support you offer to artists is in the first place, but I also hold the oppression of this government on people like me and especially on those who are way less privileged than I am. I’m sure this is one aspect of a very complex process on your end, but I also know that for me, this is one more roadblock on an exhausting journey, another signal on top of so many that I’ve been given that this country does not want me or others like me here.
Looking back, I am surprised at the fieriness of my actions. Obviously, I didn’t know I was going to win (quite the opposite—I thought I was pretty much guaranteeing I wouldn’t get it, though they assured me the people I was speaking to had nothing to do with the selection of winners), so I’m surprised that I cared that much. I’m the last person to say “this is for all the kids who…” and yet here I was, needing the rule to be changed, jumping on last-minute Zooms and sending long emails with lots of links. Maybe it’s all those people who told me “no” in my journey. Maybe it’s that none of the successful writers who visited my MFA class were immigrants. Maybe it’s that you have to be a U. S. citizen to win the biggest award in this industry. I needed it to stop. At least for a bit. At least for this thing. I needed someone to say “yes.”
And then they emailed me to say the rule was changed! I COULDN’T believe it. I was so grateful. It felt like that was the win. Like applying didn’t even matter. But, of course, I did apply! Bizarrely enough, I had never sent them Machine Learning (she of the thousand workshops—produce this play already!) and for the aforementioned reasons, it felt like the perfect play to send this year. Clearly it was. When God wants something to happen, there are no barriers that can prevent it.
(The audience winces at the mention of religion. The orchestra finally feels like it’s okay to play me off and I shush them Julia Roberts style)
THANK YOU to the Princess Grace Award and New Dramatists again for this incredible honor. I simply cannot wait to cash my check start my residency alongside the legends (LEGENDS!) that preceded me. This is the professional highlight of my year and one of the proudest moments of my career. I dedicate this to all the kids who-
(My mic is cut off. The presenter awkwardly guides me backstage, though I resist. The orchestra plays. I eventually give in and just hold up my trophy as people clap in relief that it’s finally over)
Congratulations! Great story.
The story behind it all. Loved it! Congrats, my friend.