The improvised comedy show “American Immigrants” was performed at Keck Theater Sept. 25. The show was produced by comedians Vivek Venugopal and Anthony Veneziale, who create musical scores and stories out of audience members’ family immigration stories.
The show began with Venugopal and Veneziale asking the audience to shout words connected to their identity, such as their surname. Then, the two asked anyone willing to raise their hand to make a short net headline about their families immigration story.
“If [the audience member] is out there saying ‘Yeah, that was the story I just told them’, then I think we did our job,” Veneziale said. “It’s really about listening very closely and investing in what they give us and not inventing.”
According to Venugopal, the show began in 2016, after the duo met through a prior improv show.
“In 2016 there was a pretty contentious election in the United States, […] and the word immigrant became this bad word,” Veneziale said. “[We] demonstrate that not only is the word immigrant not a pejorative, but in fact everyone in the United States has an immigrant story.”
According to Veneziale, the duo decided to use music to help convey their message and the personal yet universal story of a given audience member.
“Music is the language of social change,” Veneziale said. “People connect with music; it helps people syncopate and get their hearts in rhythm […] The goal is to create immigrant anthems that people feel safe in.”
Will Power, department chair of Theater and Performance Studies, said he feels connected to American Immigrants due to the musical element and his long experience with hip-hop theater.
“This idea of hip-hop theater and telling stories through rhyme and music is something I am connected to,” Power said. “Freestyling off the dome is something I used to do […] which [Venugopal and Veneziale] have taken to another level as far as freestyling full narratives.”
According to Power, the show’s themes resonate with him and other community members at Occidental.
“My wife is [of an immigrant background] so I feel very close to the subject material,” Power said. “A lot of my students are [close to] the stories of immigrants: the joy, the celebration, the trauma, [and] the challenges.”
Power said he is excited about the way the show is presenting the immigrant experience on stage.
“To my understanding [the show] has a very celebratory vibe,” Power said. “[Especially] Given the time we are in, where many immigrant communities are getting really slammed and unfairly treated.”
According to Venugopal, they wanted to center familial history rather than historical fact to encourage collective reflection.
“What we are doing here is not a historical record,” Venugopal said. “When we ask one person in the audience […] ‘How did [your family] get here and why did they come here?’ […] the audience are also answering in their head.”
According to Veneziale, he approaches the show through his family’s immigration journey which inspires his effort on stage.
“My grandmother came through Ellis Island dressed as a boy and my grandfather worked in a coal mine and drove doodlebugs and my great-grandfather was in the potato famine,” Veneziale said. “All of that is in my very DNA.”
Venugopal said he is able to take a different approach given his recent immigration story.
“I was born in Zambia, Africa, I lived there until I was 11, then I moved to India until I was 18, then I came to Iowa,” Venugopal said. “I have all these different parts of my life where I felt like an outsider, then had to assimilate and find ways to connect with people. [These are the] dominant themes of every story we hear.”
According to Veneziale, the show will be extended to a podcast where hosts explore their different immigration stories, focusing on forced immigration and Indigenous displacement.
“For our latest episode we are going to South Dakota to the Lakota tribe,” Veneziale said. “The version of immigrant there is that ‘American’ is the immigrant, and then [Indigenous peoples] became refugees and fugitives inside of the nation they had forged.”
Venugopal said another topic they plan to discuss in the podcast is how economic value is placed on immigrants that determines their worth in society, specifically the forced immigration of enslaved West Africans.
“A lot of value on immigrants is placed on the amount they provide to society,” Venugopal said. “We should respect people just because they exist, not because they are providing value to a capitalist system.”
Contact Norah Bergen at nbergen@oxy.edu.
