La Casa de Inez: Investigating History, Voice, and Memory through Embodied, Site-Specific Storytelling

Abstract

As a partnership between ¡Habla! AZ and the Tempe History Museum, La Casa de Inez was a site-specific, participatory storytelling event about the ways in which the voices and identities of Latinas and Chicanas have been shaped by preceding generations of women in their families. Set against the backdrop of the historic Elias-Rodriguez House, one of the earliest remaining testaments to the first Mexican barrios in Tempe, Arizona, a group of Chicana and Latina storytellers set out to take the audience on a personal and historical journey. Through embodied storytelling and audience participation, the performers explored how their own personal and ancestral histories, as well as the histories of the Elias-Rodriguez women, whose legacies remain alive, especially in the grounds of this remarkable property, define and reflect the enormous weight and relevance of the Latina/Chicana voice.