My Broken Language: A Theater Jawn

Book excerpt: Quiara Alegría Hudes’ stage adaptation of her much-lauded memoir is a joyous celebration of Puerto Rican womanhood in 1990s West Philadelphia. In this memoir-turned-play, Hudes showcases a handful of key life moments that mark subtle changes in her sense of self and her place in the world. Interlaid between these vignettes are moments of song, dance, and ritual that evoke her boisterous girlhood in a house run by the Perez women. Through this piece, we come to understand the collaborative art that was Hudes’s coming of age, and the communal nature of autobiography.