The Quiara Alegria Hudes’s play 26 Miles features a 15 year-old girl called Olivia living with her very resentful and distressful step mother and emotionally distant father. With expansive and sensitive minds, Olivia reads the National Geographic and writes obsessively, dreaming of how the world outside her Suburb in Philadelphia looks like. Her mother, Beatriz, had separated from her father Aaron for years and the former is now married to another man called Manuel. Evidently, Beatriz and her daughter Olivia have not been together for years. Readers encounter Olivia first when she is sitting on the stairways, retching and silently keeping herself from disturbing her father, Aaron and stepmother, Deborah. She finds solace by avidly reading the National Geographic and reading and writing notes for The Issue. Olivia, who is born of a Jewish father and a Latino mother, has her writing reflecting her journey to her identity. This study explores and reflects on her notebook in various scenes in the play about how he searches and explores her identity.
The other aspect of search for identity concerns her biological or genetic identity. In her notes it is notable that she finds her direct descent among the Arawak people. The Arawaks are some of the people of the West Indies belonging to the Arawakan language family (Hudes 61). However, she discovers that the reason why she was not entitled to live with her during her teenage age was the nationality of her mother. Since the law prohibited an illegal immigrant spouse, who could be deported, from leaving with the child, she could not live with her mother who was a Latina from Cuba (Hudes 61). The law put custodial rights to her father whom she has to live with until she gets matured to prevent her from being deported abroad. Therefore, despite the custodial restrictions, Olivia is aware that she has a Cuban mother and a Jewish American father as biological parents.
The other identity that Olivia manifests is craving interests to explore the world. She realizes that her avid readership and writing about the world originate from her parents. Her father always used to keep the National Geographic magazine at home. He could read to her the contents of the magazine when she was still young. This charmed her to begin visiting wildlife to see buffalo and other kinds of animals. She also has notes on pictures of her mother’s trips in Paris and London. The pictures are those of opera glasses that her mother bought while in Paris and London (Hudes 64). Others are those of Chinese porcelain door that her mother had seen while on one of her trips abroad. It is therefore notable that she has inherited her exploration interests from both parents.
Olivia also traces the dynamism that characterizes her environment in general technology and general developments. She has noted photos of various step back cupboards from the shaker period (Hudes 65). On page 65, Beatriz says, “”.this setback cupboard, original Shaker period.” Initially, the primary method of communication used to be payphones located at gas stations. Accompanied with improvements in these phones was rises in prices, especially between 1985 and 1990 (Hudes 73). Former natural forests are undergoing regenerations. There is an emphasis on forest regeneration by renewing forest covers through planting young trees. Evidently, the other identity of Olivia that she explores is living in a society whose technology and costs of goods and services are quite dynamic. This dynamism is also spread in the natural environments. Demands in forest product makes forests to be depleted very fast, and farmers or the government has to make sure that they are regenerated (Hudes 73).
The other important aspect of searching for identity that Olivia is on is the cultural journey. Olivia searches her cultural identity by exploring traditional Latin American dishes. Some of them are the tamal or tamale dishes that are made of starchy dough that is often corn-based. She finds its origin as having been brought in Latin America by Spanish Conquistadors (Hudes 46). In the notes too, Beatriz recalls that it is the same dish that her mother used to make for her when she was still a child (Hudes 46). The other important types of dishes are the Cuban pastries which are baked puff pastry-types of pastries that are usually filled with savory fillings or sweets. These kinds of dishes are now ubiquitous in some places in America too: In Miami, window cafeterias are continuously offering them to Latin American people. The other aspect of her culture is the popular music of two origins: Olivia’s favorite songs, as are those of her mother, were sung by either American or Cuban singers (Hudes 32-36). Therefore, the identity of Olivia’s culture includes Latin American dishes and American and Latino music.
As a conclusion, it is evident that Olivia’s identity is shaped by Jewish American and Cuban societies. Given that she is legally American, her physical address is that of the Paoli Suburb in Philadelphia. She has also reaffirmed herself that despite the separation of her parents, Beatriz and Aaron are still her parents. Her major interest of exploring the world is in fact inherited from them. She has also noted that there is a lot of dynamism in her environment. Technologies are changing too first; accompanied with the technological changes are increases in prices of goods and services. She has discovered identities of her culture, as indicated by music and dishes, from both Latin American and American societies. Apparently, her identities are shaped majorly by these societies
Work Cited
Hudes, Quiara A. 26 Miles. New York: Dramatist Play Services, 2011. Print.
