When Liliana Herrera was a little girl growing up in Calexico, California, just minutes from the border crossing into Mexico, her mother used to call her “golondrina,” the Spanish word for swallow. That’s because she was flighty, like the bird: She wouldn’t stay put.
Decades later, the word carries multiple layers of meaning for Herrera, a San Francisco artist and performer who will premiere her show “¡Golondrina!” at the Brava Theater this weekend. The work, which is Herrera’s formal debut as a playwright, includes performances on Friday, May 3, and Saturday, May 4.
Herrera became particularly interested in the cliff swallow, also known as the swallow of Capistrano in some parts of the state, as a way to explore themes of borders and migration: Each year, the small, agile bird spends months migrating from Argentina, passing through the Andes range, the Darien gap, the Bosawas reserve and the Sierra Madre range to its final destination at Mission San Juan Capistrano in southern Orange County. The birds’ return is welcomed with an annual celebration at the mission, a tradition started in the 1920s.
“It’s a California story, but from a swallow’s point of view — watching humanity, and intertwining how migration, for swallows and other species, is something majestic and beautiful,” said Herrera. “However, there are so many prejudices for certain humans when they migrate. Now, migration has become something that is politicized and criminalized.”
Over the course of the two-hour play, the stage becomes the Latin American and Californian skies, while Herrera — who serves as writer, producer, director, narrator and singer — plays the colorful bird, recounting travel stories and singing songs collected throughout the months of flying.
Herrera, who grew up in a family of musicians, described the music she composed for the play as a “folkloric odyssey,” a combination of sounds that have inspired her from years of performing. Herrera also released an EP in 2020 called “Late Night Taco Stand Music.”
The play also draws inspiration from Herrera’s work as an interpreter and language-justice advocate, said the artist, who has lived in the Mission since the ‘90s — in addition to her role as “an observer of the human condition really reflecting the times that we’re living in today.”
Herrera says migration, and the way some people are characterized as explorers, while others are criminals, is directly connected to colonialism and gentrification. Performing the play in the Mission, she said, feels apt, because she hopes it will bring healing to those who have been displaced, and to those who are in constant fear of being the next victims of gentrification. “I really want to leave the audience with a sense of, ‘I belong, and I can do something.’ Celebrate our culture, [because] sometimes we get down on just the negative stuff, but I really want the audience to leave with a sense of hope and a sense of healing.” said Herrera.
“I think that there’s a lot of trauma in our communities for various reasons, but they’re all really linked and tied to a main root cause, colonization, and that is translated into gentrification and displacement of people,” said Herrera.
In addition to her identity as a “Mexican-American Chicana from California,” Herrera drew inspiration from her collaborators over the years: Visual artist Ester Hernandez, painter Yolanda Lopéz and those at El Teatro Campesino (farmers theater), to name a few. And she wrote the play to be bilingual specifically so it could reach a wider audience.
While she performed an initial version of the play at La Peña in Berkeley five years ago, this will be the first time the finished piece sees an audience.
She expects it will resonate widely, she said, because many elements of the play are universal.
“It’s a very unique piece of art that I think speaks to a lot of different issues that human beings of any ethnicity, any generation and age can relate to,” said Herrera, noting that her early memories were a crucial part of the work. “A lot of that inspiration from my childhood is relived in my show ‘¡Golondrina!’ because I talk about my parents and my family, my ancestors.”
“Hopefully that will inspire others to feel connected, and to open their minds to allow their ancestry to guide them,” she added, “especially in those moments [one is] desiring to heal from [the] discrimination a lot of our communities face.”
“¡Golondrina! A Funkloric Odyssey through California /Una odisea Funklórica por California” will take place at 8 p.m. on both Friday, May 3, and Saturday, May 4, on the Main Stage at the Brava Theater (2781 24th St.). For tickets and more info, click here.
