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EL
MITOTE or ‘MITO’
as Mexican men have called it, is energy: a living force that
breathes life into the world of male history.
It comes forth in the talk of women
when it carries the images of who we are and who we have been.
 The
feminine power in El Mitote, women talk, could be Native
American, Mexican American, every shade of Black, Yellow or
White.
As always, the talk brings change,
because in the talk is a contour of our country; the back story
to Southwestern citizenship, in the lost years from 1865 to
1900.
Mitote is set in New
Mexico during the time period identified as “The American
Western Traditional Period.”
The Southwest, during mid-19th
Century until well into the 20th Century was an
unforgiving, dangerous frontier.
For all of its dangers; however,
New Mexico offered a great and valuable reward.
In droves, thousands upon thousands
of hopeful and vigorous Americans descended upon its open ranges
to test their mettle at making a new life.
Overlooked in history’s montage is
the part all kinds of women played in settling the American
Southwest, and that many among these midwives, herb doctors,
teachers, cowgirls, farmers, teamsters, students and housewives
were free Black women.
Mitote is but three
of many choices to detail the basics of pioneering society;
expressed as “woman talk.”
Factually engaging and sensitively
rendered from the pen of Leslie Lee,
Mitote is the
screenplay adaptation of an original, historically based
theatrical one act drama by Maisha Baton, Ph.D.
Visualized as rural backyard
conversation are the personal stories of three African American
women from New Mexico at the end of the 1800’s.
Each woman has a compelling story
to tell, each story based upon a different, unique historical
reality.
We witness, through their lives,
the shadow details of pioneering Southwestern history.
Mitote is destined to pilot a series on American history
after Reconstruction. Telling stories from the
perspectives of the three women. |
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Depiction of the US in 1815 |
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