Theater, Social Change, and Third World Solidarity: The V Festival de Teatros Chicanos in Mexico City, 1974

In the midst of Cold War struggles in Latin America, the Mexican dirty war, and the Chicano/a Movement in the U.S., theater became a political tool of resistance against oppression and social injustice. During the summer of 1974, Chicano/as, Mexicans, and Latin American theater groups came together to celebrate the V Festival de Teatro Chicano and the I Encuentro Latinoamericano de Teatro in Mexico City. The aim of the V Festival was to establish stronger cultural and political connections among Mexicans, Latin Americans, and Chicano/as. Through the dynamics that developed at the V Festival and I Encuentro Latinoamericano, this paper explores the connections between the Cold War political ideologies such as Third World politics and the way that it shaped the possibility for a moment of political solidarity between Mexicans and Chicano/as through a theater festival. Such an examination allows me to illustrate some of the dynamic tensions that enveloped the political activism between Mexicans and Chicano/as through the 1960s and 1970s.