The following is a list of characters in order of appearance and a description of their backgrounds and personalities. I would like to cite the Yale-New Haven Teacher’s Institute 1980 collection of Drama Units (available, along with all other units, free of charge to New Haven teachers, at the Institute office at 53 Wall St.) as an invaluable source at this point in the development of the play. The theatre games, role plays, and improvisations used in these units ( p. 3, 8, 16, 19, 20, 35, 38, 40, 43, 48, 88, 104, 120, 128-140, 151-161) are excellent warm-up activities to use at the beginning of each reading.
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Chaguito: a mischievous adolescent, very street wise, who hates school and is extremely aggressive and disrespectful—he ends up in reform school
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Do–a Gabriela: a widow and mother of Chaguito and Juanita and stepmother of Luis; she has a strong character which is undermined during the transition to the city; she is bound by her role as mother and is very protective of the insecure Luis by supporting his decision to move the family, thereby stifling her true feelings
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Juanita: the character who experiences the most development in her transition from a docile personality to a strong, politicized one; she challenges the traditional concept of honor and the double standard that obligates women, not men, to maintain the family honor, which she defies by becoming a prostitute; her political development comes as a result of witnessing the oppression of minority groups in New York City, especially through judicial inequalities
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Don Chago: Do–a Gabriela’s widowed father who is stubborn in his refusal to follow the family when it leaves the farm for the city; he symbolizes the strength of traditional values through his idealistic love of the land and his nostalgic treatment of the “old days”; he is very sensitive and intelligent with definite anti-government, anti-capitalistic, and anti-clerical tendencies; he stays behind to spend his remaining days in a cave and dies
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Luis: Do–a Gabriela’s oldest “son” (he is actually the son of her husband and another woman) who assumes leadership of the family; his idealism takes the form of love of progress exemplified in machines and industry; he is completely assimilated into the mechanized world and is insensitive to his surroundings; he dies, ironically, from a freak accident at the factory
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Germana: a nosey neighbor on the farm who tries to marry her daughter off to Luis, to no avail
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Lito: a lively, happy-go-lucky boy who lives in the family’s neighborhood in San Juan
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Matilde: described as a plump 35 year old who encourages Juanita to enter into the life of prostitution in “La Perla”, San Juan
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Do–a Isabel: 44 year old former teacher who now helps her husband, Don Severo, at the saloon; she is described as tall and slender, well-spoken and well-dressed; has a brief affair with Luis, who is really interested in her niece, Martita
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Paco: 30 year old Puerto Rican writer and radio announcer who meets Juanita in New York and proposes marriage
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Lidia: 26 year old friend of Juanita in New York; slender and tall with long hair and bangs
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Mr. Parkinton: 40 year old American preacher, described as tall and thin, with a patronizing attitude towards the Puerto Ricans he is trying to convert