Las dos caras del patroncito by Luis Miguel Valdez
"Las dos caras del patroncito," written by Luis Miguel Valdez, is a one-act play that captures the struggles of undocumented Mexican workers through a satirical lens. Originating during the 1965 grape strike, the play serves as both a reflection of worker discontent and a call to unionize. It features a dramatic encounter between a Mexican farmworker and his patroncito, or "little boss," who is presented in a comical yet revealing manner, wearing a pig mask and embodying the condescending attitudes of some employers towards their workers.
The dialogue cleverly exposes the patroncito's romanticized view of the migrants’ lives, while the farmworker ultimately turns the tables on his boss, asserting his own power and highlighting the stark inequalities in their lives. As the patroncito experiences the harsh realities of the worker's existence, the play underscores themes of social justice and empathy, suggesting that true understanding comes from experiencing the lives of those who are oppressed. The culmination of the narrative leads to the patroncito seeking help from union activists, emphasizing the importance of solidarity in labor movements. Through its biting humor and insightful commentary, the play resonates with audiences by addressing the complexities of class relationships and the need for social change.
On this Page
Las dos caras del patroncito by Luis Miguel Valdez
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First produced: 1965 (first published, 1971)
Type of work: Play
The Work
Las dos caras del patroncito (the two faces of the little boss) typifies, in many ways, Valdez’s early actos. The piece grew out of a collaborative improvisation during the grape strike of 1965 and dramatized the immediate and intense feelings of its audience. Like all the actos, it is brief, direct, didactic, intending not only to express the workers’ anger and urge them to join the union but also to satirize the growers and reveal their injustice. The play succeeds brilliantly by enacting a total reversal of what Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche termed the master/slave relationship.
The play begins with an undocumented Mexican worker being visited by his patroncito, or “little boss,” who appears wearing a pig mask and smoking a cigar. Initially, both play their assumed roles of intimidating master and cowering slave to perfection. Soon, though, the patroncito waxes poetic over his Mexicans. Seeing them “barreling down the freeway” makes his “heart feel good; hands on their sombreros, hair flying in the wind, bouncing along happy as babies.” “I sure do love my Mexicans,” he says. The patroncito reveals a typical condescension, romanticizing the migrant workers’ lives and regarding them essentially as children. When the farmworker responds by putting his arm around him, however, the patroncito says; “I love ’em about ten feet away from me.”
Their conversation takes a peculiar turn as the patroncito verbally coerces the farmworker into agreeing that the workers have it easy, with their “free housing” (labor-camp shacks), “free transportation” (unsafe trucks), and “free food” (beans and tortillas). The boss asserts that he himself suffers all the anxiety that comes from owning a Lincoln Continental, an expensive ranch house, and a wife with expensive tastes. At one point, he asks the farmworker, “Ever write out a check for $12,000?” The audience of migrant workers struggling to raise their wages to two dollars an hour would have felt the irony of such a question; the agony of writing out such a check is not something they would experience anytime soon, given their exploited condition.
Yet the patroncito actually envies the farmworkers’ “freedom” and wishes to trade places. After some coaxing, the farmworker agrees, and the patroncito gives him his pig mask, whereupon the power relations between them are reversed. The farmworker now gives the boss a taste of his own medicine. He insults him and proceeds to claim his land, his house, his car, and his wife. The patroncito soon realizes that the game has gone too far. He does not want to live in the rat-infested shacks he so generously provides for his workers, or ride in his death-trap trucks, or work for such low wages.
By the play’s end, the farmworker has so thoroughly abused his patroncito, calling him a “spic,” “greaseball,” and “commie bastard”—all the slurs the workers endured—that the patroncito calls for help from union activist César Chávez and screams “huelga” (“strike”). Thus the play brings him full circle from callous owner to union supporter and suggests that if the oppressors could put themselves in the place of the oppressed, they would see their own injustice.
Bibliography
Cizmar, Paula. “Luis Valdez.” Mother Jones 4 (June, 1979): 47-64.
Davy, Daniel. “The Engimatic God: Mask and Myth in Zoot Suit.” Journal of American Drama and Theatre 15 (Winter, 2003): 71-87.
Elam, Harry Justin. Taking It to the Streets: The Social Protest Theater of Luis Valdez and Amiri Baraka. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997.
Gross, Steven. “Intentionality and the Markedness Model in Literary Codeswitching.” Journal of Pragmatics: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language Studies 32 (August, 2000): 1283-1303.
Huerta, Jorge A. Chicano Theater: Themes and Forms. Ypsilanti, Mich.: Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingue, 1982.
Noriega, Chon A. “Fashion Crimes.” Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 26 (Spring, 2001): 1-13.
Shank, Theodore. “A Return to Aztec and Maya Roots.” The Drama Review 18 (December, 1974) 56-70.
Valdez, Luis. Interview. In In Their Own Words: Contemporary American Playwrights, edited by David Savran. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1988.