Dramaturg's Note
I was born and raised in Iran, and I did not go to a public school in America. So, I do not have firsthand experience of what it is like to be a schoolkid in the United States. There are things that we do not think about because we take them for granted. For example, I never had to think about the color of my skin before coming to the United States. Now I find myself comparing skin tones with the guy next to me at the grocery store.
Reading Pipeline for the first time raised a lot of questions for me, such as: if I ever have a child, a child who will be half-Iranian, would I want them to go to school in America? Are we machines? Are our futures already determined for us? Do we have the freedom to choose or do we get told what to choose? Why do we need to follow the rules if the rules are discriminating against us? Why should we listen when nobody listens to us? How do we get people to hear what we have to say? I feel that this play has woken something up inside my head, something that has been there for a long time but has never been poked before. The simplicity of the way these questions come up makes me think that we have always been thinking about these issues but are just now finding the words to express them. We should ask if the people with power and authority are in fact the best people to have all that power and authority. We should not make hasty assumptions. We should look at everything and everyone individually.
Sometimes we do not question what is happening around us, but we should! As you experience this play, I would like to give you a few questions to think about. As an American, are you happy with the way that children (maybe your own) are treated in school? Does the way you feel about the education system have anything to do with race? Are you taking your privileges for granted? Why should the color of a person’s skin matter when it comes to something as essential as school?
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—Shahrzad Hamzeh
