“Burnt Tortillas” is the title of this play and its author is Richard Alcalá, who knew the auxiliary bishop of the Californian capital in 1979: “I don’t want people to forget him, my goal is to keep his legacy alive.”
A play has been the method chosen by a creative devotee to publicize the life and legacy of the Augustinian Recollect Bishop Alphonse Gallegos (1931-1991), known as “the bishop of the neighborhood”, who left a special mark in California for his defense of the rights of Hispanics and his closeness to minorities and in the Church his dedication and love.
Gallegos is currently in the process of beatification and was declared Venerable by Pope Francis in 2016, just ten years after the opening of the process.
Gallegos was the first director of Hispanic Affairs for the Conference of Catholic Bishops of California and took this commitment to such an extent that he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Sacramento in 1981. In 1991 he died unexpectedly in a traffic accident, struck on the freeway when he had stopped to help another troubled driver.
The play is titled, “Burnt Tortillas” and is the work of Richard Alcalá: “It is not just a religious piece, but actually a tribute to a person completely committed to his vocation”, says the author.
This personal attraction that the figure and work of Gallegos have can be proven in the fact that more than two thousand people accompanied him on his last trip, at his funeral, on October 12, 1991, at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in the capital of California.
And it is that the life of this Augustinian Recollect born in Albuquerque (New Mexico) was full of service, affection and dedication to the most excluded. He mediated for the dignity of life of the rural migrant workers, he fought for bilingual education and reached out to many through of his welcoming personality, such as when the owners of well-known tuned-up vehicles as “lowriders” they asked him to bless theirs cars.
Alcalá’s work was performed on February 11. The author knew personally to Gallegos in 1979 and his goal, he had said, “is to keep alive the legacy of Alphonse Gallegos, I don’t want people to forget about him.”
In 1995 he wrote a first version which was presented to an audience of about 600 people. That same year the author of the work received a double medical diagnosis of cancer and HIV. There was a new version in 2007 and when I was preparing the third performance, the pandemic and production was halted. This time, the work has had two functions in the Center Community Artistic Sierra 2.
Everything has been set up thanks to actors and producers from Sacramento County under the direction by Richard Falcón, who summed up his participation as follows: “Theatre, cinema and so many other Media are very important to tell stories. Many migrants and others who come here of the new generations do not know the history of Gallegos”.
Among the cast, the participation of the children’s theater group Ba’dunashi of the Arte de Amar Foundation, the only bilingual children’s company in the United States, which is under the direction of Rosario Emma Castellanos Zárate.
In addition, among the public there were some direct relatives of Monsignor Gallegos and Mariachi music for everyone. Part of the proceeds from the tickets has been donated to the Maternity Bishop Gallegos.
The Augustinian Recollect Eliseo González was in Sacramento accompanying the process of this staging: “Gallegos was very close to the people, close to the community and always he knew how to find ways to help them in their various needs”.
In addition to these two functions in English, it is expected to organize others in Spanish to reach more people, and even offer the script to various churches and Catholic centers in California for if they wanted to take it on stage.
