Sarah Sierra - Becoming Kid Quixote: A True Story of Belonging in America

To Quixotes everywhere...

Hi! Im Sarah. I am ten years old, and I live in Brooklyn, New York, with my parents, my brother, my three little sisters, and lots of cousins and aunts and uncles. Have you ever been to Brooklyn? Its a part of New York City. Everyone thinks that means its full of skyscrapers, but where I live its more like a neighborhood. Most of the buildings only have a couple of apartments in themnot skyscrapers at all. But even though Brooklyn is not near Times Square or the Empire State Building, my part of New York City can still be pretty exciting.

How many kids have performed at City Hall? Thats right; last year my friends and I were in a show there. Weve also done our show at a consulate, at colleges and universities, and at some big office buildingsso I have been up in a skyscraper.

You might have guessed by now that I really like acting. A lot of people are surprised by that, because when Im not performing, I can be pretty quiet. In school I would rather do my work silently than talk all the time. Everyone thinks that actors have to be loud and dramatic, but some actors arent that way in real life. Like me. There are a lot of differences between the character I play and the person I am. When Im acting, I play Don Quixote, a man who imagines he is a heroic knight. Don Quixote is bold, adventurous, and hates dresses. Thats who I am onstage. In real life, I am more thoughtful, and I like dresses okay. Especially if they are turquoisethats my favorite color.

Our show is called The Traveling Serialized Adventures of Kid Quixote because we travel to different places to perform. Serialized means that we perform one part of the story at a timelike an episode in a TV series. We practice in our neighborhood three days a week at a place called Still Waters in a Storm, unless we are traveling for a show. Its called Still Waters in a Storm because its a place that is safe. If you were in a boat in a storm, you would look for still waters, for water that is calm and peaceful so that your boat doesnt tip. Thats why Stephen, our director, called this place Still Waters in a Stormso that kids know that when they are there, they dont have to worry. At Still Waters in a Storm, we never let each others boats sink. When we go out and perform, we call our acting group Still Waters, too.

My apartment is just around the corner from Still Waters, so my sister Cleo and I walk there together. My other two sisters are too little to come with us, and my older brother doesnt like performing as much as I do, so its just Cleo and me.

Still Waters is on the first floor of a building with five floors. The whole place is one big room, with a couch, tables and chairs, and a lot of bookcases. I once heard Stephen say that there are thousands of books at Still Watersadventure, fantasy, books about sisters, books about pirates and cathedrals, and lots of comics and graphic novels. Theres a keyboard in the back and a big window in the front that we decorated with colored tissue paperwhen the sun shines through the paper, the windows look like stained glass and cast rainbow patterns all over the room.

When we get to Still Waters, Cleo and I each play with our friends for a little while, until all the kids have arrived. Sometimes while she waits, Cleo reads Raina Telgemeier books, like Sisters or Smile. Those are her favorite books. I mostly play with my cousins Bernadette and Paulo and my friend Wendy. Sometimes we read Calvin and Hobbes comics together, sometimes we draw, and a lot of times we just talk. Usually my friends Rex, Santiago, Joseph, and Percy are playing soccer. If its nice out, they get to go to the sidewalk out front, but if its raining or cold, they play insideand then watch out for flying balls!

The teenagers are usually the last ones to arrive. Joshua, Alex, and Ruth are in high school, and all three of them are really good at singing and acting. Alex knows how to play the ukulele and the guitar. Ruth plays the ukulele, too. Having the teenagers there is one of my favorite parts of Still Waters. Its like a familythere are little kids, middle kids like me, teenagers, and grown-ups. Like a big family that all fits in one room with thousands of books and colored-paper glass.

Today we are writing a new section of our show, because we dont only act and singwe actually write our own play, section by section. When we have performances, we act all the parts weve written so far, but because the show is serialized, we are always adding new installments to the series. Once we have written and rehearsed a new part, we add it to our next performance.

Our show is inspired by Don Quixote, a book about a regular man in Spain who convinces himself that he is a knight, written by an author named Miguel de Cervantes over four hundred years ago. I play Don Quixote, this man who really, really wants to help people, only he is so clumsy that sometimes he ends up causing more problems than he solves. In the book, Don Quixote rides around the countryside in Spain (which is in Europe, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean from New York). He travels with his horse, Rocinante, and his best friend, Sancho Panza, looking for people to rescue. Wendy plays Sancho Panza, and Rocinante the horse is played by a stuffed animal. Don Quixote is one of the oldest and most important books ever published, and even though it was written so many hundreds of years ago, theres a lot that Miguel de Cervantes understood: like how hard it is to help people and make the world a better place, even if you want to with all your heart.

When we write our play, we use the events of Don Quixote, but sometimes we change the story so that it makes more sense to kids living right now. For example, in the book, Don Quixote does everything he does because he loves a woman named Dulcinea. He wants to be a better knight and fight harder for justice so he can live up to Dulcineas expectations. When we started writing our version of Don Quixote, we talked about how most of us are too young for dating or serious relationships, and it didnt really make sense to us why Don Quixote would do so much for Dulcinea. But all of us do really love our parents. We want to do well in school to make our parents proud. Our favorite part of performing is when our parents clap for us. We wish this world were better and easier so that our parents didnt have to spend so much time working, especially when they are tired. So we changed Dulcinea to Mami, and at the beginning of every show, I say to the audience: Mami, everything I do is because I love you so much in my heart.