Abstract: How can a historical biographical play best address the present moment? A generation after the passing of Texas civil rights icon Héctor P. García, amid the first of an ongoing series of laws regulating diversity and education, the coauthors staged a play that made a case for remembering his life and legacy. The product was fundamentally connected to the coauthors' process, which was rooted in activating students' civic duty. This essay outlines the coauthors' archival and creative process, demonstrating how performance of collective memory can speak to the urgency of today. García's story is so central to Corpus Christi that by telling it, the TAMU-CC campus found a way to draw closer to the community at a time when mutual understanding, especially around topics of education and civil rights, has become more necessary than ever.
Muñoz et al. (2026) studied this question.