A Vindication for the Unwritten – or How to Write Yourself Back Into History

Written by Ana Maria Campoy

Meet Carmelita Colon. Born in Mexico, she arrived in Walla Walla, Washington Territory, with her husband Sebastian in the 1860s. They ran a mule train to the gold mines in Idaho for several years. Later, they sold tamales and ran a Mexican restaurant in Walla Walla.

What was life like in Walla Walla in the late 1800s? What was Carmelita’s life like? Might she have seen women’s rights pioneers Susan B. Anthony and Abigail Scott Duniway speak about suffrage when they toured the Pacific Northwest (including Walla Walla) in 1871?

Based on extensive research, Ana Maria Campoy has created a vibrant portrait of Carmelita Colon, from her childhood in Mexico to life in California and then migration to Washington. She brought this early Walla Walla resident to life and wrote her back into history.

Carmelita is being developed by Key City Public Theatre (KCPT) in Port Townsend under a Washington Stories Fund grant from Humanities Washington. A one-woman show, another character will be the Voice of History.

This program will be followed by a Q&A/discussion period with the audience involving Carmelita, the playwright, and another researcher. Audience interaction is an important part of this and all public humanities programs.

The program is part of KCPT’s Washington Women’s History Tour: Suffrage Lecture Series – a dramatic chronology of the suffrage/women’s rights movement across Washington State, focusing on under-represented voices and little-known stories of BIPOC women.

An expanded, fully-staged version of Carmelita will run as part of Key City Public Theatre’s mainstage season beginning in late April. A touring version will also be available.