Maria Full of Grace, out of all the other plays we have read, and the performances we have been to, stands out the most for me because throughout the whole movie, there wasn’t one point where I didn’t feel bad for her. Her personal endeavors as well as here familial dilemma put her under immense pressure, and in the end, she made the right decision by choosing to stay in America with her soon-to-be-born baby so that she can provide the best life possible for her. I praise Maria so much not only because of the hardships that she had to go through, but the decisions she made through them.
Every decision she made, she made it for a reason, and I don’t believe that she was irrational in making those. The whole purpose of Maria coming to America was to provide money for her family and to support her sister’s baby. Even though I wouldn’t support drug trafficking, she only had benevolent intentions as she did so, which is why she was, according to me, definitely justified in becoming a drug trafficking mule. Unfortunately, this is the way of living for many people as it is the only way they can survive in many of these poverty-stricken third-world countries.
Another quality of Maria that I admired was that Maria had her own voice, she wasn’t going to be oppressed by her boss and she wasn’t going to be forced to go back to Columbia and live with her family, she made her own decisions on her own principles which she thought were right.
This piece had such a profound effect on me because somehow, I felt that I could connect with her, even though I have never ever had to experience myself anything like what she had to go through for which I give props to Joshua Marston. The storyline was also very realistic and made me realize the trivialities that we stress ourselves over while people, while there are other people out there just struggling to support their families.
Even though I hadn’t been born yet, my mother was in a similar situation to Maria about eighteen years ago. She came to America pregnant my twin brother and me while my father was working three different jobs trying to provide for us. I was too small back then to understand what was going on but after hearing and watching Maria’s story, I realize the struggles that some people have to go through in order to create a better life for themselves.
