Voces de Inmigración 2 features true stories of immigrants in Florida.
By Kara Newhouse/Suncoast Searchlight
Original Air Date: October 15, 2025
Host: As the immigration crackdown continues, a Sarasota theater is spotlighting the human side of immigration in Voces de Inmigración 2. The show is presented by CreArte Latino Cultural Center and based on interviews with immigrants from the region. Kara Newhouse with Suncoast Searchlight has this story.
Kara Newhouse: On a Monday evening, Perla Avalos stood at a music stand in a small rehearsal room. The 46-year old was practicing lines from a monologue of a local immigrant woman.
Reading through round tortoise shell glasses, Avalos took on the voice of a woman whose son had been charged with a DUI after a party. He was then detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Since then, he’d been transferred to ICE facilities in Texas and Colorado. Despite him being a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA, the woman feared her son would be deported to Mexico.
Carlos Ramírez and Edward Ossa discuss the script of Voces de Inmigración 2. The show will be presented by CreArte Latino Cultural Center Oct. 17, 18 and 19. Photo by Kara Newhouse, Suncoast Searchlight
Avalos read from the script: “En este momento no tenemos esperanzas de que salga.”
We currently have no hope for his release.
As Avalos spoke, her castmates in Voces de Inmigración 2 listened from a row of conference chairs and glanced at their own scripts.
The show is a production of CreArte Latino Cultural Center. It features true stories of immigrants living in Florida. It will be performed in Spanish with English surtitles at CreArte Latino’s performance space on Northgate Boulevard in Sarasota this weekend.
Voces de Inmigración 2 follows an earlier production last year. This version has all new stories and a different cast.
Juan Pablo Salas, one of the directors of Voces de Inmigración 2, laughs during a rehearsal Monday night. Photo by Kara Newhouse, Suncoast Searchlight
After last year, many people asked CreArte Latino’s co-founder and producing artistic director if the nonprofit would do the show again. Here’s Carolina Franco.
Carolina Franco: Part one was so successful and so impactful—so powerful—that I’m still hearing about it a year later.
KN: The need to hear immigrants’ real experiences feels even more pressing now.
Since his second term began, U.S. President Donald Trump has pushed for mass deportations. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has jumped at the challenge.
Between Trump’s January 20 inauguration and late July, nearly 4,000 people were deported following ICE arrests in Florida. That’s more than triple the same period last year, according to a Suncoast Searchlight analysis of federal data.
Juan Pablo Salas and Elvira Sánchez-Blake, directors of Voces de Inmigración 2, give feedback to actors during a rehearsal Monday night. Photo by Kara Newhouse, Suncoast Searchlight
The vast majority of people who were deported came from Latin American countries. Less than half had criminal convictions.
The first Voces de Inmigración show depicted the diverse journeys that 14 immigrants took to the United States. This year’s monologues focus on how current immigration policy is affecting people as well as key institutions such as schools, churches and the media.
Avalos portrays two characters in the show. There’s the mom whose son was detained and a professor who is navigating the challenges of teaching topics related to diversity right now.
Avalos relates to both women.
She is a Spanish teacher and the mother of a 17-year-old boy. She worries about her son going out in Bradenton and Sarasota with his friends. Like other young people, he wants to experience the newfound freedom of having a driver’s license. He has legal status in the U.S., but Avalos still fears what could happen if he encounters the police as a young Latino.
Perla Avalos (center) discusses the script of Voces de Inmigración 2 during a rehearsal Monday night. Cast members Ivonne Batanero (left) and Edward Ossa are also pictured (right). Photo by Kara Newhouse, Suncoast Searchlight
Perla Avalos: So I feel the same as this mom.
KN: She hopes to inspire those kinds of connections with the audience, too.
PA: Just hear, listen, feel. Feel the stories.
KN: The show includes a bilingual “talkback” with the audience at the end.
Juan Pablo Salas is a co-director of Voces de Inmigración 2. He said the talkback is the most important part of the event.
Juan Pablo Salas: What CreArte wants to do is create bridges between the communities, so we needed to create this dialogue.
KN: Salas said that 10 years ago, a play like this would have been a celebration of dynamic communities of immigrants.
Now, it’s much heavier.
María Angée laughs during a rehearsal for Voces de Inmigración 2, a theater production featuring true stories of immigrants living in the Suncoast. Photo by Kara Newhouse, Suncoast Searchlight
He doesn’t know what will happen next in the lives of the people he and his co-director, Elvira Sánchez-Blake, interviewed for the monologues. Will the mother played by Avalos get to see her son again?
JPS: When we are presenting, is he free? Or has he been deported? These are lives that are right now in the middle of big decisions. Those decisions don’t necessarily depend on them, and their lives may be transformed from one second to the next.
KN: CreArte Latino Cultural Center will present Voces de Inmigración 2 on Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 5 p.m. All performances are at 1913 Northgate Blvd. in Sarasota.
For Suncoast Searchlight, I’m Kara Newhouse.To read the full report, go to suncoastsearchlight.org/voces-inmigracion-immigration-latino-play.
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