La Lucha: An asylum seeker’s journey in real time and on stage

 By Fran Zell

When I decided to write a documentary play about the harrowing journey that more than half a million asylum seekers have taken from Venezuela to the United States, I reached out to Renny Milano, a new arrival I met through volunteer work with a grassroots network in Chicago. Originally I thought I would interview a number of people. But Renny was such a good storyteller, recalled so many details, and relayed them so vividly, that I  soon realized I had a whole play from my conversations with him.

We sat at the dining room table in the apartment he shared with Venezuelan friends. I sent him questions in Spanish on What’s App via  Google Translate:  How long did the journey take?  What was the most difficult part?  The most dangerous?

He replied in Spanish from his phone. I pasted his answers back into the translate app, gradually compiling a document I would later draw from to write the play.

Sometimes he needed to step outside for a smoke, overcome by memories of a time when death was always at his back. But he persisted.

When we finished the interviews he told me he wanted to be in the play.

“But that is impossible,” I said. “I will be writing the play in English, for an English speaking audience.”

He sat there looking at me thoughtfully, with an accepting look on his face that seemed to say, “Ok, whatever you think is best, madre.”   

Like other Nuevos Vecinos (New Neighbors) I assisted, he called me madre. It took months before he would also address me as Fran.

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I met Renny on a cold night in October 2023 when he was living in a tent outside a police station on the South Side of Chicago. It was one tent among many tents that spilled out onto the lawn from the station, where many others —mostly parents with small children—crowded inside every night to sleep on the floor  Thousands of asylum seekers were living at police stations all over the city, awaiting placement in shelters.

The night I met Renny I had come to deliver cough syrup to someone named Johan, but he wasn’t responding to my texts  Suddenly Renny was standing in front of me, telling another volunteer who understood Spanish  that Johan was his friend.

“He lives in the tent next to me and we are both coughing,” Renny said. “We will share it.”

¿Es una tos seca? I asked. I knew the word for cough. There was a lot of coughing at the station during that unusually cold October. Tos, tos, tos, the word reminiscent of the hacking sound itself and restless sleeplessness it caused. I knew the word for “dry” from the labels on Spanish wine I enjoyed in the warmth of my own privileged life.

Renny shook his head. No. It was not a dry cough. 

I saw him at the station a few times after that, when I came to pass out handwarmers, winter hats, gloves, blankets—anything that could lessen the agony of life in a cold, damp tent.

In December I ran into him at a McDonalds near the shelter where he had been living for about a month. He seemed happy to see me and so we sat down with our phones and talked via Google translate. 

He had his health back, he said. And after a long search, had just found a job.  

“It’s a sewing job.”  He mimed the act of pulling cloth through the bouncing needle of a machine. I thought of my immigrant grandparents and the tedious work available to them years ago in clothing industry sweatshops. 

 “It was luck ,” he said of the job that not many months later he would view as a bad situation. “Suerte,” he repeated. “But I won’t get paid for two weeks, so I will be living in poverty for awhile.”

He had expenses. “Gastos, muchos gastos.”  He always had expenses, most importantly sending money to his two daughters, ages 7 and 15 in Peru. None of his family lives in Venezuela any more except for his grandmother. They are among the seven million people who have fled  economic implosion and the deadly violence of a repressive government.

Renny had other good news that day.  He and three friends would be moving into an apartment soon, thanks to three months of rent vouchers that the city was then offering to asylum seekers. As soon as they got settled, he said they would invite a few of the volunteers for dinner, myself included. He didn’t tell me he had worked as a chef in Peru and specialized in seafood, an outstanding Peruvian-style ceviche in particular.  I found that out during a delicious and beautifully presented feast on what turned out to be a sub-zero afternoon in January. It began with several solemn minutes of what Renny called “the prayers.”  Each young man thanked each volunteer for providing necessities, support, and friendship that helped him to feel welcome and less burdened as a newcomer. 

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As I began to think more about the shape of the play, I realized it made sense to include a role for Renny in it. Writing is always an act of faith. So I also leaned into the faith that Renny knew he had the capability of being an actor. And why not?  There is always an intuitive element in our dreams.

I created two Renny characters, one English-speaking, one not, and crafted the dialog in a way that allowed the Spanish to amplify and poeticize the English, and at the same time be understandable even to those who didn’t speak it.  His is a small, supporting role, but without it, My Name Is Renny Edward Milano Salgado would not have been the powerful one-act documentary play that it became. 

In May it premiered as a staged reading at Theater Wit as part of the Chicago Writers Bloc 2024 New Play Festival. I wrote a longer, one person documentary play that was presented with it. How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Venezuelans about helping the asylum seekers and how it helped me recover from the trauma of a home invasion. 

Renny’s acting debut was a big success. But even as he took the stage to recount the story of his journey, his younger brother Nestor and pregnant wife Leidy were somewhere in Central America, following the same arduous trail. Every day they faced another peril, including injury, illness and deadly, extortionist cartels. Renny was consumed with anxiety for them and for the money it was costing him. He had already been skimping on necessities to save up for what he called a “carrito” and which in English slang might be called a crate. What other kind of car can you get for a few thousand dollars? But at least he wouldn’t have to travel two hours by bus at 4 in the morning anymore to get to his sewing factory job.  

He moved out of the apartment and lived on the cheap for a month in a house without a working kitchen.  He got sick and couldn’t get time off from work to see a doctor, went to work anyway despite fever and pain. “If I stay home, someone else will have my job when I return.” he told me.

Things got worse. The carrito needed a new battery, new alternator, brake pads, maybe hoses and water pump soon and he only had money for the battery. In July he and his girl friend Karen got scammed out of more than $800 by a criminal posing as a landlord. Then Renny’s factory job ended and so did a small business selling snacks because he could no longer afford to buy inventory. Meanwhile his brother texted him from Mexico, desperate for money. 

 I started a Go Fund Me for Renny and Karen.  They used it to pay the August rent on an apartment they had moved into in mid July. Renny also used it to get his brother across the border and into Chicago with less than two weeks to spare before baby Hanna Karell was born.

But their lives never stabilized. Renny continued to drive the carrito on a wing and prayer. He found another job, but with fewer hours and less pay than the factory job, and for reasons beyond his control, was never able to start up the snack business again.  As September approached, the landlord raised the rent by $200, and a drunken neighbor began banging on their door with belligerent threats, panicking Karen’s two children. Renny scrambled to find something affordable in a better neighborhood, and a few days ago they moved, financially devastated after paying the first and last month’s rent. And at the end of the moving day, the carrito broke down. 

 “Gastos, tengo gastos,” he keeps telling me, overwhelmed by mounting expenses.  His daughters and grandmother tell him they need more money because everything is costing more.  His brother hasn’t found a job yet and the October rent will be due in less than two weeks.

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Renny has an outgoing personality and generous spirit. He volunteers at a South side food pantry and free store, and—before he had all the carrito trouble—often drove friends wherever they needed to go. Amidst all the stress of his first year in Chicago, he found ways to unwind —-chilling at Latinx street festivals, for instance, or hanging out with friends at the beach. But one of the biggest thrills of his new American life was appearing on stage in the play about his journey.

We will be presenting My Name Is Renny Edward Milano Salgado as staged readings again this month at three church locations in different parts of Chicago. My goal is to bring the story of the Venezuelans’ struggle to as many people as possible.  Performances are 1:30 pm, Sunday September 22 at  Second Unitarian Church, 656 W Barry St, Chicago, IL; 7 pm, Saturday September 28 at Beverly Unitarian Church, 10244 S Longwood Dr, Chicago, IL; and 7 pm, Sunday September 29 at Augustana Lutheran Church, 5500 S Woodlawn Ave, Chicago IL. For more information go to https://www.facebook.com/share/azvao9NeKyxkUB4U/

To contribute to the GoFundMe for Renny and Karen go to https://www.gofundme.com/f/donate-to-aid-karen-and-rennys-recovery

Photos are courtesy of Fran Zell