Healing in the Gap of Time: Resonance and Resilience in José Cruz González’s Invierno

This chapter situates Chicano playwright José Cruz González’s play Invierno within a growing tradition of reimagining Shakespeare’s works to reflect the histories, cultures, and languages of the contested region known today as the US–Mexico Borderlands. Invierno uses the tragicomic and multitemporal features of The Winter’s Tale to tell a story about the Central Coast of California and its peoples that is not just relevant to Borderlands contexts and communities but that also embraces resonances across “the wide gap of time.” A resonant Shakespeare, this chapter argues, allows us to recognize a more dynamic relationship between past and present and to imagine a future in which many languages, knowledges, and worldviews can thrive.