Organizing and Theater: Bus Riders Union

The Purpose and the Players

Founded in 1992, the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union/Sindicato de Pasajeros (BRU) advocates for the civil-rights and mass-transit and environmental interests of its working-class, ethnically and racially diverse membership. In the past eight years, the BRU has grown to more than 3,000 dues-paying members, with an additional 50,000 self-identified members on the buses. In 1999, BRU organizers started the BRU Teatro as an instrument to organize bus riders.

Los Angeles, with a population of 3.5 million people, has one of the worst mass-transit systems of any major U.S. city, leaving working-class residents without adequate transportation to and from their jobs. Presently the city is making plans to build a major railway line to wealthy suburban areas, while at the same time bus lines in the poorest neighborhoods are being cut. In 1996, BRU won a major civil-rights consent decree against the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority on behalf of the city’s 500,000 bus riders, and has since focused on enforcing the consent decree’s provisions.

In 1999, the BRU’s lead organizer, Martin Hernandez, started looking for new ways to organize bus riders. Hernandez has acting and directing experience, and there had been several personal connections between BRU and Los Angeles’ Cornerstone Theater, which has a national reputation for engaging amateur community members in classical plays updated to local conditions and experience. With a grant from The Rockefeller Foundation to explore ways to bridge differences among bus riders, the BRU formed a partnership with Cornerstone. Last year Cornerstone helped 12 BRU leaders develop skits about public-transit concerns.

	Dolores's Dilemma, Bus Riders Union Teatro.

Typically, the BRU Teatro’s performances have rotating casts from their membership base. Each skit is performed at least ten times on buses or at bus stops. Most are performed on the Crenshaw bus line, which runs through the predominately African-American neighborhood of South Central, the East L.A. lines that travel through the Latino neighborhoods, and the ethnically diverse Pico line. The actors incorporate into their performances the responses and twists provided by bus riders themselves. Sometimes a skit’s performer is also the writer and director, as in this example offered by Hernandez.

"Shepherd Petit gets around by public transport in a wheel chair. He’s been an active member but never really had a way to express his concerns. Now that he is able to put his ideas on paper, in a script, he can get involved in a whole new way. He recently wrote a play called The Invisible Passenger that deals with the common contempt for handicapped bus riders. Experience has shown him that many drivers and passengers are not afraid to express their sentiments that handicapped riders are a burden and slow people down. He usually performs his skit for people waiting at the bus stop, who usually take notice and are very moved."

Measuring Success

The BRU Teatro measures success by the number of new members recruited as a result of a skit and by the leadership skills and confidence gained by members as they develop scripts and perform in public.

Hernandez distinguishes between formal theater and the BRU’s performances: "When you do a play in a big theater to a traditional audience you measure success by the applause and the reviews that follow. You feel like you need a huge response. When you do skits on buses, it’s the little things you notice. The passengers that engage with the actors, the questions people ask, maybe even just one person that for the first time realizes his or her rights as a bus rider."

Hernandez emphasizes that the conversations with passengers after performances are the most important part of the organizing. This, he posits, "is where we really start to hear about people’s issues and experiences, and it is also an opportunity to popularize the facts concerning transit policy and rights."

Recently the Teatro performed a comical skit about a young woman, Dolores, dressed in a wedding gown, who is waiting for her groom to join her on the way to their wedding. The groom’s bus never comes and her frustration with the MTA service brings her to tears. While fretting over the late bus, the character of a "conniving MTA rail contractor who tries to steal Dolores’ heart" approaches Dolores, but Dolores is not fooled and "concludes (with much support and cheering from passengers) that her heart belongs to the Bus Riders Union." During one of the performances of Dolores’ Dilemma, a bus driver came over the loud speaker, demanding silence. When the actors and passengers continued to improvise, the driver stopped the bus, refusing to move until everyone quieted down. Hernandez interprets such experiences "as a mark of our effectiveness, not because we want to cause disruptions or risk the safety of passengers, but because several passengers yelled back to the driver that they had a right to learn about their rights as bus riders. Us organizers didn’t have to say anything at that point."

 Lessons Learned

The BRU Teatro has articulated lessons learned and considerations for future work.

• The careful scripting of diverse roles requires a deeper look at all perspectives and the meaning and content of the messages.

• Playmaking provides an important opportunity for leaders and members to develop skills and express themselves.

• Sharing information in public places is an important but challenging part of the work; there is a need to learn how to balance the promotion of debate and the mitigation of altercations.

• The Teatro’s organizing approach allows citizens more opportunities for input. There is a need to learn how to incorporate citizen responses and interests into strategies and messages.

Original CAN/API publication: February 2001