After the rush of winning the 2013 Moth GrandSlam storytelling competition faded, Lily Be (née Lydia Edith Lucio) noticed that her fellow storytellers were overwhelmingly white. “When I heard I was the first Latinx to win the Slam I was like, ‘Are you serious? How can that be?’” she says. “It’s not like we’re some out-of-the-way place. It’s Chicago.”
Telling stories around the table, that was just a thing my family did. My mom and my grandma and my aunts used stories to teach us lessons. Like, “This is the story of that time your aunt got buried in the snow and ruined her new coat and almost froze after she lied about hanging out with some boys, and this is why you don’t lie.”
When I started questioning why I was the only Latinx to win the Moth GrandSlam, the [storytelling] scene didn’t like that. I’d get up on stage and ask, “Who here is from Chicago? Who identifies as a person of color?” It would be like 1 percent. The Moth was like, “Hey, we’re open for everybody.” But that’s not enough. You have to go out and get people.
The Stoop Thu 3/28, 7 PM, Rosa’s Lounge, 3420 W. Armitage, lilybe.com, $5.
Thu 3/28, 7 PM, Rosa’s Lounge, 3420 W. Armitage, lilybe.com, $5.
Story Collider Sat 4/6, 7 PM, Hairpin Arts Center, 2810 N. Milwaukee, storycollider.org, $10.
