Radical Organizing and Performance in Envisioning Change: Dr. Irene Mata’s Plenary Lecture

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An audience of several hundred students at the 2023 Plenary Lecture, Photo: Kimberly Manyanga

On Thursday, October 8, Dr. Irene Mata, a professor of American studies at Wellesley College will deliver the 2026 Commonwealth Honors College Plenary Lecture. Her talk will dive into topics such as Latinx performance art, radical organizing, and how we can use the past to create hope for the future. She recently published a book called Beyond the Moment: Connecting Histories of Latinx Performance and Resistance that shows how Latinx performance art is deeply intertwined with key social and political movements throughout time.

Where it All Began

As a first-generation college student, Dr. Irene Mata found herself asking what it was about her that helped her get into college. She didn’t believe that she was smarter than her siblings or parents who didn’t attend college, and she wondered how her race, gender, sexuality, and immigration status were all connected to this question.

Eventually, she realized that it came down to a level of structural support from her teachers that her siblings and parents didn’t have access to. The people who pushed her in the classroom from a young age helped her to hone in on her curiosity and take it to the next level.

“Sometimes,” Mata reflects, “We are lucky.”

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Dr. Irene Mata will be the 2026 Commonwealth Honors College Plenary Lecture Speaker.

Mata insists that what we study can and should be deeply connected to who we are and what we feel passionate about. Her research cannot be separated from her history growing up in El Paso as a Chicana girl, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“As young scholars, learning about our communities, our struggles, and where we come from is a deep form of love,” Mata says.

How Mata Fell in Love with Performance Art and Radical Organizing

During her undergraduate degree, Mata was studying in a literature department that had a very expansive definition of what literature was. Because of this, she got the opportunity to study theater.

Her passion was sparked not just by the aesthetic, but by how performance art could become a tool for organizing, education, and inspiration. This led her to one of her key areas of research—the concept of radical organizing.

Mata defines radical organizing as “intersectional, community-centered, and committed to social justice.” Radical organizers "recognize a need in their community and take action, instead of waiting for outside resources to help them." This can be seen in performance art that seeks to raise awareness and call upon the past to inform the future.

“No Papers, No Fear” Ride for Justice

One key example of radical organizing was the “No Papers, No Fear” Ride for Justice in 2012. In this initiative, a group of undocumented immigrants got on a bus and drove through a series of Southern states on the way to the Democratic National Convention, making stops in various cities to put on short skits called “actos” and to “come out” as undocumented.

The “UndocuBus” from “No Papers, No Fear” was painted with monarch butterflies. Photo by Jobs with Justice.

This project was female and queer-led, and it evoked many other political movements along the way, such as the Freedom Rides, queer activism, and Chicano art. And while this project didn’t cause immigration reform, that doesn’t mean that it failed—it simply planted a seed for future activists.

“What I want to argue is that they’re actually creating a type of textual mentoring for activists today,” Mata says, “we can look back at that archive that they’ve gifted us and learn about these strategies in the same ways they did from previous movements.”

Mata will be taking “No Papers, No Fear” to the Commonwealth Honors College to illustrate the power of radical organizing in her upcoming Plenary Lecture. She hopes that students who attend the lecture will come away able to “recognize the value of understanding moments of resistance in the past and the role that they play in fostering hope for a better future.”

To learn more about Dr. Irene Mata’s expertise on Latinx performance art, radical organizing, and “No Papers, No Fear,” come to Commonwealth Honors College’s Plenary Lecture from 5-6 p.m. on Thursday, October 8 in the Student Union Ballroom.