The works of English playwright and poet William Shakespeare have seen countless adaptations since they were first introduced during the 17th century.
The 2025 book Shakespeare in Tongues by author Kathryn Vomero Santos examines how Shakespeare is still used as a spotlight to bring attention to lesser-known histories of linguistic oppression and colonial resistance.
Santos is a co-founder of the Borderlands Shakespeare Colectiva, a collection of academics, artists and activists who adapt Shakespeare’s works through a borderlands perspective.
She said that it’s important to study the ways that Shakespeare intersects with histories, cultures, and languages of the U.S. Mexico borderlands.
“I’ve been very interested in following how Shakespeare can really open up conversations because Shakespeare does carry enormous cultural capital," Santos said.
Shakespeare in Tongues explores adaptations that were inspired by a wide range of topics, including Indian boarding schools, the recovery of an indigenous language, and the yearslong ban in Arizona on Mexican American studies in school.
Santos specifically highlighted the poem El Hamlet Fronterizo or El Border Hamlet by performance artist Guillermo Gómez‐Peña and California poet Iris De Anda’s To be a pocha or not to be.
“Hamlet’s "To be or not to be" soliloquy (from Hamlet) is often held up as this symbol of the universal human because it speaks to the dilemmas that many of us are contemplating," she said. “What these two (border) poems do is show that the poem isn’t fully universal but can be transformed to speak to a border experience and the ambivalence that a border subject faces.”
Shakespeare in Tongues is part of the larger series Spotlight on Shakespeare, which explores how contemporary movements help shed new light and perspective on the Bard’s works.
