WICKED (MOTHERS DAY)

How Watching Wicked With My Mom Led to an Unexpected Reunion

For as long as I can remember, my mother and I have struggled to communicate. She’s free-spirited, reserved about her past, and has always carried a quiet weight that I never fully understood. I knew she had a difficult childhood—I saw it in her relationship with my grandmother—but she rarely spoke about it. It was a silence I grew up accepting, yet never quite grasping.

Then one afternoon, we sat down to watch a movie. I had already seen Wicked in English, but when it became available in Spanish on Peacock (shoutout to you, Peacock, for the inclusivity), I decided to play it again, this time for my mom and my sister.

I busied myself in the background, making lunch and folding laundry while they immersed themselves in the story. As the film neared its climax—when Elphaba discovers the book of magic—my mother turned to my sister and, with unguarded honesty, said, This is how I see my life.

She related to Elphaba’s struggles—her sense of isolation, her strained relationship with her mother, the feeling of never truly belonging. She spoke of losing her father at a young age, of missing him every day, of feeling disconnected from her siblings, always having to prove her place in family gatherings. And for the first time, she voiced it all.

I had understood Elphaba’s journey in English—the loneliness, the longing, the fight for acceptance. But here was my mother, speaking in Spanish, telling me that this was the first time she had seen herself reflected in a character. The power of the story, translated into her language, made her feel heard in a way she never had before.

It struck me: so much of storytelling is shaped by language. Stories of magic, family, resentment, resilience—they exist across cultures, yet the emotional weight of those narratives often feels locked behind language barriers. Seeing my mother connect so deeply with Wicked in Spanish made me realize how critical it is to ensure narratives are accessible in every language. Because when they are, people who have long struggled to express their feelings finally have a voice.

This experience showed me that there are no limits anymore. We can tell our stories, put them out into the world, and someone on the other side of the globe—someone speaking a different language, living a different life—can find themselves in them.

I am so grateful for this film. Not only did Wicked help me feel seen in English, but it also gave my mother a space to feel understood in Spanish. And in that moment, for the first time, I embraced her and told her she didn’t need to apologize for her struggles. There was no shame in her past—only resilience. And now, together, we can rebuild the connection we’ve both yearned for.

Because stories have the power to unite us, across languages, across generations, across worlds.