Liberty, Oregon takes place at the beach and various small towns in the Pacific Northwest in the 1930s and 1940s. The time period occurs before workerÆs rights or labor unions were a mainstay of American labor. The play revolves around the brutality of local law enforcement officials against immigrant workers. When one of the workers is rounded up by authorities and taken away, never to be seen again, his daughter, Nadia, struggles to gain control of her life while seeking her missing father. Nadia suffers at the hands of a religious American woman who abuses her physically and verbally, while forcing her to adopt Christianity and Jesus in her life. Nadia escapes to search for her father and is befriended by a kindly Asian woman named Mrs. Hirase.
When Mrs. Hirase is deported, Nadia is alone once more, only to find solace in the attention and support of a writer from New York, Albert. Albert promises to help find her father, discovering that he has been killed in a concentration camp setting where the workers are housed. When Mrs. Hirase dies, Nadia inherits her money and possessions. Albert tells Nadia he has feelings for her and would like to start a new life with her in California, but Nadia rejects his offer and walks off toward the mountain in search of the remains of her father.
There are a number of themes incorporated into Liberty, Oregon. One of these themes is the suffering and lack of rights on behalf of immigrant workers in this period in American history. Another theme is the way in which prejudice and racism often undermined the happiness and rights of working-class immigrants. We see that Nadia is subjected to physical and verbal abuse by the American woman who tries to force her to adopt Christianity and Jesus, with the aid of Brother Ziegler and Brother Ringer. Nadia is forced to become ôAmerican,ö through talking and acting like an American and is made to sing American songs. We also see th...