“Ortega & Murillo Should Sue Trump for Copyright Violation”
says comedian Martha Chaves
“Trump is proud of sending masked men to kidnap people. Please! That’s not original. The Nicaraguan dictatorship was already doing that,” jokes Chaves.
HAVANA TIMES – When Martha Chaves was a little girl, the nuns at the “La Asunción” school in Managua asked her if she thought her job would be “saying silly things.” Thirty-two years later, the Nicaraguan-Canadian comedian has become one of the most recognized voices in stand-up comedy in Canada.
Martha Chaves is also an actress, screenwriter, teacher, and LGBTIQ+ community activist. She is a strong advocate for the Nicaraguan exile community. When the sociopolitical crisis in Nicaragua began in 2018, she carried the blue and white flag upside down everywhere she went as a sign of protest.
We spoke with this humorous woman who has the gift of connecting with audiences of all nationalities, turning “her misfortunes into comedy,” and maintaining a deep commitment to social causes.
“For me, doing stand-up isn’t just personal expression, or just making people laugh — at this point, that’s the easy part. It’s a cultural service that connects, humanizes, and gives value to our stories,” confesses the Nicaraguan-Canadian.
Martha Chaves: 32 Years on Stage
Her comedy career took off in Montreal in 1993, when she took a comedy course with Andy Nulman, founder and CEO of Just For Laughs, the largest stand-up comedy festival in the world.
“I took the course without the intention of making a career out of it — it was more of a ‘let’s see what happens,’” recalls Martha Chaves.
The final assignment was to perform in a live show. She was nervous, but her instructor reassured her with dark humor: “Don’t worry, kid. The good thing about stand-up is that if it goes badly, at least no one’s going to laugh at you.”
Before becoming a comedian, she was an obsessive fan of the Just For Laughs festival. Every year she eagerly awaited the event to see her favorite comedians; without social media, she recorded them on VCR and memorized their routines “like studying for an exam,” she explains.
Over her career, she has had the opportunity to perform for two Canadian prime ministers: in 2014 she opened the Pan Am Games in front of Stephen Harper, and in 2018 she introduced Justin Trudeau at an event where he was honored by the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) for her support of the LGBTQ2S+ community.
In 2017, after six nominations, she won “Stand-Up Comic of the Year” at the Canadian Comedy Awards. In 2023 she was recognized as one of the “TLN 10 Most Influential Hispanic Canadians,” and in 2025 she was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award alongside her team for the show The Root of All Evil at the Winnipeg Comedy Festival.
Currently, Martha Chaves teaches stand-up in two institutions: the Humber College Comedy Writing and Performance Program, where she works full time with recent high school graduates; and at Metropolitan University, with students over 50. She also provides one-on-one coaching via Zoom to students worldwide.
“Speaking freely is already an act of resistance”
For the Nicaraguan comedian, being a Latina in Canada comes with a responsibility that goes beyond entertainment. “I went from wanting to make people laugh to feeling obligated to be a role model… not a runway model, but a model of representation,” she says.
“I’m an activist simply by being who I am and using my platform to express it. For example, I’m everything Trump hates: Latina, gay, fat, and Canadian. Just existing and speaking freely is already an act of resistance,” Martha Chaves asserts.
She collaborates with organizations such as the Nobel Women’s Initiative, led by five women Nobel Peace Prize laureates including Guatemalan activist Rigoberta Menchú, and with Toby’s Place, a shelter for LGBTQ2S+ youth rejected by their families.
“I’m on the diversity and inclusion committee of my union, ACTRA. I also work with Greenpeace Canada and Mining Watch Canada. My activism is my comedy, my life, and my way of saying: ‘we’re here, we resist, and we will not be silenced,’” she says proudly.
Martha Chaves: “Nicaragua is in my DNA”
Martha Chaves left Nicaragua when she was 17. She had attended a Catholic girls’ school and even considered becoming a nun. Her parents were lawyers for the Somoza family. In January 1979, she took a scholarship to study in Canada; her mother also suspected she was dating a girl, and it was a chance to get her out of the country.
“Her suspicions were correct, and they sent me to Montreal to ‘cure’ the gay. Imagine — they sent me to a place with the most beautiful women,” she recalls, laughing.
When she was in school, her mother would praise her impersonations of her friends. “My mom was super strict, but she celebrated my antics like no one else,” she says.
After the April 2018 massacre in Nicaragua, Martha Chaves began dressing religiously in blue and white and always carried a Nicaraguan flag. However, when the pandemic hit, she could no longer keep up the promise. “I decided that life is too short to keep waiting for tyrants to step down or kick the bucket,” she says.
“Nicaragua is always with me — in my tongue, my skin, and my comedy. Nicaragua is the ABCs of the DNA of my life,” she affirms.
“As long as those people are in power, I won’t go to Nicaragua”
Martha Chaves last visited Nicaragua in 2005. She performed twice: once at the Rubén Darío Theater — where there was an earthquake during her show — but she’s best remembered for her performance at the now-closed “Ruta Maya” venue, where she made a joke about Rosario Murillo, who at the time was just Ortega’s wife.
“If Chayo (Murillo’s nickname) went to class with the devil, people would think she’s a student — but she’s the teacher,” the comedian said. Her joke prompted a pro-Murillo journalist to write seven critical articles about her.
“As long as those people are in power, I will not return to Nicaragua — not for a show, not even for a visit,” she stated.
“I don’t think in a place where you can’t say anything, you can be authentic or do stand-up comedy — unless you live in a fantasy world where you don’t care about your neighbor, where you don’t care where your country is headed, because your comfort allows you to,” she emphasizes.
The comedian admits that she can’t always talk about Nicaragua’s political situation in Canada, “a country where maybe people don’t even know where Nicaragua is located.”
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.