I'm a bit confused on this.
Are they claiming it's Mexican land or Indian land or that the two are one and the same?
Are they saying that Mexico is entitled to possess Indian land? If so, why? Why is Mexico so privileged?
If Mexico retakes this land, do they have plans to return it to the Indians?
I was there. It was not a protest it was a riot.
EYE Witness Report (not me)
5/15/05
I was at the Baldwin Park (California) Protest (on May 14, 2005).
We were outnumbered! Maybe 5 to 1 or more. They were more than several hundred. We were 40.
You know the type of crowd we were up against. The usual profanity was spouted. A man grabbed his crotch. A mob, lawlessness. Hatred. Mexican flags. We were called racists and Nazis. They spewed hatred.
The good news is that our side had brave Hispanic Americans who stood with us. I think our side was probably more than 1/3 or our American Hispanic citizens! They were awesome!
Upon being at the protest for under one hour, a 66 year old American citizen was hit in the forehead with a filled, unmarked water bottle. We were standing behind a line of police when the bottle hit her. The police say there is a video but that you can't see where the bottle came from.
The injured 66 year old woman is in Queen of Valley Hospital.
Her cat scan revealed she has some type of blood leakage from the brain. She has been admitted to ICU. She is alert and talking.
The Baldwin Park Police were notified. They sent an officer to ICU to make out a report.
I would like this to be anonymous should you decide to put it on American patrol.com
The 66 year old is a Minutewoman. She spent nearly one month at the Arizona border and returned home recently safe and sound. Now, when she was on the street peacefully assembled, she has sustained a head injury - in under one hour upon having arrived.
I could not leave when the injured woman went to the hospital because we had been ringed in by several hundred protesters. The police stood guard around us 40 or so American citizens. As the rally drew to its appointed close, the word came in that 200 protesters more were on the way. The police escorted the citizens to the police station. Where we waited until the police could evacuate the Latino protesters.
Then police vans took each of us to our cars. We were parked in a nearby school parking lot guarded by police. The police closed the streets by the school and had us leave by the side street.
Name withheld
I don't think even the "artist" knows what she's talking about. She said "the structure is a 'layered history piece' that honors American Indians, immigrants and others who have lived over the centuries on the land now known as Baldwin Park."
"This land was Mexican once, was Indian always and is, and will be again." is from a poem written by Gloria Anzaldua. (You can read the entire poem here.)
Apparently, artist Judy Baca added the other part ("It was better before they came".) herself.
Baca said that Save Our State's complaint over one of the quotes was misguided.
"It was better before they came" was uttered by someone Baca described as "a white man from Arkansas [slick Willie, perhaps ??], a civic leader" who was complaining about the arrival of Mexican Americans after World War II.
"When it went on the arch, its ambiguity became profound," she said. "The 'they' could be any 'they.'"
I don't find it to be "profound", I think that Judy is just an airhead.