STANDING TALL: Artist Judy Baca in front of her monument in Baldwin Park.
Posted on 06/28/2005 6:50:07 PM PDT by calcowgirl
BALDWIN PARK, CALIF. – For a dozen years, a 20-foot monument has stood quietly at the rail stop in this predominantly Latino city. Ray Leyba had never bothered to read it - even though he lives next door. It wasn't until the monument became the focus of a group raging against illegal immigration that he walked across the street and looked at one inscription:
"This land was Mexican once, was Indian always and is, and will be again."
Mr. Leyba was surprised, but his response pales in comparison to the recent fury launched at the slab of concrete by Save Our State (SOS). Though not based in Baldwin Park, the group has spearheaded two recent protests, calling those words seditious and likening the town to "occupied territory," according to SOS founder Joseph Turner.
To many others, the artwork and the city itself have become pawns in a larger nationwide debate about immigration - from "minutemen" patrolling the US-Mexican border to protests in cities against day-labor sites and driver licenses for undocumented immigrants.
The tension in this normally quiet town nestled in the San Gabriel Valley is one more indication of how polarizing the immigration issue in America has become. And, as is often the case in these fights that symbolize deeper divisions in society, it has caught local officials by surprise.
"We have never had this type of environment ever fostered in our community," says Manuel Lozano, the mayor of Baldwin Park, which has had to hire a press consultant to field calls and spent $30,000 in overtime for its police force for a protest this weekend that drew more than 500 counter protesters. "It has awoken us to ... see that racism is still alive and thriving."
SOS claims that another of the many phrases that comprise the work - "it was better before they came" - is aimed at whites who displaced Mexicans in the region in the 1800s.
But Judith Baca, the work's creator and a well-known muralist and artist-activist in Los Angeles, says the piece was created to memorialize Baldwin Park's heritage. The phrase was actually uttered by a white politician who was lamenting the influx of Mexican immigrants in the area after World War II, Ms. Baca says. She wanted the quote to be ambiguous on the monument for the purpose of generating public dialogue since the term "they" captures the essence of any one group feeling threatened by an emerging ruling power.
In some ways, the work is doing exactly what the artist intended.
On most days, passengers waiting at the transit station pay little heed to the monument. But over the past two months Baldwin Park has held at least three town hall meetings to discuss the piece, entitled "Danza Indigenas," which has suddenly taken on new importance for the city. The city has no plans to alter the work, and the police are monitoring the site against vandalism attempts.
Immigration debates are common in California. Protests erupted across the state in the 1990s because of Proposition 187, a proposal to cut off some health and social services for undocumented immigrants and their children.
More recently Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) praised the work of the minutemen who launched a patrol along the Mexican-American border this spring; a splinter group is planning their own patrol in California this fall.
Many times anti-immigrant groups will do anything to move debate further, analysts say, even if that means creating a furor around a monument that has otherwise generated little interest in a town of about 80,000.
"[SOS is] not there to solve the problems of Baldwin Park," says Raphael Sonenshein, a political science professor at California State University, Fullerton. "They are using Baldwin Park as a backdrop ... to make a political point they hope [will feed into] an emerging debate statewide."
Mr. Turner of SOS says taxpayer money should not be used to fund messages that he considers anti-American. He says he found out about Danza Indigenas because a resident wrote to Turner after seeing SOS protesting billboards for a Spanish-language television station referring to L.A. as "Los Angeles, Mexico."
Turner says he has no plans to stop his aggressive street-level activism.
Mayor Lozano says he would just like the protesters, whom he sees as "outsiders," to leave his town. He says anti-immigration has never been expressed here, where Mexicans began arriving in force during the 1970s. Today Baldwin Park is nearly 80 percent Latino - the reason he and many others claim that SOS has chosen the city to stage their most recent anti-immigration efforts.
Baca and many others, however, worry about the lasting effects the protests could have on legitimate discussion in the form of artistic censorship. She says it concerns her that "a voice like the SOS or the minutemen is given such credence within this moment in American history."
She says the nation is so polarized that the public art world is seeing ever more evidence of vitriolic dialogue. "The arts have been very important places to communicate with one another in a less contentious way."
That's true for Leyba, who came to the US from Mexico some 20 years ago. He thinks the piece is educational and doesn't want it taken down. But he has concerns about some of the words "that might be offensive. The white people might have a point."
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STANDING TALL: Artist Judy Baca in front of her monument in Baldwin Park.
Ping
The sad part is that some people will mistakingly associate the anti-Hispanics with Republicans and true conservatives. True conservatives have never been opposed to immigrants, bur rather have welcomed them.
True conservatives have never been opposed to immigrants, bur rather have welcomed them.
Yep, the "LEGAL" ones.
How many times, in how many ways will how many "news organizations" recycle this "story"?
Every so often, when the outcry by Leftists against "racist immigrant bashers" dies down a bit, some outfits dusts it off, rearranges the paragraphs, and reprints it as "news". Gotta keep the troops whipped up, showing how those "paranoid Conservative Alien haters" are all freaked out & lathered up over a piece of 'art' again.
Isn't it interesting that there are no dates of when any of the quotes were made?
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Monument in Baldwin Park, CA draws protest ^
Posted by JesseP
On News/Activism ^ 06/05/2005 10:04:13 PM MDT · 53 replies · 2,051+ views
United American Committee ^ | 06-05-05 | Jesse P - UAC
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controversy arises over baldwin park monument [la reconquista] ^
Posted by La Enchiladita
On Bloggers & Personal ^ 05/15/2005 12:55:08 PM MDT · 31 replies · 826+ views
SPARC ^ | May 12, 2005 | Judy Baca
___________________________________
I'm NOT trying to criticize anyone for POSTING new articles; rather criticizing "the media" for recycling stories over & over to stir their agenda; but, never going deeper into the actual story.
FYI, there has been more than one protest. Your links refer to the prior one. The one being addressed took place this past Saturday.
Protest Anti-Immigrant Racists in Baldwin Park (CA)--TodayOn Saturday, June 25, progressive grassroots organizations, including the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, are mobilizing a counter demonstration against the anti-immigrant groups "Save Our State" and the Minutemen. These racists want to tear down a pro-Mexican community monument. They seek to criminalize Latinos and dishonor their proud heritage.
(snip)
Thanks; they really are stirring that pot.
As I said, no criticism of postings; but we can add A.N.S.W.E.R. to the media for recycling & stirring...but we knew that.
Other than A.N.S.W.E.R. (and the various La Raza groups, too?) regularly showing up, and being counter-protested, has anyone really made a serious stink about the monument since the original stories?
I have no idea. Maybe one of the other folks will know.
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