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just words vol two : no two 06.21.02 |
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1/25/02 Resisting the Corporatization of Grass Roots Chicano/Latino Community Cultural spaces by Victor Payan (Published in Spring 2002 issue of El Aviso) In his introductory essay for the catalog of the Latino Arts Network's (LAN) "Hecho en Califas: The Last Decade" touring Chicano and Chicana art exhibit, longtime San Diego artist Richard Lou wrote, "the work that we create as Chicano Artists emanates and is in direct response to the love that we have for our families. We embrace the contradictions, the conflicts and triumphs, the quiet and raucous moments of the routine day, the flowering, the decaying, the markings and ceremonies that compose a lifetime all within a society that subjugates. At the core, this work and all the work I do is for them. And in that hopeful light, I am willing to take the chance that the power of the work will ultimately save my children: those significant images in the gallery we keep in our back pocket." The "Hecho en Califas" show, which was curated by Lou, was the result of a collaboration between eight California Chicano/Latino arts organizations and El Andar magazine. The exhibit, scheduled to tour all eight organizations, was to end in May 2001 at the Centro Cultural de la Raza in San Diego, in time for the organization's 30th anniversary. The Centro, which many consider the birthplace of the Chicano/Mexicano/Indigenous community cultural arts movement, was also the birthplace of Richard Lou's Chicano consciousness. It was a place he referred to proudly as his "lugar de nacimiento." There was no way of knowing when the exhibit opened at the new Plaza de la Raza space in Los Angeles in January 2000, that by the time it approached San Diego, Richard Lou, most of the San Diego artists in the show, and an entire grass-roots community of artists, activists, educators and students would have been forced out of the Centro and administratively erased from the organization by a new board which included a gentrification-friendly artist, an aspiring politician, a community development coordinator for Washington Mutual Bank, an Assistant District Attorney and an administrative manager from San Antonio hellbent on the Executive Director position. In addition, all of these new boardmembers were Latino. Ultimately, having exhausted all attempts at dialog with the Board, Richard Lou and a group of San Diego Chicano and Chicana artists, activists and educators formed the Save Our Centro Coalition and made the painful decision to boycott their beloved organization, citing unresolved issues of censorship, exclusion, harassment of artists, violation of the Centro's mission and the forced ouster of their board representative. In addition, the new board had also called the police against community members who had come to voice their grievances. LAN respected the boycott and chose to end the show at Arte Americas in Fresno in February of 2001. Now, one year later, artists in Fresno have also chosen to boycott Arte Americas, citing many of the same issues that appeared in San Diego. According to Patricia Wells Solorzano, a longtime Arte Americas artist, their board includes a former judge, a commissioner of prison terms and a new director who is hostile to the organization's programs for the working class community. According to Wells-Solorzano, many of Fresno's significant artists and cultural workers, including singer-songwriter Agustin Lira, no longer feel welcome at Arte Americas. At the time of their ouster from the Centro, the San Diego artists realized that their troubles were not unique. In San Antonio, New York, San Francisco and elsewhere, similar powerplays were being waged to the detriment of established activist-artists. The takeover of the Pacifica network was also in full-swing as well. In September of 2000, the Save Our Centro Coalition invited noted art critic Shifra Goldman to give a free public presentation to address this phenomenon. In her talk, titled "Globalization and the Privatization of Culture in the Americas: the Present Status of Chicano/Latino Cultural Centers from New York to California," Dr. Goldman outlined the framework for a major offensive underway by Corporate America to gain control of our cultural and media institutions. "We presently function in a period of international hyper-capitalism, of the emerging United States Empire (so-called by a very sharp observer) which intends to dominate not only the economics and politics of the entire world, but also its culture," said Dr. Goldman. "And that domination requires that the culture be business-friendly, and that it not be critical in any way of U.S. policy or world domination." "The methods include (at the biggest level) the gentrification of middle and working class communities by private real estate and government policy makers; the selling of cities to investors - domestic and foreign - by government officials (the present case of the Mission District in San Francisco is a prime example) and the promotion of internal dissent and disorganization by the participants themselves - which might possibly be the case for the Centro Cultural de la Raza in San Diego, as well as the Guadalupe Center for the Arts in San Antonio." Since then, Dr. Goldman's statements have gained an increased relevancy. The bombing of the World Trade Center on Sept.11 has resulted in a nationalistic homogenization of cultural critique (or the absence thereof); and the implosion of Enron has shed light on the anti-democratic machinations of power-hungry corporations. As grass-roots community cultural arts organizations continue to come under attack from corporatizing forces, evidenced by Arte Americas in Fresno, it is a good time to renew the dialog about the cultural and social significance of these institutions and their original missions of independence, self-determination, advocacy, activism and service to the working class community. Can community-based cultural organizations win this new kind of culture war? Can we afford to see them fail? These will be the questions posed in the next installment of "Notes from the New Kind of Culture War," which will feature insights from Chicano and Latino artists, curators and scholars such as Luis Rodriguez, Patricia Wells-Solorzano, Brent Beltran, Shifra Goldman, and Karen Mary Davalos, author of the book Exhibiting Mestizaje: Mexican (American) Museums in the Diaspora. Click here to read New Kind of Culture War #2: All's Unquiet on the Western Front Victor Payan is an award-winning arts writer and a member of the Save Our Centro Coalition in San Diego. Website: http://www.saveourcentro.org. | ||