“The work is not a work of a lone artist working without relationship to the community, but rather a representation of community sensibilities and sentiment of the time.”
—Judith F. Baca1
JUDITH F. BACA’S PUBLIC ART projects are always participatory, from her famous Great Wall of Los Angeles to her lesser-known works. Her murals and monuments belong to the community, for the community takes an active role in creating them. To Baca, public art is exactly as it sounds: art that is about, created by and belonging to the public. At the same time, her work is never designed to be safe or sanitized. Rather it addresses the complexities and multiplicities of voices in a community and their history. This was the case with Danzas Indigenas.
Baca’s Danzas Indigenas is located at the Baldwin Park Metrolink station, twenty miles from downtown Los Angeles, and was installed in 1993. It stood without incident until 2005, when controversy was thrust upon it from outside the community. In 2005, Save Our State (SOS), an extreme anti-immigrant group (formed in 2004 and based out of Ventura County—eighty miles northwest of Baldwin Park), asserted that the monument was seditious. As “evidence,” they relied upon two quotes out of many that were written on the side of Baca’s monument.
Save Our State demanded that the city remove the text and, if they did not, SOS would take matters into their own hands, which they did. They staged two demonstrations in Baldwin Park, one in May 2005, the other in June 2005. Not willing to back down, Baca, the city government, and the community fought back. What unfolded was an incredible series of nonviolent resistance and creative protests, a struggle where a community defended their monument, an artist became a leader, and a community told a hate group that they were not welcome in their city.
In the early 1990s, Baca received a $56,000 commission to produce a public artwork at the Baldwin Park Commuter Rail Station that reflected the history of the region, ranging from the effect that Spanish missions had on indigenous peoples to how the present-day city of Baldwin Park had grown to become a multiethnic community. The project contained two central elements: a train platform and a monument situated in a plaza. The four-hundred-foot train platform contained written phrases on the ground in indigenous languages that acted as voices coming up from the earth. In the plaza near the metro station, Baca constructed a twenty-foot-tall mission arch that referenced the site’s proximity to the mission of San Gabriel. Baca writes, “Its intention was to become a site of public memory for the people of Baldwin Park; to make visible their invisible history.”2
On the arch itself were quotes from the community, quotes that were far from controversial and ones that represented a multiplicity of voices: “The kind of community that people dream of—rich and poor, brown, yellow, red, white, all living together”; “Use your brain before you make up your mind”; and “a small town feeling.”
Also included were two quotes that proved to be more contentious. One quote was from a fragment of a poem by the acclaimed Chicana feminist author Gloria Anzaldúa: “This land was Mexican once, was Indian always, and is, and will be again.” Baca explains, “I chose this quote because . . . descendants of the Gabrielinos still live in the region, making Anzaldúa’s text particularly relevant to the increasing indigenous population.”3 Also included was the quote, “It was better before they came,” which Baca intended to be ambiguous:
About which “they” is the anonymous voice speaking? The statement was made by an Anglo local resident who was speaking about Mexicans. The ambiguity of the statement was the point, and is designed to say more about the reader than the speaker—and so it has.4
The “reader” in this case was Save Our State; it highlighted these two quotes, decontextualized them from the rest of the public artwork, and claimed that the monument was seditious and “evidence” that a reconquista movement was attempting to return the land to Mexico. Joseph Turner, the twenty-eight-year-old spokesperson for the group, argued that
the monument in Baldwin Park is not just a rock. It is a disgusting testament to how pathetically apathetic Americans have grown in response to the hostile takeover attempt by the Mechistas and the massive illegal alien invasion. It is a slap in the face to all Americans and an insult to us all. We have a patriotic obligation to ensure that the seditious language on that monument is removed. And one way or another, it will be removed. Together, we will drive a stake through the heart of the “reconquista” movement.5
Turner’s violent and racist language was central to SOS and their tactics. The SOS website read:
Americans are tired of the unchecked third world invasion of illegal aliens . . . They are tired of watching their great American culture disappear, only to watch it be replaced by other cultures that are inferior and contradictory to everything this country was built upon . . . We are seething with anger and boiling with rage. And we are motivated and determined to fight back. This is our land. This is our fight. And we are willing to bleed to defend it.6
On May 14, 2005, SOS brought their rage to Baldwin Park. Approximately twenty members of the group picketed a busy street intersection, where they were met by nearly a thousand counterdemonstrators. A police line stood between the two sides to ensure that the tense situation did not descend into a full-scale riot. Police also guarded Baca’s monument from the threats that SOS would tear it down if the quotes they objected to were not removed.
Video footage of the event demonstrates just how ugly the situation became.7 A woman with SOS was caught on tape calling a Latino man a “mongrel”. Another woman with SOS shouted at the counterdemonstrators, “You go back to Mexico! We’re home! This is our land! This is not your land!” Counterdemonstrators mainly shouted “Racists, go home!” One person in the crowd hurled a water bottle that hit an SOS supporter in the head, sending her to the hospital for observation. No other injuries took place and no arrests were reported.
Danzas Indigenas protected by police, Baldwin Park Metrolink station, 2005 (Social and Public Art Resource Center)
The heavy police presence was part of SOS’s strategy to force the city government to meet its demands. The single demonstration cost the city of Baldwin Park $250,000 in police overtime and helicopters to protect SOS’s right to protest. Turner bluntly stated, “Our aim is to make this painful. We want this to become expensive so that people will take notice.”8 He added, “I don’t think the city can withstand that financial [burden], if we go back repeatedly.”9 In short, SOS was trying to bankrupt the city.
Following the demonstration, Baca and city council members received violent threats through websites, blogs, e-mails, and letters. All of the members of the Baldwin Park City Council received death threats, and Bill Van Cleave, the only white person on the city council, received a message that “they were going to bury me in brown soil.”10 Baca received numerous death threats, and was advised by the FBI to have a bodyguard and to temporarily leave the country. Baca rejected this advice; she refused to be intimidated and refused to back down to a hate group.
“Baldwin Park has never, ever in its history seen anything like this,” stated Mayor Manuel Lozano. “The residents want these outsiders out of our city.”11 And councilman Bill Van Cleave added, “There is no race problem in Baldwin Park,” but SOS “was bringing one.”12
The city council pledged to stand behind Baca’s work and made it clear that the artwork could not be legally changed without the artist’s permission. Baca issued her own statements in defense of her work and the community that it represented.
Our capacity as a democracy to disagree and to coexist is precisely the point of this work. No single statement can be seen without the whole, nor can it be removed without destroying the diversity of Baldwin Park’s voices. Silencing every voice with which we disagree, especially while taking quotes out of context, either through ignorance or malice, is profoundly un-American.13
She added, “While this group [SOS] has cast the artwork as part of a ‘Reconquista movement,’ it is in fact neither advocating for the return of California to Mexico, nor wishing that Anglos had never come to this land.”14
Others voiced strong support for Baca and her monument while rejecting the racism of SOS. Comments on the SPARC website (the Social and Public Art Resource Center, which Baca founded in 1976) included:
Before the Mayflower was even built, my Spanish and Indian ancestors lived in what is now part of the U.S. Our land was conquered by force and our culture suppressed; these are historical FACTS. We need more monuments that stress our shared experienced [sic] of loss and oppression, as the only way in which true reconciliation can take place.15
César López wrote:
Baca’s public art work provides a model for the community-based reclaiming of sites of memory. Danzas Indigenas actively remembers not only the indigenous peoples of this land, but also the historical context of conquest that was ultimately about the erasure of histories. The power of Baca’s public art production and community-based process is evident by the vision it inspires for social change. I am a witness to this power and it has shaped my reality.16
Following the first SOS demonstration and their plans for a second demonstration on June 25 in Baldwin Park, Baca worried that a tense situation would lead to violence during the second demonstration. “A concern that I had,” reflected Baca, “was that I would have built something that was beautiful and it would become a place where people would be hurt.”17 To ensure that this would not happen, Baca became a leading voice in organizing a nonviolent movement against SOS.
“If a drop of blood is shed on this site, we have failed.”
—Judith F. Baca, June 12, 200518
Baca’s words on June 12 set the tone for the June 25 counterdemonstration. Hate would be countered with love. Racism would be met with multiculturalism, and art would be defended with art. Baca and her supporters declared June 25 as “La Reconquista de Justicia, Paz, Libertad y Amor” [The Reconquest of Justice, Peace, Liberty and Love]. During the lead-up, an “Arts Committee to Defend Danzas Indigenas” was formed and a plan of action was articulated. Goals included:
The rejection of violence as an appropriate response to ignorance and fear.
The support of ceremony, creativity and culture as points of resistance.
The confrontation of political ideas and not people.
The “reconquest” of spaces for dialogue and responsible action.
The cooperation with appropriate authorities.19
The Art Committee’s statement read, in part:
We are neighbors to a work of art, DANZAS INDIGENAS, that reflects indigenous history, evolving sensibility about a multicultural world, and the power of human creation. We are simple people of diverse backgrounds who fear neither the fierce rhetoric of those who would insult us, nor the thoughtless actions of those so few who believe us to be a threat. If we are a threat, we are merely a threat to the idea that humans can be judged by race or region, and that the freedom to express is merely the obligation to agree. We are part of a larger movement of many people who, like us, face the growth of racist hysteria and must confront it.20
Other aspects of their statement addressed nonviolence and the power of art to combat hate:
The resistance we envision does not look to violence as the response to the ignorance of their empty rhetoric, but looks instead to creativity. We believe that the groups who oppose us welcome confrontation so that they can broadcast their message of fear to others through the media. We will not succumb to these tactics, but will mount dignified and serious resistance to their ideas. We will protest, but we will challenge ideas and not people.21
The powerful statement closed with the following:
They will offer cynicism and we will offer ceremony. They will raise criticism and we will offer culture. They will condemn art and we will simply make more of it. They will paint a picture of weakness and we will celebrate our strength, for in our eyes, the law protects us, our creativity dignifies us, and we have already won. Ours is a defiance of spirit; our weapon is sound, color, word, and song.22
On June 25 this statement became a reality. More than a thousand community members and supporters told a handful of SOS supporters that they were not welcome in Baldwin Park. As the police guarded Baca’s monument and formed a line between SOS and the counterdemonstrators, music filled the air and art was visible to all. Baca helped create a new work of art—a Mural in Three Movements, a portable mural including approximately twenty large digital images on both sides that were attached to wooden poles.
The front side had two themes. The first was “Reconciliation,” and it highlighted Spanish and English translations of a Mayan concept-word, “in lak ech,” which translates to “You are my other me,” and “Tú eres mi otro yo.” Baca notes that this signifies “that whether we like it or not, we all share a common humanity, and that even the most vitriolic hatred doesn’t change our connection to others who think differently.”23 Interspersed between the “Reconciliation” images was the second theme, “Speaking Back”—short quotes that supporters had uploaded on the SPARC mural website:
“We think you mean save our status, not save our state.”
“The world is too big to fit into your narrow mind.”
“Good art confuses racists.”
Walking mural, Baldwin Park demonstrations, 2005 (Social and Public Art Resource Center)
Walking mural, Baldwin Park demonstrations, 2005 (Social and Public Art Resource Center)
The backside of the mural included the final theme, “Turn Our Back.” Large text across the entire width of the mural read AMERICA TURNS ITS BACK ON HATE-GROUPS.
Behind the text were black silhouette images of people whom Baca had invited to her studio to become part of the portable mural. Listed on each person’s silhouette was their ethnicity, a list that included Native American, Cuban American, Mexican American, Chinese American, Irish American, and numerous others.
The beauty of the mural stretched beyond the images and the words. For the mural to be read, each person had to hold up an individual sign and come together to form the completed message. The power of the mural could be seen in the content of the words and images, as well as the collective responsibility of people coming together and taking a unified stance against racism. This approach mirrored Baldwin Park itself, a diverse working-class community that came together and confronted a hate group.
On June 25, SOS left Baldwin Park and would not return again. No one was hurt and no one was arrested. Baca was presented with a proclamation by the city government that Danzas Indigenas would not be removed or altered.
The quote on her monument “It was better before they came” rang true, for it was indeed better before SOS came to Baldwin Park. Yet the community response and Baca’s response were vital. They handled SOS in the correct manner and in doing so they inspired others to learn from their tactics. Baca wrote after the second protest, “My dream has always been that community participants would take ownership for our public art projects.”24 In Baldwin Park, this dream came true.
Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), Operation First Casualty, ca. March 2007, Washington, DC, pictured: Ryan Lockwood (photograph by Lovella Calica, courtesy of Aaron Hughes)
