Posted: May 19th, 2005

We ask you to support the First Amendment rights of Baldwin Park residents and artist Judy Baca to preserve the Danzas Indigenas public art monument against bigoted attacks by the anti-immigrant hate group Save Our State — Sink Our State would be more appropriate. The hate group has charged that the twelve-year old monument to multicultural understanding is racially charged, seditious and anti-American.

The artist, Ms. Baca, Founder and Artistic Director of SPARC (Social and Public Art Resource Center), facilitated a community process with members of the Baldwin Park community that ultimately created the public art project to reflect the dreams, past, and future of Baldwin Park. The monument at the Baldwin Park Metrolink commuter train station celebrates multicultural harmony in five languages with quotes from local residents including “a kind of community we all dream of white, brown, yellow all living together,” “a small town feeling,” “use your brain before you make up your mind,” and “not just adults leading but youth leading too.”

The hate group using terrorist tactics threatens to take action if two statements are not removed before the Fourth of July. The group’s diatribe against one quote reflects its own ignorance: “it was better before they came.” The group berates that statement because it “laments the presence of whites in America,” but in fact the quote is from a non-Hispanic white resident who was speaking about Mexican immigrants arriving after World War II, according to Ms. Baca. The ambiguity of the statement as it appears on the monument is the point: about which “they” is the anonymous voice speaking?

On the front of the monument representing the past is a quote from the Chicana author Gloria Andzuldua, “this land was Mexican once, was Indian always, and is, and will be again.” The quote reflects the fact the monument is one mile from Mission San Gabriel, and descendents of the native Tongva/Gabrielinos still live in the region, making the quote particularly relevant to the increasing indigenous population. The reference is to the land being Native American, and does not advocate a return to Mexico, contrary to the ignorant ravings of the hate group, which dismisses the author as a “dead lesbian.”

Twelve to twenty outside agitators from the hate group traveled to Baldwin Park where they encountered over 1,000 supporters of the monument and of Ms. Baca on May 14, 2005. The small city incurred $250,000 dollars for police and helicopters to protect peace and justice from these hate-mongers. Councilman Bill Van Cleave stated that “there is no race problem in Baldwin Park,” but that the Ventura County based hate group “was bringing one.” The group “threatened my life and told me they were going to bury me in brown soil,” according to Councilman Van Cleave, the only non-Hispanic White on the council. All members of the council have received death threats. The hate group has vowed to return for the Fourth of July if their demands are not met. The hate group’s web site is filled with violent images of a man shooting at the viewer, people used as target practice, and people beaten and bloodied.

Artists, public officials, and community members should not be left to face death threats and attacks on their well being because of a work of public art that was created in a public process, and approved by an art committee in the city and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Read the coverage of this story in the Los Angeles Times and San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

What you can do:

Contact Baldwin Park city officials at the City Hall address and fax below and Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina to let them know you support First Amendment rights for Baldwin Park residents and artist Judy Baca:

Mayor Manuel Lozano
Baldwin Park City Hall
14403 E. Pacific Ave.
Baldwin Park, CA 91706
626-813-5201 fax
mlozano@baldwinpark.com

Mayor Pro Tem Ricardo Pacheco
rpacheco@baldwinpark.com

Council Member Bill Van Cleave
bvancleave@baldwinpark.com

Council Member Marlen Garcia
mgarcia2@baldwinpark.com

Council Member David Olivas
dolivas@baldwinpark.com

Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina
856 Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration
500 West Temple Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
213-974-4111 fax
molina@bos.co.la.ca.us

Visit www.sparcmurals.org and our website www.clipi.org for regular updates.