WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.980 Q. Susan and Julie mentioned that you had talked about the colors, the difference, and 2 00:00:09.980 --> 00:00:12.420 that Puerto Rico was so colorful and beautiful. 3 00:00:12.560 --> 00:00:13.860 Can you talk a little bit about that? 4 00:00:14.080 --> 00:00:14.080 5 00:00:14.440 --> 00:00:17.720 Something that is, I talk about it right now. 6 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:21.560 I told my wife, I work outdoors. 7 00:00:22.680 --> 00:00:26.280 So that was something when I came to the colorful. 8 00:00:26.280 --> 00:00:31.140 I believe that EGO 20 Caribbean country, and you see the color. 9 00:00:31.220 --> 00:00:33.100 That's the first thing you see in the houses. 10 00:00:35.020 --> 00:00:37.240 Here, that was something that I noticed when I came. 11 00:00:37.700 --> 00:00:38.600 There was no color. 12 00:00:38.880 --> 00:00:42.120 That was gray and white. 13 00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:45.200 There was no other color, even in the wintertime. 14 00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:51.240 The only color that you could see was from the streetlights or neon signs. 15 00:00:52.700 --> 00:01:02.680 I used to tell that to some of my friends continuously, but why do people don't paint their porch blue or yellow? 16 00:01:04.380 --> 00:01:11.580 There was a time that I was trying to do that, but then I realized it doesn't look nice. 17 00:01:12.300 --> 00:01:16.080 You were doing something that doesn't, you know. 18 00:01:16.080 --> 00:01:21.440 When I first bought this house, I was painting the porch gray. 19 00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:22.400 I said, what am I doing? 20 00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:23.260 I don't like this color. 21 00:01:23.300 --> 00:01:24.880 I don't know why I'm doing it. 22 00:01:26.080 --> 00:01:32.440 But I went to the hardware store trying to get a nice color for the porch. 23 00:01:33.240 --> 00:01:37.080 But even the can said, porch paint, and that was gray. 24 00:01:37.500 --> 00:01:39.760 That was telling me that that was the paint. 25 00:01:41.020 --> 00:01:42.960 But nowadays, I don't know. 26 00:01:44.540 --> 00:01:51.660 Recently, I was talking to my wife that I see they're painting those houses in color now. 27 00:01:52.920 --> 00:01:53.340 You know what? 28 00:01:53.440 --> 00:01:56.760 I do their time that on Sundays I drive around Labue now. 29 00:01:58.800 --> 00:02:08.380 And we keep our ease of eschelin just to see those Victorian houses, the color that they're putting into it. 30 00:02:08.900 --> 00:02:15.520 And I was telling my wife, now that we're furnishing the house, I'm going to put a pink on that. 31 00:02:15.860 --> 00:02:16.560 She said, pink? 32 00:02:17.060 --> 00:02:17.700 Yeah, pink. 33 00:02:17.920 --> 00:02:18.800 And that's, well. 34 00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:23.000 It's like I told my wife, no, we have to change. 35 00:02:23.040 --> 00:02:28.640 We're not going to paint brown or gray no more. 36 00:02:29.240 --> 00:02:30.600 I need to see color. 37 00:02:31.520 --> 00:02:38.540 It's like if I don't see the sun, like at least once a week in the wintertime, I get depressed. 38 00:02:38.880 --> 00:02:44.640 And I saw a report not long ago that happened to a lot of people. 39 00:02:46.020 --> 00:02:47.920 And I told my wife, you see, I'm not crazy. 40 00:02:48.620 --> 00:03:05.300 I need to see when I, I don't care if it is 50 below zero, if I see the sunlight, I don't know, my, my, my, my, I'll change the mood, the way I feel, I change. 41 00:03:06.580 --> 00:03:17.360 And that was something when I came here, the colors, I noticed the color of, there you always using color, bright colors. 42 00:03:17.360 --> 00:03:22.760 And you see the green, you see the, but I don't know, it's changing. 43 00:03:22.960 --> 00:03:29.280 I don't know if it is unchanging or I'm getting used to do what the other people are doing. 44 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:41.220 But, you know, it's like the tourists, they go to, the tourists, they go to Hawaii and they wear those shirts. 45 00:03:42.400 --> 00:03:46.820 But when they come back here, they put on the, probably they throw it away or something. 46 00:03:48.400 --> 00:04:00.020 You see, you see those people, the tourists, the bright colors, but they come to the states and they throw everything out, they go back to their soup grade and, you know, it's like. 47 00:04:01.140 --> 00:04:09.920 And that's something that I noticed and I always talk about it, that I enjoy having color, not something wow, where you're out of. 48 00:04:09.920 --> 00:04:15.920 But those are things that we see. Probably you, same thing happens when you go to another country. 49 00:04:23.660 --> 00:04:29.200 So how did that mural come to you? I mean, how does it go from here to there? 50 00:04:31.280 --> 00:04:35.620 We all started brainstorming, the teacher, myself and one more student. 51 00:04:36.100 --> 00:04:40.420 We were all talking about we wanted to make a mural curing because the funds were hard to get. 52 00:04:43.380 --> 00:04:51.380 And we were just talking about different things. We were talking about at first just making it on all artists, artists painting and drawing, that's all. 53 00:04:52.560 --> 00:04:56.200 But she, the teacher was saying how let's do it on problems. 54 00:04:56.820 --> 00:05:02.740 A lot of students don't like to face it. A lot of them don't like to say, well that's not a big problem, but it is when you think about it. 55 00:05:03.400 --> 00:05:11.900 And from there we started talking about it. We got the whole class to draw sketches of what they think is a problem so we can get a wide variety of ideas. 56 00:05:12.900 --> 00:05:17.180 So from that, I took all the ideas and I drew a big collage of it. 57 00:05:17.900 --> 00:05:20.740 After that I looked at it and I would change it, cut things out. 58 00:05:21.360 --> 00:05:27.560 And we did it on a bigger piece of paper. And then we transformed it on the mural and we changed things. 59 00:05:27.980 --> 00:05:33.360 I was working with this one girl on it, Maria, and we had worked on it for a while. 60 00:05:34.220 --> 00:05:37.720 And when it was all over with I started to paint on it and we started working on it and building it up. 61 00:05:37.860 --> 00:05:42.100 The ideas, they started looking powerful, getting really powerful. 62 00:05:42.960 --> 00:05:49.160 And I have one of a man walking to the White House. So he's on a gold road where they're all at. 63 00:05:49.160 --> 00:05:52.640 And he's walking to the White House. That's like success and it leads to graduation. 64 00:05:53.340 --> 00:06:00.820 That's what I wanted to get across because while most of my friends were dropping out of high school, getting pregnant or into drugs and things, 65 00:06:01.160 --> 00:06:07.200 maybe they'll learn something from it. You never know. Hopefully other freshmen or sophomores entering high school can do it too. 66 00:06:08.020 --> 00:06:10.700 Depends where it's displayed too. I don't know. 67 00:06:12.560 --> 00:06:18.380 So how is a mural different than other kinds of art? Why do you see it being different? 68 00:06:18.380 --> 00:06:27.980 How do I see it being different? Other kinds of art, a mural is huge. It can be very big. 69 00:06:28.820 --> 00:06:31.660 It's usually outside. People can see it. Everyone can see it. 70 00:06:31.680 --> 00:06:35.780 If you have your own personal artwork at home, only people you know will see it. 71 00:06:35.940 --> 00:06:40.140 But a mural is something anyone can look at and everyone will. They have to stop and look at it. 72 00:06:40.140 --> 00:06:44.420 It's not something you can walk right past. And from that you learn. 73 00:06:44.420 --> 00:06:47.980 You just look at it and get more interested if the artist makes it interesting. 74 00:06:49.120 --> 00:06:53.840 And you start to get involved in it and look at it in different ways and you learn from it. 75 00:06:54.160 --> 00:06:58.580 But I think a mural, you learn more from a mural than a regular painting anywhere else. 76 00:07:00.040 --> 00:07:07.960 Why do you think there are so many murals in Hispanic neighborhoods and you just don't see them in other places? 77 00:07:07.960 --> 00:07:14.740 I was thinking about that the other day too. Maybe because we're just, art is a big influence there somehow. 78 00:07:15.760 --> 00:07:19.600 Maybe that's their way of interpreting it or the neighborhood needs that right now. That's what it needs. 79 00:07:20.260 --> 00:07:26.640 It needs lighting up because if you have too many gangs in one neighborhood, all you see is graffiti. 80 00:07:27.400 --> 00:07:32.660 If you start painting murals, the gangs respect it. And the whole place lightens up. 81 00:07:32.660 --> 00:07:37.100 People start getting a different character or get a lot of attention for the neighborhood. 82 00:07:37.100 --> 00:07:40.440 And then the neighborhood starts fixing up. That's what I feel. That's what I've noticed. 83 00:07:40.940 --> 00:07:45.680 So I think a mural can make a big difference. But in Little Village or the Pilsen area, 84 00:07:45.780 --> 00:07:50.000 they're starting to draw, paint more murals and more murals. It's looking nice. 85 00:07:50.220 --> 00:07:52.240 I think it's making a big difference in the community. 86 00:07:53.100 --> 00:07:56.980 I really don't know why it's here more than someplace else. That's what I've noticed. 87 00:07:57.060 --> 00:08:01.060 But I was just thinking about that a few days ago. I don't know why. That's what I think. 88 00:08:01.140 --> 00:08:06.400 I think it's probably because it helps a lot. The artist starts speaking more. 89 00:08:06.400 --> 00:08:11.240 They're trying to show more. I'm not sure. I think so. 90 00:08:11.580 --> 00:08:16.820 That's something I've been real curious about because there's a lot of different neighbors in Chicago, 91 00:08:16.900 --> 00:08:24.200 people going through similar kinds of experiences. But it's the Hispanic neighborhoods that there's this art on all the walls. 92 00:08:24.640 --> 00:08:29.040 And there's also a tradition in South America, in Mexico, in Puerto Rico. 93 00:08:29.600 --> 00:08:32.700 Have you thought about that? Where that all comes from? Is it something about that? 94 00:08:32.700 --> 00:08:36.000 Maybe they come from there. I don't know. I've thought about it. 95 00:08:36.100 --> 00:08:41.580 I've thought about it. Artists come a lot from Mexico and Puerto Rico or different places. 96 00:08:42.020 --> 00:08:49.080 And they'll come here and they'll draw something from their country. But I don't know why they do it. 97 00:08:49.320 --> 00:08:55.020 I wish I did. I guess I haven't had enough time to think about it. But I just started thinking about it lately. 98 00:08:55.640 --> 00:09:00.740 Why is it? I'll go to different areas and I'll go by Archer or something. 99 00:09:01.360 --> 00:09:08.200 It's not the same. You just don't see it. And without it, the neighborhood doesn't look as beautiful as it looks with the mural. 100 00:09:09.520 --> 00:09:15.720 That's about all that I think. Maybe they just want to draw something having to do with the community, 101 00:09:16.820 --> 00:09:19.640 having to do with the people, having to do with how the people react to it. 102 00:09:19.720 --> 00:09:26.840 And they just want to show something having to do about their little neighborhood. Could be that. 103 00:09:27.440 --> 00:09:30.320 How do your friends react to you painting murals? 104 00:09:31.040 --> 00:09:33.040 Not all of them, no. I don't tell them. 105 00:09:34.940 --> 00:09:41.860 Akiri right now is just voted class artist. So that's a big thing. So I guess people are starting to notice me more. 106 00:09:42.640 --> 00:09:49.460 I get a lot of people coming up to me and asking me to paint them or to do a painting for them, give it to them, things like that. 107 00:09:49.460 --> 00:09:54.460 And I get a lot of respect too. A lot of people respect me being an artist. 108 00:09:55.360 --> 00:10:00.160 They look up to me or a lot of jealousy too. It's different things, different views. 109 00:10:00.720 --> 00:10:04.600 I have a best friend who's an artist too. She exhibited with me at the Mexican Fine Arts Museum. 110 00:10:05.320 --> 00:10:10.960 Her name is Tina Ramirez and she's trying to be more of an artist. And I think I had a big influence on her too. 111 00:10:11.160 --> 00:10:15.000 She had a big influence on me and we both share different things. 112 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:20.980 I think she's probably the friend that understands the most what kind of an artist I am. 113 00:10:21.300 --> 00:10:26.540 Because others think I'm just an artist who can paint realistic, but that's not what I picture myself as. 114 00:10:26.960 --> 00:10:31.300 I picture myself as someone who can express how I feel in different ways. 115 00:10:31.840 --> 00:10:39.240 Having to do with a lot of things reflect on when I was younger, how things didn't go my way. 116 00:10:39.240 --> 00:10:45.480 It always helps. She's the one that appreciates it. She appreciates it a lot. 117 00:10:45.940 --> 00:10:47.720 And she'll learn from that and I'll learn from her. 118 00:10:48.520 --> 00:10:54.360 I get a lot of friends respect it. They like it a lot. A lot of attention goes to it right now. 119 00:10:54.880 --> 00:11:02.420 I was just told by a couple friends that they saw me on Channel 19. So I was pretty happy. 120 00:11:02.480 --> 00:11:05.860 So they do look out for me. They look out for me a lot. And they try to help me out. 121 00:11:05.860 --> 00:11:07.480 They try to help me out by buying art supplies without me knowing. 122 00:11:08.260 --> 00:11:12.700 For my birthday I'll get art supplies from all my friends or things like that. So it's pretty nice. 123 00:11:15.220 --> 00:11:22.500 They went to Reunion House for I don't really know what for. I know they invited us. 124 00:11:22.600 --> 00:11:29.700 They invited Francisco Mendoza and myself, Tina Ramirez, Issel Alfaro, and Felipe. 125 00:11:30.180 --> 00:11:33.040 I forgot his last name. Araujo or something. 126 00:11:33.640 --> 00:11:36.920 But they were interviewing us probably for the mural that we were working on. 127 00:11:37.320 --> 00:11:39.980 And just as artists. Because we were working on a mural at Cooper. 128 00:11:42.620 --> 00:11:47.940 And some lady was just interviewing us and talking to us about how we got into art and things like that. 129 00:11:48.220 --> 00:11:52.180 But I think the attention wasn't focused on us. It was focused more on Francisco Mendoza. 130 00:11:52.640 --> 00:11:58.840 So that's the difference. So they react to it a lot. 131 00:12:00.720 --> 00:12:05.580 When you were working on the mural, I'm curious, did people make comments about the subject matter? 132 00:12:06.840 --> 00:12:11.400 They used to. They used to say, that pregnant girl shouldn't be there, Sandra. It's too big. 133 00:12:12.140 --> 00:12:17.280 I want you to shrink it down. And I'll say, well, it's a problem. People have to face it. 134 00:12:17.660 --> 00:12:21.440 Or isn't that too violent? Or why do you have that drunk person? 135 00:12:22.060 --> 00:12:25.080 And I just tell them the mural has to do with everything. It has to do with the youth. 136 00:12:25.320 --> 00:12:26.720 That's what I'm trying to focus on, the youth. 137 00:12:27.240 --> 00:12:31.340 Don't tell me you don't drink, because everyone else, they're starting to get really involved in that. 138 00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:37.000 I used to get a lot of negative people, and I used to get a lot of positive people telling me, that's good, that's powerful. 139 00:12:38.660 --> 00:12:44.080 So a little of both. People talk negative, people talk positive. So it's both of them. 140 00:12:45.240 --> 00:12:52.080 Do you have muralists that you'd like to work with? And if so, what is it about them that makes you want to work with? 141 00:12:53.180 --> 00:12:56.160 There's a lot of muralists that I'd like to work with. 142 00:12:57.520 --> 00:13:00.900 The only problem is, I'm so young, they probably wouldn't even look at me. 143 00:13:01.740 --> 00:13:05.800 But I'm trying to remember his name. See, I forget their names. 144 00:13:06.520 --> 00:13:09.440 You just interviewed him. His little beard. 145 00:13:09.760 --> 00:13:10.340 Oh, Hector? 146 00:13:10.600 --> 00:13:15.080 Yeah, Hector. I think his artwork is incredible. All the colors, the perspectives. 147 00:13:15.760 --> 00:13:18.780 He does great work, and I like to work with him, too. 148 00:13:18.780 --> 00:13:24.400 Vince Mendoza, he wouldn't be bad, because he does a lot having to do with the Hispanic people. 149 00:13:25.100 --> 00:13:31.420 And I would like to see his views on it, because I speak with him, but I've never seen him do his artwork. 150 00:13:34.640 --> 00:13:38.600 Those are really, some of them I would, and some of them I wouldn't. 151 00:13:39.560 --> 00:13:42.120 But those are the two that I wouldn't mind working with. 152 00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:44.940 Because I've already worked with Francisco Mendoza, and he's good. 153 00:13:44.940 --> 00:13:50.460 And he's always, he's the type that'll say, you do whatever you want. 154 00:13:51.340 --> 00:13:54.860 And if you ask him if it's wrong, he'll say, you're the artist. 155 00:13:55.320 --> 00:13:56.840 He'll give you the freedom that you want. 156 00:13:57.380 --> 00:14:00.820 So I'm glad I work with him, but some other ones, I wouldn't mind. 157 00:14:01.640 --> 00:14:03.480 Those are the two that I'd like to work with. 158 00:14:06.140 --> 00:14:10.000 How do you see murals fitting in with your future? 159 00:14:11.620 --> 00:14:17.260 Hmm. Hopefully, I'll be able to paint a lot more murals. 160 00:14:17.380 --> 00:14:20.080 I'll be able to, people will ask me to paint more murals. 161 00:14:20.860 --> 00:14:28.380 I'll get paid for it, or I can show an example of how the community's growing, or it's not growing, 162 00:14:28.960 --> 00:14:33.000 or how negative it is, or how positive it is, different things like that. 163 00:14:33.540 --> 00:14:40.740 Just, if not, maybe I can go to, they'll invite me to Mexico or Puerto Rico to paint, or Paris. 164 00:14:41.200 --> 00:14:43.440 I really want to be invited somewhere to paint. 165 00:14:43.940 --> 00:14:47.200 I think that would be great, to paint a mural somewhere else, having to do with me, 166 00:14:47.320 --> 00:14:50.460 and the people will be able to say, that's Sandra, you know. 167 00:14:50.780 --> 00:14:53.840 And that's what I want right now. That's what I'm trying to work at. 168 00:14:54.880 --> 00:14:59.060 Not only on murals, though, and everything else, just artwork itself. 169 00:15:12.800 --> 00:15:18.380 Well, I was going to run through some questions that are based on what you talked about last time, 170 00:15:18.520 --> 00:15:20.200 some of the things you said were really interesting. 171 00:15:22.440 --> 00:15:27.780 So, just for starters, if you could tell us about your background in Mexico, just where you're from. 172 00:15:27.780 --> 00:15:38.740 Okay. I was born in Jalisco, and the town where I grew up is Ayutla, Jalisco. 173 00:15:39.160 --> 00:15:44.340 Very small town, I think the population was less than 2,000 at the time. 174 00:15:47.940 --> 00:15:55.060 I lived there until age nine, so as far as my first impression of the world, I think that was it, which is a rural community. 175 00:15:55.060 --> 00:16:02.880 Most people there were very poor and made their living through agriculture, 176 00:16:03.500 --> 00:16:07.260 either working in their own lots or working for others. 177 00:16:08.540 --> 00:16:15.420 And I always think back at my childhood, because it was interesting. 178 00:16:15.840 --> 00:16:21.000 I literally went, sort of discovered, in my lifetime, 179 00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:31.220 we saw electricity coming into town, road building, because it was very isolated from the rest of the bigger towns, that sort of thing. 180 00:16:32.180 --> 00:16:46.500 So, also, with my parents being here, my mother and father came here, my father, to find work and establish themselves here. 181 00:16:46.500 --> 00:16:52.160 And so, they would come and visit us pretty much on a yearly basis every summer. 182 00:16:52.680 --> 00:16:59.280 So, it was interesting to see these, they would come in with radio, sort of things, they were interesting gadgets to us. 183 00:16:59.500 --> 00:17:05.420 And it was a very kind of exciting, thrilling time for me. 184 00:17:06.260 --> 00:17:16.140 I went to school there for the first three years, and the setup there was, there was girls' schools and boys' schools, 185 00:17:16.140 --> 00:17:25.880 and it was public school. And it gave me a background where there was an emphasis on reading. 186 00:17:30.680 --> 00:17:41.360 And we didn't have books, the first three years didn't have books, so we learned to memorize a lot, which turned out to be very useful later on. 187 00:17:42.100 --> 00:17:51.060 The other thing that I remember very much about those years was when they started bringing in pictures, movies, I love movies. 188 00:17:52.260 --> 00:17:58.220 And I guess maybe the cheaper movies were the ones obtained in the United States, and they had subtitles. 189 00:17:58.920 --> 00:18:04.700 So, it helped me to improve my reading. And since I knew my parents were in the United States, 190 00:18:04.700 --> 00:18:15.240 the United States seemed like this fantasy place that had all these exciting things, because my parents would come in with things that were exciting, 191 00:18:15.420 --> 00:18:18.500 and one of them was like a car, eventually. 192 00:18:22.180 --> 00:18:31.700 So, I worked hard because I wanted to communicate with my family. At that time, no telephone, so I didn't have daily contact with them. 193 00:18:31.700 --> 00:18:41.360 And people don't realize, but even stamps were prohibited for people there to write. 194 00:18:41.940 --> 00:18:50.560 So, maybe we would write once every month or once every two months, because literally a stamp would be a day's worth of work. 195 00:18:52.840 --> 00:19:04.080 So, I think that's what made the United States for me sort of seem like a shining, golden place, because my parents were here, and I wanted to be near them. 196 00:19:06.180 --> 00:19:12.780 When I came to Chicago, I didn't know that I was going to be staying. 197 00:19:13.480 --> 00:19:27.880 My family was thinking about having a stay, but it was difficult, because they were renting an apartment at Alport. 198 00:19:27.880 --> 00:19:36.160 I was 1829, Alport, in Chicago. It was very small and just was impractical. 199 00:19:38.100 --> 00:19:49.940 So, at that time, I have two younger brothers. One was, I think, about 18 months, and the other one was about five. I was nine. 200 00:19:53.300 --> 00:19:58.980 We came over for the summer. We had a lot of fun, but then my mother said, You are staying. 201 00:20:00.800 --> 00:20:14.740 That was very, it was first of all a shock. I didn't know any English, so we had to look around for a place that would accept someone that didn't know English. 202 00:20:14.740 --> 00:20:28.760 It was a bigger task than my parents had anticipated. The local schools wanted at least that I knew some basics, and since I was nine and in third grade, 203 00:20:32.020 --> 00:20:40.480 they didn't know how to assess what I knew to put me in an equivalent grade. 204 00:20:41.900 --> 00:20:49.880 So, a very nice priest at Holy Trinity said, Well, she needs to be in school, so we'll do the best we can. 205 00:20:51.220 --> 00:21:02.680 They put me in third grade, and the first few months were pretty frightening. There was no one that spoke Spanish. 206 00:21:02.680 --> 00:21:18.180 I was probably the first one there that spoke only Spanish. There was a girl, her mother, I believe, was Mexican, so she knew a few words of Spanish. 207 00:21:18.180 --> 00:21:34.120 She had been brought up to speak only English, so she kind of gave me some understanding, and since it was so vital that I communicate, I learned English quite fast. 208 00:21:34.120 --> 00:21:45.140 I was mad at survival. The other first impressions of Chicago was that it was such a contrast. 209 00:21:47.400 --> 00:21:57.180 My parents felt that we should stay in the house all the time. They were concerned about gangs, they were concerned about violence in the neighborhood. 210 00:21:57.180 --> 00:22:15.160 So, for me, it was kind of an isolating experience, too, having to stay in the apartment all the time, at least our apartment building in the backyard or anything. 211 00:22:15.160 --> 00:22:31.160 So, again, I was used to going hiking up the mountains on a day-to-day basis and being out, and since I was just six, helping take care of everything, going to the market to shop, so it was quite a change, to say the least. 212 00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:57.700 So, let's see, the first impression wasn't very positive. It was actually very disappointing because I had such high expectations to start with, and this was just the opposite, very isolating. 213 00:23:00.120 --> 00:23:19.980 How isolating? It was not until probably high school that we had a pet as to where to go. We would go to La Casa del Pueblo. It was one of the first few shops that carried Mexican ingredients for cooking. 214 00:23:20.860 --> 00:23:34.860 So, we would always go there and shop. The other place that I knew was the church and the school, and I didn't go much out of the neighborhood until I went to college, to University of Illinois. 215 00:23:34.860 --> 00:23:36.860 What was the... 216 00:24:04.920 --> 00:24:19.400 and got other people from other towns near Ayutla to start things like soccer teams to get together, do something you felt good about, something that reminded you of home. 217 00:24:20.720 --> 00:24:40.360 I guess people were very homesick. It was just, I remember, it was just like this sense of depression, and I felt angry that nobody seemed to notice. 218 00:24:44.740 --> 00:25:05.440 And so, to me and other people that I, we talked about the murals when they built the one, they painted the one that's a copy of one of the, I'm not sure if it's Izequero's or Rivera's, that was on Luma Street, 219 00:25:05.440 --> 00:25:27.300 which showed nuclear destruction. And he's kind of, I always remember because it has a shape like four leaf, depicting different things, but basically talking about the destructiveness, and to me, he felt like the evil in mankind. 220 00:25:29.080 --> 00:25:57.280 So, that was like someone saying that there was a problem here. And there were, then they started painting others that showed indeed scenes of protests, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being, of being 221 00:25:57.280 --> 00:26:07.700 harassed by police or the immigration or even just the ones that are painted like Benito Juarez. 222 00:26:09.900 --> 00:26:19.380 The association that we had was that he was one of the, he was one that stood for justice. 223 00:26:19.380 --> 00:26:30.460 And he broke out of the, of the way that things were in Mexico, where the natives were not involved in, in, in the government at all. 224 00:26:30.940 --> 00:26:35.780 So he was a, a inspiring figure. 225 00:26:41.520 --> 00:26:49.740 I'd, I wanted, and I liked the ones that had depicted some kind of protest. 226 00:26:49.740 --> 00:27:06.080 Again, I felt that we needed to express outrage, that the people were living in such poor conditions that they were isolated from the rest of the community, 227 00:27:06.880 --> 00:27:12.740 that they needed help and nobody seemed to notice or they were ignored. 228 00:27:12.740 --> 00:27:30.200 And it was based, I thought, on the differences. We didn't look and perhaps we didn't behave like other, or the majority, so therefore we were cast aside. 229 00:27:36.200 --> 00:27:44.020 The, the murals were the first time, I think, that it was public. This is how we felt. 230 00:27:44.940 --> 00:27:53.260 And it's, looking at it, there's a combination of old and new in some of them. 231 00:27:53.260 --> 00:28:09.420 And I'm glad that whoever painted them also painted that, because some of the first ones were mostly about Mexico or Puerto Rico or whatever, as this wonderful place. 232 00:28:10.600 --> 00:28:15.220 And my parents liked those because, oh, you know, it was a picture of home. 233 00:28:17.320 --> 00:28:28.500 But for our generation that was going to school, that had been living here, and that we knew there was no way that we were going to go back economically, it was impossible. 234 00:28:29.480 --> 00:28:33.340 This was home. So we wanted home to be something better. 235 00:28:36.060 --> 00:28:50.220 I don't know whether it's related to, I think that part of this movement of the murals and getting more involved politically was because there was now a group of people who said, this is home and we've got to make the best of it. 236 00:28:50.600 --> 00:28:58.300 Before that, it was a group of people saying, we're going to go back home as soon as we earn enough or save enough. 237 00:28:58.300 --> 00:29:15.200 And so these things that were happening all at once, I think that was the signal that we're really committed now and we're going to try to improve our situation, improve our lot. 238 00:29:25.880 --> 00:29:43.200 The, some of the murals that they painted, again, I think had that double message that I don't know if it was for, from an outsider's point of view, whether they saw it, but was that 239 00:29:44.540 --> 00:29:57.440 the most of the painting heroes is important in sort of caring that sense of you are important as a people. 240 00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:11.460 But the heroes painted, the selection is also important. And I think someone did it unconsciously. I don't know how much of it was done consciously by the artists, but the choices were just excellent. 241 00:30:11.460 --> 00:30:17.060 They were just the kind of choices the community needed. They needed people who were not traditional. 242 00:30:17.340 --> 00:30:26.420 These people who are breaking out, who had made their themselves known through breaking with the old order of things. 243 00:30:27.440 --> 00:30:32.780 Benito Hart is being there, Morelos again, these were all people who protested their situation. 244 00:30:34.320 --> 00:30:44.200 So the choices made as far as what they painted were just great. And they confirmed, and I thought solidified our growing sense. 245 00:30:44.860 --> 00:30:48.500 There's a problem, we've got to do something about it and they always are not going to work. 246 00:30:51.920 --> 00:31:05.400 I think Casaslan, the way it was organized, the painting of those things on the outside was kind of attracting people. 247 00:31:05.400 --> 00:31:18.100 The other thing that occurred like in the churches, St. Procopius and the priest there, Father Terence, he's been there for a long time in that community. 248 00:31:18.100 --> 00:31:34.100 He obtained a picture of Guadalupe and initiated then Spanish Masses. 249 00:31:35.020 --> 00:31:43.540 Prior to that, the only other church that had an image of Guadalupe was the church at Halsted. 250 00:31:44.660 --> 00:32:00.060 And was it Halsted in, who's it? San Francisco? I forget the name. That's where my parents used to go. I myself didn't go there. 251 00:32:00.060 --> 00:32:21.700 It was the only church that had Spanish Mass. So the actual being in the same place with the other people, the other members of the community, was very helpful in getting this integration, I think. 252 00:32:23.940 --> 00:32:35.860 I'm sort of thinking as I'm talking about the little details that bring people together that were absent prior to the late 1960s. 253 00:32:36.140 --> 00:32:45.700 We really didn't go to the same Mass. We went to the same school, but the language was a problem. So we started forming a way. 254 00:32:49.820 --> 00:33:08.780 The first thing that these murals did, I think they sort of sparked a process. A process which first began by being able to identify with something positive. 255 00:33:08.780 --> 00:33:23.800 To me, the murals, even the ones that were badly painted, at least had someone that I knew about that looked like me, that shared history. 256 00:33:24.260 --> 00:33:36.400 We had shared history. So it gave, it affirmed a sense that I am valuable if only because I'm a human being. That sense was not there before. So that was the number one. 257 00:33:36.400 --> 00:34:02.260 The other was, the second thing that I saw occur was that it was, it sparked my curiosity to find out more about what these murals depicted. 258 00:34:02.260 --> 00:34:15.080 So it began a communication between my family and myself, between families and between classmates of the different backgrounds and cultures. 259 00:34:18.760 --> 00:34:34.940 Once I felt that I was okay as a person, then I could actually reach out. My choice of where I went to college still was, couldn't be too far away from home. 260 00:34:34.940 --> 00:34:50.920 But it was University of Illinois, certainly Cosmopolitan, so many people from all different places and so many different ideas. It was exciting. 261 00:34:50.920 --> 00:35:17.660 So differences became exciting as opposed to threatening. And it's only until now that I've lived in different communities that I can see that if that interest and curiosity had not been sparked, 262 00:35:20.560 --> 00:35:34.940 I wouldn't have, well, I would be living like my parents lived or like a lot of the families that I know, which is still feeling this sense of segregation. 263 00:35:38.520 --> 00:35:57.540 And not sure about their own self-worth, still feeling that if they try to reach out and communicate with others that they're not going to be accepted. 264 00:36:00.460 --> 00:36:14.440 Seems like there's really a lot of messages that, you know, for the uninitiated, that come out of these murals, the one today, the older ones. What do you see as the main messages? What sort of messages are coming out of those murals? 265 00:36:19.940 --> 00:36:42.860 One is, you are valuable, be proud. There's a lot of potential in you. And there's a lot of bad things happening. 266 00:36:42.860 --> 00:36:53.300 And if you can recognize them and work to solve them, you can. That's what they say. I think that's what people see in them, too.