WEBVTT

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Can you talk for a sec?

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Sure.

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Make sure both white lights are lit.

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Yeah, they both are and they're both the same.

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I'm going to roll and I'll say slate and you slate it.

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Slate.

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Take one.

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You gotta hold your finger up.

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Slate.

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Slate.

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Take one.

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Take one.

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Take one.

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Okay.

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We're at Migration of a People mural with Ivan.

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This is just non-sync so I'm going to go ahead and do a little bit of a

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sound.

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Okay, this mural is about Migration of a People and what I like about this one is that it

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reflects the way we live.

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I mean the struggle that we go through every day and for me and for many people when we

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talk by it's like something is telling us to remember where we're coming from, for how

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long we've been fighting or struggling to get over the problem that we have and that's

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what I like about this work.

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It's something that people can see every day.

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It's like a newspaper but it's something that is there.

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It really tells us what's going on.

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Migration, you can see the painting, you can see people fighting for their jobs and it's

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something that is really happening, something that in the Caribbean, in some of those countries

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you see that it's still going on where people try to organize to have a union and they can't

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because the government is against that and here in the United States even though it's

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not the same but we have to fight to maintain ourselves.

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It's something that every day we have to do something in order to let people know that

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we're here to stay and that's what I like about this mural.

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It reflects our ways of what we are.

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It's nothing fancy.

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It's not something that you're going to see in a museum.

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It's something that you're only going to see in the neighborhood.

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Not that many neighborhoods want this in their neighborhood.

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Do you read that for me and tell me what it means?

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Obreros unidos jamás serán vencidos.

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That means workers, organizers.

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It's like getting people together.

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If workers get together they can get to where they really want.

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They can organize unions and being a union member does not necessarily mean that you're from the left,

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that you're a communist.

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It's something that, especially with immigrants, even if you were educated,

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you're not going to get the job that you really want to.

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You have to be with the people that are probably not your class.

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But since you have to make it here one way or the other,

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if you can see those couples that say to USA, that's reality.

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Just go to the airport and you're going to see people coming with only one way ticket.

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And they're coming here looking for something, for a better way to live.

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You see a child there in the mirror, you see people.

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They're reflecting our lives.

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Is that what it was like for you? Does that remind you of when you...

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Yes, if you see the picture, the way I see it, it's like this happened in our countries.

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I mean the soldiers killing, the farm workers struggling to work.

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And finally, there is no other place to go but to USA.

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Because we believe that here in the United States is where we can make it.

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Even the people that are here, that are suffering, that are hungry,

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if they come to our country, they're going to start telling us lies about the United States,

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how well they live here, even though it's not true.

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The majority of these people around here, they're on welfare.

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But when they're going to visit their family, they will tell them that they live and how well they live.

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And for the people that are there, they only think about coming here.

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So do you think that was misleading, that there really isn't the opportunity here?

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Oh no, the opportunities are here, but not the way they...

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I mean opportunities... we had to realize that these countries, the opportunities are here.

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But it's not the way they're telling us they are.

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It's like even when you're watching movies, you're watching one of those movies, you don't see poverty.

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And when you see poverty in the movies, it's because that guy from the ghetto is going to make it to the top.

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And that's not reality. A lot of times it's not reality.

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But that's what I see here.

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So what's the overriding message you think, when someone just walks by, what hits them the hardest about this mural?

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Well, the shooting, the killing of the soldier is something that you see.

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This work had been here for, I don't know, for 20 years.

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I mean, not for 20 years, since 1972.

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So it's been here for many, many years.

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And it's still here. I mean, the people just pass by and it's a remember.

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It's something for them to remember, not to forget about who they are.

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And they had to struggle every day to survive here. That's the problem here. Housing.

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It's like they want to move out of here.

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They came here looking for something better and they came to move out of the neighborhood.

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And there's so much in this work that you really had to know about your background, about your history,

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in order to understand a lot of the murals that are around here.

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I mean, you may see a mural here and another one that's black.

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But if you don't know about history, about the history of some of the minorities that make Chicago, you will not know.

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You just look at a mural like something else.

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Like people just painting on the wall.

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But there is a message on this mural.

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And it's for everyone.

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Why take a picture of the mural?

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Because I'm afraid that something may happen and it won't be around.

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Because you won't see it on the mayor's newspaper.

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You won't see it on the Sun Time. You won't see it on the Tribune.

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So it's something like, you may see graffiti now, but it just happened recently in this type of work.

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But I don't know if the building is going to be around because developers are taking over the communities.

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I mean, no one wants to live here, but they're building more, new houses.

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But it's not for the people who live around.

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So when I come and take pictures, that's one of the reasons that I want to maintain the work.

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Even though I don't know the people who put it up.

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I don't know the people who paint the murals here. I don't know them.

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But I like to take the pictures because I would like to keep those with me.

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And I'm afraid that something happens and it won't be around.

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Also, the message, you don't have to... it's clear.

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In most of them, I just drive by, I just walk by.

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And there are times that I see something and the next day I come and I see something different.

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And they haven't done anything to the paint.

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It's a different message every day.

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And you're looking at the same picture.

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Who, just one more question about who in the mural or what image in the mural do you relate to the most?

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I believe to all of them.

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Because as a worker, I see the unions.

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Coming from the Caribbean, the so-called banana countries,

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it's something that you hear on the news every day.

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Soldiers killing people.

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And I'm not talking about left or right.

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Because the majority of the people who are dying in those countries,

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they don't want nothing to do with politics.

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They just want to work and live in peace.

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And you hear about this country, USA, and Russia,

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fighting for these small countries.

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And it's something that, when I see everything here,

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because I know what's going on in a lot of people,

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you don't have to be educated to know what's going on in our country.

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Because you just watch the news every day,

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and you hear about Panama, you hear about Nicaragua,

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San Salvador, Haiti.

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So you know what's going on.

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But me, since I come from the Caribbean,

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it's easier for me to, even though I'm coming from Puerto Rico,

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which is, we don't have that much problem,

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but we're still fighting, people are still fighting for their independence.

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And this is something that is, something that is like, it's from home.

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You're going to do that, and then you're going to give a good loud clip.

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You have to be going.

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I am recording everything.