Ivan Interview #1 9/18/88 Murals Off-Cam

Well, we want to just kind of get some background and then talk about the murals and tie the murals and tell your photography and things like that.

So first, if you could just tell us about your background, where you come from.

Well, I came here from Puerto Rico in 1969, 1970.

When I came here, I was already a sophomore.

So I just went to two years high school.

And after I finished, I was trying to get into college, but at the same time, I was working full time, right? Just when I came out of high school.

So I went to Columbia College and that was another school that I went to.

I went to different schools, trying just to save money, like taking a few courses here.

And but I stopped and I went to a photography school.

I finished.

Then I started working with a few studio photography, doing mostly weddings.

But suddenly I stopped because I was working full time and I was decided to do photography more like a hobby, you know.

And having a family, having a kid, it was getting too expensive.

But I enjoy being around by people within the art, people that are into painting, photography, film, even though I don't know that many people.

In the Latino community, that I know, well now we do have a few because now we have television here.

We do have a few channels like channel 44 and 26 that they're producing here.

It's like there will be more need for Latinos in the future for them to get into that, you know, to produce.

Because that's what I like.

I like to see productions done in Chicago for this community, for these Latinos.

Because the need for the Latinos in New York are not the same.

Even though we're the same people, but in California they're not the same, in Miami, or there are Cubans there, in New York they're mostly Puerto Rican, in Los Angeles they're mostly Mexican.

Here we're mixed.

So the need in this community is different.

And I like to see more production.

Like the one you're doing right now is something that reflects our view.

And it's something that I always thought that those paintings on the wall was for us.

I didn't realize that some other people, Europeans, do the same thing.

For me, I thought that that was mostly like people from the ghettos, people from the low income.

Because that's the way they taught me to see it.

They showed us to see it.

Like graffiti.

You never see those paintings by Michigan Avenue.

I haven't seen any.

Probably there are some.

And if you go to a few neighborhoods in Chicago, upper class, you don't see those paintings on the walls.

And that's what I thought.

That's the reason I thought that that was ours.

And that was one time that I used to see them like they were destroying our community, our neighborhood.

I used to see those guys painting and even though I enjoy, I saw that they need to put that in there too.

That was like a newspaper for us.

They used to tell about the history of different countries, like Mexico.

But because I was surrounded by a few people that didn't understand us, I believed to a sec that that was no good.

That the painting during, like graffiti, when you see a graffiti, because a lot of the painting that we saw there, I'm talking about when I first came here, in the 69's and 70's, there wasn't that many.

Only a few.

Now I believe that's everywhere.

I'm not sure.

In this neighborhood.

In this neighborhood.

Especially by, well, probably we see more in the Mexican neighborhood than the Puerto Rican and the Cubans.

Because the Puerto Rican, we keep moving around.

That's the way I see it.

We haven't settled into one particular neighborhood.

You may go down a division and say that that's the Puerto Rican community, but it's not, I don't see it that way.

Because people there are just a group of people that live, mostly low income people, but the people that are struggling to work here, as soon as they start making money, they start moving out.

It's not because they want to run from their own people, it's that they want to run from the surrounding.

We haven't established, that's the way I see it myself, we haven't established that.

You may find Puerto Rican in Uptown, in Lakeview, here in Logan, but it's not like the Mexican where the businessmen spend their money there.

You go by 26th Street and you see how they fix those business.

And you see how they're taking care.

Probably they don't spend that much money into their own neighborhood, but at least their businesses are neat compared to ours.

It's like we're taking the money out of there and we're not putting the money back into it.

So I don't see that many paintings around.

When you go by 18th and Blue Island, you see more there.

I don't know if it's because it's more abandoned there and it's easier to do it without permission.

I like to see those paintings on the walls, but at the same time, if I know that they're going to put one next to my house, I have to see what they're going to put on it.

I want to see something that will look nice and that's the problem with those paintings, that a lot of people won't agree with what they're trying to say or to tell people.

I like all kinds, but I like the one that tells something, like what's really going on with our countries.

Being Latino and being Puerto Rican, we had to identify ourselves because if I said that I'm American, that doesn't sound right.

I mean, my parent, he was American because he was a black man.

He was a black man because we'd been part of the United States for 80 years.

But even though you ask my father, he will never say that he's American, even though he loved and respected this country.

And the same thing happened to my son right now.

He will identify himself with Puerto Rican, being a Puerto Rican.

That's, it don't matter what.

So I like to see those paintings that reflect our ways, our thinking.

Not all of them, but at least, you know, that's what I always saw in the murals.

I always saw that they reflect, like, political, like there was no newspaper for us.

There was no access for us to tell something.

It's not until probably five years ago that we started having radio and television, like 24 hours.

Now we are, we do have FM radio 24 hours a day.

We do have television that is competing.

And I know they're competing with the other networks at some time.

When you're saying that we are probably 5 percent, or I don't know the percentage of Latinos in Chicago, but I know that we are numbers.

So I know that those television stations are competing in ratings, you know, with the others.

But we still have the need for those paintings on the wall because the people who run those television and TV stations, they're not going to allow us to tell what we want.

Most of the programs that are coming are produced somewhere else.

And they are like, we, for instance, we do have China 44 that we know is run by the same Televisa from Mexico.

So in a way they're being controlled.

It's always going to be that way.

So I believe that we still have the need for those paintings on the walls.

And there always will be.

And that's what I would like to see more art into it, contemporary.

But if they start putting only contemporary painting on the walls, I don't know.

I won't see it the same way.

It's like you want to see the struggle of the people.

That's what I see in those paintings on the walls.

Do you see the struggle? Like people fighting.

We're here and we're still fighting.

And that's the way it's going to be.

And I don't know if it's Latinos only, because I don't know how the Chinese here in Chicago live and how some other community.

But I identify myself as a Latino, even though I'm Puerto Rican.

And I'm always looking into different activities that Latinos are involved in.

I don't care if they're Mexican or Cubans.

It's something that I believe that I would like to see, I know it probably never would be possible for us to get together.

We're not talking about creating a nation to fight against any other nation.

No, just for us to realize that we are one.

And we may have two different ways of expressing ourselves, even the way we talk.

But we still have the same.

We do have a lot of things in common to the Wiccanos.

So that's the way I...

What kind of things are you saying that the murals say things for the community that don't get said anyplace else like on TV or in newspapers? What kind of messages do you see the murals? What is the struggle? What are the murals saying? Well they're telling the people to wake up.

That it has to be a better way for us.

I mean when you walk down the Visions Street and you see that...

you see when you walk down the Visions Street, you see burn, that they're burning burdens.

And you see the so -called Jopis or Jopis taking over.

That they're buying.

I'm running from the area and they're buying.

And I say, well why? They're smarter than me.

And I see a painting telling me not to go, not to run.

That's my house.

So that's the way I see it.

Every place you go, like if you go by Rockwell and Potomac, there's one where there's a girl looking at the window and you see the fire coming through the window.

And she's there crying that she's burning herself.

At the same time you see that so many anti -lacs.

But you see those professional people buying more, taking over.

We're running from our own people.

And those professionals are remattering, rehabbing.

And you see those paintings and that's the way I see it.

And if you give me a piece of paper with the same paint, you know, with the same thing on a piece of paper, I will see it only once.

And if you are intelligent, if you just see it once, you will know what's going on.

But a lot of people will take time for them to realize what the artist or the person who put that in there was trying to tell.

And that's how I see it, that they're telling us something, but they better put it on the wall.

For us to keep seeing that thing every day, every day we go to work, we see it.

And I talk about it.

I used to, when I used to be out there with friends and we used to look at the painting, I used to tell what I see.

But I believe they tell something.

And every place you go and you see one of those, I believe the artist who picked those, even if it could be the same person, he sees the need to each neighborhood that he goes to.

He may not go to Lincoln Park and put the same one he put on Humboldt Park, because it doesn't look nice.

Lincoln Park, you may put something for children.

You're going to see children running around.

They never been west of Chicago, so there's no need for him to go there and put one, you know, he needs to put one with flowers and a farm or something, something that those kids never see.

But on the west side, the kids know what that paint there means, those murals there.

So that's the way I see it.

Yeah years ago I used to photograph those and I used to talk about it.

But at that time I did not know the people who paint those murals there.

I was by myself.

And some of my friends used to say, well you spend so much money on those films instead of taking pictures of people.

And I said that's what I'm doing.

But then because you're by yourself and I wasn't fighting, at that time I was not fighting for anyone, I just was taking pictures of myself.

And I used to discuss this with my brothers.

Some of them used to live on Wicker Park and they moved out of there.

And now I go, I tell them why don't you drive by Hoyne Avenue and take a look to those buildings you used to live.

They chase you out of there.

And why don't you go down Bucktown and around here on Logan Square.

I'm here and I want to stay here.

And I tell my brother, it's like when you are one of those ministers.

I tell them they all live around here and I tell them stay here.

Because I walk, I love Chicago.

I like Chicago when I walk and I look at the architecture and everything.

So I was taking pictures of those paintings on the walls.

And I was always taking pictures of them.

And I used to take them for that reason, to maintain because I know they won't be around.

I knew that the building would be torn down and the painting won't be there.

They're going to put graffiti on top.

They're going to write it all over.

So that was the reason I was taking those pictures, to keep them.

And I tell my brother I thought about making posters and just for myself.

And probably I do have a few around in the future.

When I look at some of those pictures and you go back there, the building is not there anymore.

Whoever took over the building on rehab, he sent blast to the building.

He didn't care about the message that was there.

And the leaders, our leaders, they don't know anything about the painting and they didn't care.

For them, even though we are not, we're educated and same in the arts, but we prefer to see one painting from Picasso because everyone talks about it.

They see our own life in a painting.

And that's the reason I started taking those pictures.

It's like to maintain, to keep before they will.

But I'm sure they're going to keep putting those up even though we don't see that many buildings able to do it.

I don't know how they do it, but probably that's the reason I said before that they put more on 18th Street and Blue Island because there are so many vacant buildings.

Q.

Do you think they, have you noticed that they have an impact on the community when a new mural goes up? A.

I believe they do.

They do because they fight.

They organize.

It's easier for you to get them organized when you can tell them the reasons.

It's like when you go and see one of those abstract pictures, that unless someone comes to me and explains what that means, he's not telling me anything because I'm not an artist.

I don't know that much about painting.

I just see signs all over.

I just see brushes going different directions.

But if someone explains to me, you don't need to be a graduate from the university to understand the painting, but someone must tell you something.

It's like when you see some of the big ones like Picasso or Goya, people that know about art, they keep arguing with each other about what they see there.

So if you're not there, I would say both of them are crazy.

But when you tell the people, our people, what that means, because you may paint a building that is on fire, and they don't realize that you're painting their life.

They don't realize.

But when you tell them that you're trying to put a message across, they will fight to keep that in there.

And I know because it happened before, so many times a group of people get organized to protect that painting.

And I believe they do.

They do because they Can we jump back a little ways? When you first came here, so you were in high school.

Can you talk a little bit about the difference? I mean, there must have been a real different environment, Puerto Rico and Chicago.

What were your first impressions? When I came, I was looking for, when you are in Puerto Rico and you see those movies about New York, you see the paradise that they are.

You see the way people live.

You never see the surrounding.

I mean, if you see those kids by Harlem in New York, you think that they're in the construction site, that they're running in the construction site.

You don't realize that they live there and there is no construction.

There's a destruction that's going on there.

Those are abandoned buildings.

But because they give you only what they want to show on movies, when my relatives, they used to go there, even though some of them used to be probably on welfare.

Oh no, they won't tell you that.

They only tell you about how they live, how well they live.

People usually when they go on vacation, they save a couple of bucks.

They save money.

You see the way they spend money.

They don't care.

So you want to come here.

So when I came and I looked around and I didn't say anything, I was already 16.

I saw the cars that they have.

I said, oh, car.

In Puerto Rico, most people have new cars.

I mean, even though per capita is less money there, but probably they fight more to have the things.

Well, probably because they watch so much television there in Puerto Rico that in Puerto Rico they try to compete.

I was shocked when I came here because I was expecting something more.

I always enjoyed the architecture.

I don't know the reasons, but since I was at that age, I enjoy.

I love Chicago because of the architecture.

But even you won't see it when you live down Division Street.

The surrounding that you live didn't allow me to see the architecture the way I see it now because I see that some of the people there, there wasn't responsible.

I mean, because they live clean inside their houses.

They live in the way they live, the surrounding.

And you still see it.

You may go down any poor neighborhood and you see how the neighborhood looks.

But you may go inside and you may find a clean apartment, a decent place to be, where you're going to have a glass of water from that kitchen because you know it's clean, even though you see all the garbage thrown in the alley.

But that was the impression.

When I came here, I was expecting to see something beautiful.

Beautiful in a way that, I don't know, like money on the street or people, friendly people.

Also something that I didn't like when I came here, they used to tell me, be careful don't go that way because the white people there.

Or be careful don't go that way because the black people.

So in Puerto Rico they may have races, I mean, they're groups that divide themselves.

I believe in all communities that will happen.

But because we're mixed and you may see a white Puerto Rican, a black Puerto Rican.

In Puerto Rico we, when someone call you black, that mean negrito, in Puerto Rico they're calling you honey.

Here's the other way around.

When they're calling you negrito, that mean nigger, and means the other, you know.

So it took me probably a year between the time that I started making friends to realize that the first time I started making friends, the first couple of months I was crying, I wanted to go back.

But after a year or two, I don't know, it's like you get to understand that it's not so bad.

There's always a place to move, a place to go.

And a lot of times, that's what I tell some of my friends, listen, we have problems, we all have problems.

And I know there's discrimination.

But let's not assume that everything that happens to us is because someone is doing it to us.

There are times that we're doing it to ourselves.

And, you know, that's all.

That's it.