Giving it my All.: SAVE Gintong Kasaysayan, Gintong Pamana.
STOP THE DESECRATION OF THE HISTORIC FILIPINOTOWN MURAL AT THE UNIDAD PARK BY THE LOS ANGELES LAND TRUST
STOP THE DESECRATION OF THE HISTORIC FILIPINOTOWN MURAL AT THE UNIDAD PARK BY THE LOS ANGELES LAND TRUST
Dearest Friends and Advocates of our Filipinotown Community,
It’s been 16 years since I completed our mural on Beverly Blvd, and very happy that I am revisiting it once again to reclaim the portraits in the mural along with the text underneath, thanks to a generous grant from Eric Garcetti’s Office of $5,000, along with selfless donations from other members of our community which will be properly credited on the wall. I am working on site until end of July with a scaffold, then after my return to Alaska on August 16, will complete the text underneath.
I just happen to be there today when 4 leaders from the LA Neighborhood was meeting with two contractors to build twenty, 6’(L)x 6’(W) x 4’ (H) boxes that will be fenced off with a 7’ fence around them, all within Unidad Park. Five of these community garden boxes will be integrated with the rice terraces, but 15 will be right in front of the mural. They have also decided that they will destroy the Dap-Ay space completely (since no one in the community claims to be using them)to give way to these new boxes.
I was completely shocked. They claimed that they outreached with our community for the June community meeting where they all met to decide on all these with a landscape architect. They said no one in the Filipino community responded. They as a group have decided to see and approve the design from the landscape architect on August 4, 2011- Thursday @ 8 am in the Park for the community meeting.
I will be completing a mural project in Sitka, Alaska from August 3-15, so I will not be able to make it to the August 4 meeting at the park. I am hoping that we can mobilize our community to show up at the park that Thursday morning to help preserve the integrity of the park as well as its relationship to the mural.
There are several issues:
1) Destroying the Dap-Ay is going to diminish significantly the indigenous and Filipino aspect of the park’s design. Perhaps, the Dap-Ay can be enhanced further with other ideas in the future, but not destroy it.
2) Building fifteen 4’ high x 6’ x2) Building fifteen 4’ high x 6’ x 6’ box along with a 7 foot fence surrounding the boxes in front of the mural -at the edge of the walkway in front of the mural will cover half of the image part of the entire length of the mural. People will come to the park and see these hideous wooden boxes, wondering whatever happened to our mural?
3) There is a fruit tree right in front of the mural where Jose Rizal is, and it is already covering all the children in front of Rizal- and only half of Rizal’s body is seen.How long will it be before people will say- let’s just paint over it- the mural’s gone anyway! I brought this to their attention- and they said that removing the tree is not negotiable. When it was newly planted, I already said so many times never to cover the mural and move the tree away- but they never did.
4) What kind of activities or programming can we do to make the park relevant and useful to our community- beyond the episodic Filipinotown?
I do not want to take this message any further. I really felt helpless in front of the two representatives. They claim that the park is not a museum -so the community can do whatever they want with it- it belongs to everyone.
I just want to bring attention to this new development- and hoping that I can get support to mobilize our community and save our Park and Mural. Two representatives from LA Neighborhood Landtrust have indicated they will meet with me again within this month. I am hoping that I can get our community to join me in this meeting, as I have asked if I can invite others to come, since I cannot make it for the August 4 meeting.
Let me know if any of you are interested in meeting at the park as soon as possible, before we meet with LA Landtrust as a group. Kindly spread this message to others….
Thank you for your continuing support.
Best,
Eliseo Art Silva
Muralist
It angers me to hear that people aren’t respecting this mural. The first time I ever visited the mural was with Jewelle last summer when we were visiting Belmont High School for our video about the Pilipin@ undocumented student population—it’s had a huge impact on me ever since.
Again, this an example of having to fight for something that is RIGHTFULLY ours.
I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen murals at parks…does a mural in a park automatically make it a “museum”?
If the park “belongs to everyone”—-then why remove a mural that belongs to everyone?
Contradictions.
(via yeahyuhitslori)
