LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY DEMANDS ANSWERS

Community is Outraged that Catholic Archdiocese Secretly Sells Self Help Graphics & Arts Historic Building

Los Angeles, July 11, 2008 — Over the last 24 hours elected officials, community leaders, artists and residents throughout Los Angeles expressed their outrage that the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese secretly sold the mosaic building that is home to Self Help Graphics & Art. After its founding by Catholic nun Sister Karen Boccalero more than 35 years ago, non-profit organization Self Help Graphics & Arts was notified that the Catholic Archdiocese sold the building to a private real estate and investment company. The organization had no knowledge of the sale or pending sale. Community leaders including Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina made it abundantly clear that the Archdiocese must explain its actions.

We need answers, Supervisor Molina said. “The Archdiocese’s blatant disrespect for the community is unacceptable. I commit to working with Self Help Graphics & Art to mobilize my elected official colleagues and other community leaders to demand that the archdiocese tell us why they mishandled this situation and how they plan to correct it.”

As long as the organization continued to fulfill the mission of advancing Chicano and Latino art and developing local and emerging artists, the Sisters of St. Francis, Mount Alverno agreed to allow Self Help Graphics & Art to use the building. With record-breaking print fairs, community festivals such as its iconic Dia de los Muertos celebration which draws thousands of attendees and artists both emerging and veteran flocking to the organization as a place to cultivate their art, Self Help has been undergoing a renaissance. Last Fall Self Help board members were told that the building was not on the list of sites to be sold as part of the Archdiocese’s attempt to raise funds to pay the settlement to individuals who successfully sued the church for sexual abuse.

A spokesperson for the Sisters of St. Francis alleges that Self Help Graphics & Art failed to secure a grant to purchase the building, leading the sisters to transfer title to the archdiocese. They also allege that the organization was struggling financially. 

“It is preposterous to believe that one attempt at a grant a year ago should signal the Sisters and Archdiocese to move forward with a sale with no notice whatsoever,” said Self Help board of directors president Armando Duron. “Common human decency would have been to give us a deadline for purchase.” 

After closing its doors for three months in 2005, Self Help has experienced resurgence with the help of an untold number of volunteers and the support of the community at large. With no federal or state subsidies or major private grants, the organization has thrived in its array of programs and services to the community. Sales for prints from some of the nation’s leading Latino artists and up-and-coming artists have been booming. The organization is considered by scholars and artists as one of the birthplaces of Chicano art.

“For nearly 40 years, Self-Help Graphics has been one of the major community-based arts centers serving Los Angeles. It has earned international recognition for its contributions to the graphic arts and for being a model of community-based art making and art-based community making. In the last three years, Self Help has reinvented itself as a self-sustaining organization, and it has shown the continued vitality and relevance of its mission by reaching new generations of artists and community members through innovative programs and cutting edge artistic production,” said Chon Noriega, professor and director of the Chicano Studies Research Center at UCLA.

The terms of the sale from the new owner allow Self Help to remain in the building rent free until December 31, 2008.

Stephen Saiz, Self Help board vice president said the organization will be working with the community, elected officials, foundations, fellow arts institutions and other community leaders to determine the future for the organization.

“We have had a relationship with the Church for almost 40 years and expected them to value that relationship and more importantly, the service we provide to the community” Saiz said. “We are not going to allow their needs for funds to pay off their debts stop us from that service.”

Self Help Graphics & Art is a nationally recognized center for Chicano and Latino arts that develops and nurtures artists and printmaking. Self Help Graphics & Art seeks to advance Chicano and Latino art broadly through programming, exhibitions and outreach to diverse audiences in East Los Angeles and beyond. Self Help Graphics & Art seeks to identify young and emerging artists from the community in all aspects of its activities.

Given the crime wave that has catapulted Baja California from a niche resort town and quick getaway from LA’s urban jungles to a desolate sprawl of fish taco stands, tiendas, and college bar hangouts. With the Mexican drug cartels gaining control of all aspects of Mexican society, the Baja today has been jeopordized with crime sprees that have implicated US citizens doubling as drug traffickers and innocent tourists who didn’t get the memo to stay away.

With this, the Baja region, long a site of economic disenfranchisement and identity crisis, has given way to a wasteland of crime dealings. The Mexican government has sent more than 3,000 troops into Tijuana in the last 1 1/2 years, and on several occasions soldiers have shot it out with drug cartel gunmen on residential streets. For many, this disruption will have severe implications on their future, as the poverty rate in the state is far below the national level. Moreover, the region’s economy is dependent on US tourism, as much of the tiendas, restaurants, and attractions cater specifically to them. With the high rate of criminal activity, the gringo tourists and college spring breakers have avoided TJ, Rosarito, and Ensenada at all costs, leaving merchants to board up their financial assets and take cover.

For the rich, the only way to mitigate their livelihood with their commitment to their homeland is to move several miles north, to San Diego. They have the luxury to switch spatial locations, however difficult the transition across the board is, it keeps them away from potential kidnappings and robberies. “San Diego is the only place you can forget the sense of insecurity and fear. There, you can breathe. Psychologically, crossing the border relieves the stress,” said Guillermo Alonso Meneses, a professor of cultural studies at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Tijuana.

The LA Times reports that real estate agents, business owners and victims groups estimate that more than 1,000 Tijuana families — including those of doctors, lawyers, law enforcement officials, Lucha Libre wrestlers and business owners — have made this move in recent years as the drug- fueled violence has worsened.

Andreina Cordova, a 15 year-old Central American Paramount resident is defying abstinence only sex ed to counsel peers about the realities of sex in today’s society. She’s been attending Planned Parenthood sex education events since the age of 13. She had just finished eighth grade when she became one of the youngest students ever hired to be a peer advocate in a program whose goal is to reduce teen pregnancy and STD rates.

She has memorized pages and pages of information on sex education and sexually transmitted diseases. She’s ready to pass out cards from Planned Parenthood, listing services and clinics. She is also armed with condoms.

This makes you wonder about the failure of contemporary sexual educatioin programs to proactively inform students of safe sex methods, emotional preparedness, and disease and infections that are attributed to intimacy. Instead of keeping it real, accurate, and poignant, the Bush administration and many a conservative politicians throughout this state have bypassed safe sex methodology in favor of abstinence only ploys. Where has that brought us?

More than 360,000 adolescents contract a sexually transmitted disease each year in Los Angeles County. In 2005, the most recent year for which data is available, 5,113 L.A. County girls younger than 18 gave birth — 3.4% of all births that year.

To circumscribe these rates, Audreina goes to the heart of the epidemic, South LA, with condoms and accurate information in hand. Now why can’t education officials and state politicans listen to what is at stake and pass proactive legislation like Mark Leno’s Assembly Bill 1511, instead of holding it in suspense?

Read more about Andreina’s one-person sex ed mission here.
 

A  ”posse” of 10 disadvantaged but promising high school graduates from Los Angeles entered Grinnell College four years ago with assistance from the Posse Foundation.

By banding together, the students would help one another navigate unfamiliar academic and social terrain in this remote college town surrounded by fields of corn.

Grinnell would cover their tuition — $1 million worth — and in return get a little more diversity on its campus of 1,500 students, virtually all of them white.

The preparation for their journey was chronicled in a Times story in 2004. Over the four years that followed, academic demands reduced some of the “posse scholars” to tears. Cultural differences left a few feeling like outsiders. Homesickness was a constant, especially in the midst of bone-chilling winters.

Urban Posse Reaching Higher Ed

With critical issues on this primary’s ballot, including races for Congress, State Assembly and Senate, as well as other local races and two statewide propositions, it is imperative eligible voters impact the future of public policy by voting on Today!

Polls are open from 7:00 am to 8:00 pm. To locate your polling place, click here.

A total of two propositions have qualified for the June 3^rd ballot. Below is a brief synopsis of each:

Proposition 98.  Government Acquisition, Regulation of Private Property — State of California (Initiative Constitutional Amendment - Majority Approval Required)

Bars state and local governments from condemning or damaging private property for private uses. Prohibits rent control and similar measures. Fiscal Impact: Increased costs to many governments due to the measure’s restrictions. The fiscal effect on most governments probably would not be significant.

Proposition 99 Eminent Domain. Acquisition of Owner-Occupied Residence — State of California (Initiative Constitutional Amendment - Majority Approval Required)

Bars state and local governments from using eminent domain to acquire an owner-occupied residence, as defined, for conveyance to a private person or business entity. Creates exceptions for public work or improvement, public health and safety protection, and crime prevention. Fiscal Impact: The measure would likely not have a significant fiscal impact on state or local governments.

Additional resources to streamline the voting process:

Secretary of State: The official voter guide issued by the Secretary of State’s Office. Guides are also available in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese.

Smart Voter: Find your personal ballot with your polling location and information about contests, candidates, and ballot measures, and election results.

Easy Voter Guide: Your quick guide to state elections, candidates, propositions, political parties and voting issues.  Check back for the updated, June 3rd Guide.

Election Day Resources: A guide to major election hotline numbers and other voter resources.

CALVOTER: An election overview with links to help understand California ’s political process and campaign finances.

Time off to Vote 

Dear Dorothy Carlson:
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog and commenting on my post about the legalization of Los Angeles. Nuestra Senora aims to provide transparency to a political regime that is often times exclusive and discriminatory. To this end, the Los Angeles that I live in is defined by cycles of immigration and forced migration due to financial, political, and social instability that is often initiated or supported by western hegemony.

I feel strongly that this country must amend its immigration policy to put a stop to the xenophobia and false information that have long defined the way this place stigmatizes immigrants of color. These views are evident in your comment and can be directly attributed to the racism and hostility that is ramped in this country, but also its isolationist perspective that focuses solely on domestic problems, like Britney Spears. 

You are entitled to your opinions and your history. However, my history has taught me that the immigration policies you refer to privileged white immigrants and polices such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of the late 19th century and the Bracero Program of the 1930’s discriminate against immigrants of color due to preconceived hostility on the part of white policy-makers. Allowing floods of immigrants from Western Europe will not solve today’s problems because the fact is, this world is more complex and the demographic makeup of today’s displaced people do not hail from the UK, but from the birthplace of humanity, Africa, the founding site of astronomy, Latin America, and the culturally diverse regions that compose Asia. I agree that immigration reform is needed, but first we must agree on what constitutes immigrants and respect individuals instead of lambasting them.

The U.S. is not a country of immigrants, as there were native people occupying this region long before the genocidal Christopher Columbus passed his syphilis onto entire civilizations. Many African Americans cannot trace their native countries of origin, not because of lack of interest, but because of a system of slavery that purposefully placed individuals from different regions, dialects, and religions together to force labor efficiency and stagnate the creation of a unitary community. Moreover, today’s immigrants are forced migrants, fleeing harsh conditions and in search of some form of prosperity and dignity. As they come to this country, they are incorporated into a caste system in which their previous histories are forgotten as are any medical or law degrees. They are the U.S. underground labor force, the backbone of our economy. To this end, until true immigration reform is passed, what you blatantly defined as ‘undocumented, baby popping, illegal immigrants’ will be diligent, strong minded, and heterogeneous individuals. 

The immigration laws that are in place do not take into account the historical trajectory that has riveted issues of immigration in the US and across Western Europe. It is now that we are witnessing the effects of imperialism, colonization, and domination, as third world countries are ill-equipped to adequately provide for all of its residents. Now, I maintain this is not inadequacy on the part of these countries and for that fact, three continents, but the disenfranchisement that lingers as the colonial powers that be raped the land of its natural resources and continue to do so with plans of privatization.

Now with this history, I ask you to respect the histories of others and acknowledge that your history is relative to an immigration policy that is delinquent because of its discriminatory and exploitative gaze. Can we agree that this country’s wealth was built on the backs of slave laborers, who were raped and pillaged from their native countries to work for free under oppressive conditions and in an unfamiliar climate? With that, please acknowledge that today’s economy is built on the invisible labor force, that is drawing new similarities to the Jim Crow south each day, as low-wages, horrid working conditions, and lack of representation leave individuals who fled disparaging conditions with no where to turn but predatory creditors.

I hope that you, as a third generation descendent of immigrants respect those who kill themselves to keep this country working. Those that lost their farms in their native countries because of free trade and neoliberalism, who are now canning your fruit and freezing your vegetables in factories across the U.S. Those that sew your clothes from Los Angeles to Saipan. Those whose bodies were crushed as the twin towers collapsed because they were working their usual morning shift cleaning the offices and preparing food for the white-collared workers many of whom escaped the tragedy as their work day began just in time for financial gain. Those that mow your lawn, gut your home, and tile your floor for money that is less than the total number of fingers on your right hand.

Legalization for all is something that is not only right, but humane. Millions will continue to come to the U.S., France, England, and Italy. Because billions of people in the third world have limited options and low rates of survival since their precious natural resources are on the stock exchange, their access to nearby bodies of water is limited by western corporations, and their political systems have yet to fully recover from a history of oppression and conflict. So let’s just work it out Dorothy Carlson by taking some time out of our privileged lives to learn a little bit about world history and humanity. Maybe then we can agree on a real history and recognize that the immigration policy that let your Irish ancestors into the U.S. ‘the right way’ is not applicable in today’s time. 

Sincerely,

Sonja Diaz

One of the most interesting pieces I have read in the LA TImes’ op-ed is a compilation of short essays from students, labor leaders, elected officials, and academics about what UC President Mark Yudof should focus on as he begins his term in the coming months. These pieces range from liberal minded philosophical leanings of ‘know thy self’ to the more right-wing rhetoric of the infamous one man show, Ward Connerly. My favorite are those that reveal the true cost of a UC undergraduate education, which is often bloated in the public and at legislative hearings, thank you astronomy professor.

One noticeably absent piece is an essay from the Gubernator about how the system is worthless and should be privatized or subsidized by a non-California entity. Where are your market bullet points, mr. gubernator?

Read the articles here