The weekly newsletter of the México Solidarity Project

November 25, 2020/ This week's issue/ Meizhu Lui, for the editorial team

Seeing Is Believing

We humans make art. We’ve been at it for 40,000 years, ever since our ancestors painted images of deer and boar on cave walls and gave us “graphic novels” that depicted hunts and ceremonial dances. Those first artists memorialized what they saw as important and helped those who saw their work learn how to behave.

Art has always influenced consciousness and behavior, and governments have always recognized that power. Those statues of Spanish conquistadors and Confederate generals that still claim public spaces try to teach us who to revere and admire. These pieces denigrate and demoralize — by design — the peoples those “heroes” have exterminated and enslaved. They encourage hateful identification and imitation.

Revolutionary governments need art as well, to help people believe in the possibility of a new social order. A century ago, the new governments that emerged from the Mexican Revolution took murals as their art form of choice. Murals unified. All people, including indigenous people not literate in Spanish, could see themselves pictured prominently in public squares as respected and valued citizens. 

Most all of us know the work of Diego Rivera, one of México’s most famous muralists. Rivera became sought after in the US too. A communist champion of the working class, he once refused to take an image of Lenin out of a commissioned work in New York for the Rockefellers, who then ordered the mural destroyed! For revolutionary artists, the message and not the money has always been what counted.

Murals today appear on streets populated by people of every race and ethnicity. Artists like Juana Alicia — who speaks to us in this week’s Voices — are creating revolutionary art that’s exposing those who would destroy the earth for a dollar. They’re illustrating stories of resistance and envisioning a new reality. That deeply matters. We believe what we see. We act when we believe.

Muralist, printmaker, and painter Juana Alicia is also a teacher — and not just of art. She's taught everything from bilingual ed to community organizing. Alicia, who considers teaching and parenting akin to working as an artist, draws in her students and community members to collaborate on her murals. Most of Alicia's work appears in the Bay Area, but her art is also transforming spaces in México and other nations. Alicia now lives in Mérida, and that means that Mexican students — and walls — are directly benefiting from her powerful creative presence.

You came of age in the exhilarating atmosphere of 1970s Detroit, a center for revolutionary black workers and the hub of a musical explosion. How did that shape your politics?

Juana Alicia: I’m originally from Texas, with Tejano/Jewish ancestry. Work at Chrysler settled my migrant family in Detroit in the 1950s. Yes, I took part in civil rights/Black Panther/antiwar actions, and I grew up listening to The Last Poets, Amiri Baraka, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, and Marvin Gaye. Dancing in the streets and feeling the world on the cusp of a revolution!

From Detroit — to México! What's that story?

As a teenager, I made posters in solidarity with the UFW's grape strike and boycott, and I was swept up by the Chicanx Movement. In 1972 I met Cesar Chavez at a rally, and he recruited me to work with the UFW in Salinas. I spent several years working in the strawberry and lettuce fields where I learned from — and bonded with — my Mexican coworkers.

During that same period, my sister went to college at UNAM, and I began to visit Mexico. I fell in love: the sinking marble museums, the smell of the panaderias, the Zócalo echoing with the voices of millennia, and the smell of diesel in the streets of La CDMX. Later, my husband, Tirso Araiza, told me when we met that he intended to live in Mérida, the city of his birth. And we did it! Now I’m going to become a Mexican citizen. I want to participate in the vibrant cultural life of Mérida, the Yucatán, and the country, and contribute artistically to this amazing place.

Are murals your preferred form? If so, why?

My work evolved from the streets of San Francisco’s Mission District, with its legendary mural renaissance. I work in many forms, but the mural remains my favorite. I love the theatricality, the social interaction in a public place, the monumentality, the interface with the environment. I feel thrilled while I’m painting a mural!

Murals make images accessible to a wide public: to folks in the streets, at demonstrations, or just going about their lives, struggling, loving, suffering, rejoicing. You’ll be walking down the street, and pow! A building becomes a song, a film on walls, an alternative vision to the commercialism bombarding us from billboards to our telephones. The wall opens a door to new possibilities.

Do you intend your works to serve a political/social purpose?

Some of my murals are wake-up calls, shockers, like The Spill mural in central Berkeley [pictured above]. Others celebrate the power of women, of history, of hope. I visualize a better world as well as project a resounding critique of the systems that destroy us. Graphic art is a tool for organizing. Thanks to allies in the US, some of my images have been enlarged to monumental size and plastered on the streets in several Bay Area locations, like the "Get Out! ¡Fuera!” image of the Trump statue falling. This kind of art in urban environments humanizes public spaces.

What is an artist’s task in these times?

As Nina Simone, said, “I choose to reflect the times and situations in which I find myself. That to me is my duty.” And at this crucial time in our lives when everything is so desperate, how can you be an artist and not reflect the times? As artists, we can remove structures of oppression from our collective imagination and replace them with visions that celebrate our autonomy and power.

In November 2018, the newly elected President Andres Manuel López Obrador appointed Paco Ignacio Taibo II to lead the storied national Mexican publishing house, El Fondo de Cultura Económica, an appointment tantamount to becoming culture minister. The down-to-earth, humorous, and profane Taibo has been one of México’s most beloved writers — and a courageous critic of Mexican institutions. This passage appeared in a Marc Cooper profile of Taibo for The Nation.

Paco Taibo’s Republic of Readers

López Obrador’s decision to appoint Taibo matters more in the political sense than you might think. Writers, journalists, and books play a significantly different role in Mexican society than they do north of the border. Authors are a source of national pride: They’re nearly as likely to appear on a talk show as a new pop-star singer…

In this context, Taibo’s tenure at the FCE will be an important test of López Obrador’s own principles. AMLO has committed himself to restoring democracy and standing up for the poor ; how much latitude Taibo has will serve as a litmus test for the progressivism of Mexico’s new leadership…

A Mexican trade paperback can cost $25 or more (in US currency), and many workers make only $8 to $12 a day. “This is why our new fighting slogan is Una República de Lectores,” Taibo says — a republic of readers.

Taibo’s literary plan de choque called for over 70 literary events, fairs, and exhibitions nationwide held in three months. He has ordered the rehabilitation of a small fleet of book buses that his predecessors left to rot, and he’s already using them to visit some of the more remote sections of the country, including in the epicenter of narco activity. Taibo has already launched his first series, “Vientos del Pueblo,” a 400,000-copy press run of eight books priced at $2 or less, including authors ranging from Ariel Dorfman to Michel Foucault…

“I’ve been to hundreds of book festivals, fairs, and exhibitions. I love them,” Taibo says. “When you go to a book festival in the US or Germany, they are beautiful — it’s a moment of pleasure. But in Mexico, when you have a book fair, people come because they are hungry to read, because it is the only place they can afford a book or buy a book. For many of those who come, it is a revelatory moment — they can’t believe you are talking to authors as if they are friends.”

Recent news reports and commentaries, from progressive and mainstream media,
on life and struggles on both sides of the US-México border

Kevin Sieff and Nick Miroff, México guns: Sniper rifles are flowing to Mexican drug cartels from the U.S., Washington Post. Increasingly militarized drug cartels now command arsenals that rival the weaponry of México’s security forces, thanks to arms and ammo trafficking the US refuses to end.

Peter Davies, 8 months after it began, México is 4th country to record 100,000 deaths from Covid-19, México News Daily. The actual death tally is probably running much higher than the just over 100,000 so far reported. México’s Health Ministry noted last month about 193,000 more deaths than usual in 2020's first nine months.

AMLO to G20 leaders: ‘Priority for the poor,’ universal access to medical care, México News Daily. A sermon-like address highlights lessons learned from the Covid pandemic.

The New Model of Labor Justice begins: what are the benefits for workers? World Today News. The implementation of México’s new labor law is now beginning in eight states. Among many other changes, the new labor code guarantees workers a secret vote on who their bargaining rep will be.

AMLO keeps expanding DIY construction programs, Bnamericas. The new Morena initiative includes reforming the housing lender law to help workers buy land and build or expand their own homes.

México Takes a Step Toward Legalizing Marijuana, VOA News. Senate-passed legislation would allow adults to possess no more than 28 grams, grow up to four plants, and purchase marijuana from authorized businesses.

Anna Marie de la Fuente, Mexico’s 35th Guadalajara Film Fest Launches a Hybrid Version, Variety. This showcase for the best in recent Latin American cinema includes the heralded new documentary, The White Myth, from Gabriel Serra.

Eric Martin, México Hits Pause on IMF Credit Line Reduction Amid Pandemic, Bloomberg. The latest on México’s approach to stimulus spending.

“It is an honor to receive Valenzuela II”: AMLO met with baseball player Julio Urías, champion with Los Angeles Dodgers, Explica. México’s fastest-growing export to the US may be Major Leaguers.

Outsourcing: cuáles son los cambios y sanciones con la propuesta de ley de AMLO contra abusos, Infobae. En México hay más de cuatro millones de personas laborando bajo el esquema de outsourcing.

The Mexico Solidarity Project brings together activists from various socialist and left organizations and individuals committed to worker and global justice who see the 2018 election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador as president of México as a watershed moment. AMLO and his progressive Morena party aim to end generations of corruption, impoverishment, and subservience to US interests. Our Project supports not just Morena, but all Mexicans struggling for basic rights, and opposes US efforts to undermine organizing and México’s national sovereignty. 

Editorial committee: Meizhu Lui, Bruce Hobson, Bill Gallegos, Sam Pizzigati. We welcome your suggestions and feedback. Interested in getting involved? Drop us an email!

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