Category Archives: Arts & Culture

Monumental

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In my last post I wrote about the Confederate monument in Waverly, Missouri. That summer morning, I met two little girls playing near the statue. That got me thinking about the statues I grew up around and the impact they had on me. Like the contested Confederate monuments in Charlottesville or Richmond, we also had a towering man on a horse. The statue was “El Cid Campeador” in San Diego’s Balboa Park. It was created in 1927 by Anna Hyatt Huntington, a famous American sculptor. El Cid was a flamboyant Spanish knight brandishing a flag. He looked down on you with furrowed brows, a dagger poised on his belt. So, we too had our mounted military hero with a flag from an extinct nation state.

But that was not my favorite statue. About fifty steps away, in the courtyard of the Hospitality House, was a fountain called “La Tehuana” (Woman of Tehuantepec). She was sculpted in 1935 by local artist Donal Hord. I remember being drawn through the dark Moorish arches into the light of the open courtyard by the sound of falling water. There the stone woman sat, endlessly pouring water from her olla. I had to look up into her serene face, but not too far up. She didn’t tower above me. Instead, it felt like she welcomed me into the embrace of the courtyard and the blue tiled fountain. I could dip my fingers in the water and reach — but never quite touch — the water pouring from the olla. I thought of her as Mother Earth.

I loved her long hair that trailed in two thick braids down her back. Like my hair. And how she sat crossed legged in bare feet, the way I often did. As a little girl, I didn’t think about why I ran to this fountain every time we went to Balboa Park. But looking back on it now, I think I felt validated in her presence. Here, in this public place, women in bare feet with long braids were honored. “La Tehuana” made me feel monumental too.

Sister Cities

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On a narrow peninsula in San Diego harbor rises a graceful Japanese bell tower surrounded by a moat. Beneath the sturdy beams hangs a massive bronze temple bell called a bonshō. It’s six feet tall and weighs two and a half tons. The bell is struck from the outside using a wooden beam suspended on chains. A bonshō’s deep tone can carry over twenty miles and reverberate for a full minute. The sound permeates to your bones.

This Friendship Bell was a gift to San Diego from the people of Yokohama in 1958. After the terrible destruction of World War II, President Eisenhower founded the Sister Cities International program as a way to rebuild trust and friendship between nations. The pairing of San Diego and Yokohama was one of the first sister relationships on the West Coast.

Yokohama’s gift is only rung on special occasions and New Years Eve when the local Buddhist Temple invites the community for Joya No Kane, the tolling bell ceremony. It’s customary to ring a temple bell 107 times before midnight and once just after midnight. The sound of the bell purges misdeeds, reveals illusions, expresses thanks, and on the last toll, offers a prayer for a fresh start in the New Year. Buddhists believe the bonshō bells have sacred powers and can even be heard by people who have died — or are not yet born.

I don’t remember being aware of any of these concepts when I was young and my family would go to ring the bonshō. I just remember the excitement of the gathering crowd and the anticipation as we were allowed to cross the moat and climb the steps toward the bell that I could easily fit inside. It took all my strength (and help from my dad) to pull back on the rope attached to the striker log. We’d swing it back and forth a few times, gathering momentum, then we’d let it hit the bell. The vibrations struck my body making it tingle and then continued out into the night like the pulse of the universe. I can still hear it ringing in my ears.

I hadn’t thought about that bell for a long time but then the idea of Sister Cities came echoing out of the past. After the American “War of 2016”, I wondered if it might be a good idea for communities within the nation to become “sisters”? If foreign nations can rebuild trust and friendship, maybe the American people can do it too?

Which begs the question, did President Eisenhower’s vision of Sister Cities even work? Did the people of San Diego and Yokohama learn to understand and trust each other after being mortal enemies?

I think the answer is yes. I may have been a little kid but the significance of the Friendship Bell wasn’t lost on me. The bell’s creator, Katori Masahiko, said, “…part of the spirit of the bell is the wishes and prayers that the people who make [a bonshō] put into it.” And he meant that literally. All kinds of things might be added to the molten bronze before it was poured into the bell’s hand-carved clay mold — copper plates with the names of those who contributed, coins from around the world, broken swords, and even poems and prayers written on paper scrolls. The Japanese concentrated their hopes of peace and healing into the crucible, poured them into the bell, then shared them with us. We could feel it.

What an amazing gift! They could have given us a statue but instead they gave us a sound. And not just any sound. A sound that carries through space and time.

And there was something more. According to foundry bell maker Ikko Iwasawa, “The thing that matters is not the form, but the function, the content, the space inside. … in this space is the bell’s true meaning.” So, from a Japanese perspective, the Friendship Bell is a frame for whatever we might wish to fill it with. It is an emptiness created by peoples’ hope for peace. It is an invitation.

That’s the kind of beauty that can happen between international Sister Cities — reconciliation that transcends (and hopefully ends) human atrocities. As my own country flounders in hatred and conflict, thinking about the Friendship Bell gives me hope. Thank you, people of Yokohama. It’s taken my whole life but I’m gradually learning to appreciate the magnitude of your gift. ありがとうございました

 

(And thanks to Kongo of Travel-Monkey.net for the use of the close up photo of the Friendship Bell.)

Day of Remembrance

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Seventy-five years ago, on February 19th, 1942, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order #9066 forcing all West Coast people of Japanese ancestry to leave their homes for confinement in inland detention camps. The families only had a few days to prepare and could only bring what they could carry. Successful businesses, farms ripe with crops, houses, cars, pets, Victory gardens, all had to be hastily sold, leased, given away, or abandoned. The majority of the “evacuees” were imprisoned from 1942 to 1946 without criminal charges or trial. By the end of the war, most had lost everything and had to start over from scratch.

This photograph by Dorothea Lange shows an art student at the Tanforan Assembly Center in San Bruno, California, June 16, 1942. The evacuation ordeal is only two months old. Already University of California art professor Chiura Obata has set up art classes for his fellow detainees. This woman is probably only a few miles from home at this point but she’ll end up living in some horrid dusty “camp” in Utah or Arizona for years. She doesn’t know any of this yet. Perhaps art will help her survive. As Delphine Hirasuna wrote, “Everything was lost, except the courage to create.”*

As with all of Dorothea Lange’s photographs, this one is beautifully composed and executed. There’s a compositional tension between the vertical streaks of sunlight coming through the doors behind the artist, and the soft light washing over the horizontal surfaces of the tables. The placement of the larger tables focuses our eye on the small table holding the still life. Beneath the fruit bowl is a folded newspaper. It’s the Pacific Citizen, a weekly journal published by the Japanese American Citizens League. The headline is about the Relocation Centers. The paper has just moved from San Francisco to Salt Lake City to avoid being shut down. It will become the communication lifeline for the imprisoned Japanese American community. The whole scene conveys a quiet strength and dignity.

This image, and about 800 more of Dorothea’s Internment Camp photographs, were censored. Even though the War Relocation Authority hired Lange to document the “evacuation,” military officials quietly made sure the public never saw the photographs. For many years after the war, Dorothea didn’t know what had become of her work. Eventually, the prints showed up in the National Archives with “Impounded” written across them.

Those in power didn’t want the public to see photographs of well-dressed, middle-class American citizens, mostly women and children, living in horse stalls with open sewers flowing outside their doors. There could be no pictures of guard towers, barbed wire fences, armed soldiers, and especially resistance. No one was supposed to see the depression and despair on the people’s faces. They had been good neighbors, fellow students, church members, valued customers, and upstanding citizens but now, according to war-time propaganda, they looked like the enemy.

Dorothea didn’t see it that way. She had friends behind the barbed wire and quietly focused her camera on the injustice. Others would have to censor her vision.

* from The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps 1942-1946 by Delphine Hirasuna.

For more of Dorothea’s photographs see: Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment by Linda Gordon and Gary Y. Okihiro (Editors).

A Passing Dragon

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Ouroboros is an ancient alchemical symbol showing a serpent or dragon eating its own tail — the visual representation of something constantly recreating itself. Uroboros  (alternate spelling) is also the name of a legendary glass maker in Portland, Oregon. In the art glass world, ties to the medieval art of alchemy are entirely appropriate. The recipes for creating certain colors, textures, patterns, and combinations are labored over and jealously guarded. Which is why when Uroboros announced it was going out of business earlier this year, many glass artists fell into deep mourning.

So did I. My grandfather and great-grandfather both worked for Tiffany Studios in New York during its heyday, so I grew up around windows and lamps made with luscious colored glass. Uroboros glass replicated the luminous materials produced by Tiffany between 1892 and 1928 — a nearly impossible task. If they stopped production, it would be a terrible loss to glass artists around the world.

Fortunately, like its name sake, Uroboros is being reborn as part of Oceanside Glasstile, another artsy West Coast company with a broad product line and economic viability. Artists are praying they will keep the magic alive but only time will tell.

What will die is Uroboros’ magical home in Portland. Built before the widespread use of artificial light, walls of windows flood the interior of the former railcar plant with natural light. The place feels like an enchanted combination of industrial smoking dragon and sparkling crystal palace. It has the patina of nearly a half century of use by creative minds. Will this ever happen in Portland again? Gentrification lurks just around the corner. If the building survives, it will probably become a trendy brew pub.

So if you appreciate authentic artistic spaces, and the crafts that create them, make a pilgrimage to Uroboros before this beloved dragon finishes swallowing its own tail.

Uroboros hopes to stay open at least until the end of April, 2017, but check here for updates: https://www.facebook.com/uroborosglass

Speaking Spanglish

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I speak Spanglish. A lot of people in the West do. I learned it as a kid growing up in a border town. Spanglish was en el aire: Tijuana TV channels; Mexican radio stations where all the DJ’s speak rápido, más rápido than is humanly possible; on the bus; in the supermarket; en la escuela; even my grandfather occasionally, and he was a gringo.

Of course, we took Spanish in school. They taught us the difference between Castilian Spanish, where everyone sounds like they’re talking with a lisp, and real Spanish like we speak in Norte America. I guess they wanted us to be able to lisp in España if we had to ask an urgent question during the running of the bulls or something.

I was terrible in Spanish class. The only time I got an “A” was when our teacher made a deal that if we didn’t speak English during class all year we would get an automatic “A.” I messed up one time and said something in English, but the teacher was viejo and he didn’t hear me, so I still got the “A.”

He wanted to teach us how to think in Spanish. I wasn’t sure what he meant until it started happening to me. I was walking down the hall after Spanish class talking to myself. I noticed that my inner dialog had switched languages. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay talking to myself in Spanish because I ran into an idea I didn’t know how to say so I mixed in the English. That’s when it started, thinking in Spanglish. I’ve been stuck there ever since.

I never can remember how to conjugate verbs into past or future tense. Even hoy, when I speak Spanglish, everything has to be in present tense. I must live in the Now. Fortunately, other Spanglish speakers have the same problem because it’s hard to remember how to put English verbs into tenses too. If you have to imply past or future, you can always say “ayer” o “mañana” and motion with your hand that you are advancing or receding time, even if your verbs don’t.

A big advantage of Spanglish is that there are no wrong answers. Anything goes as long as you can make yourself understood. You can throw words and phrases in like there’s no tomorrow and let the listener pick out whatever seems relevant given the situation. Es el mismo coming back the other way. You can let go of precision and go for the essence. Of course, there are some topics that are best avoided — legal, medical, a critical recipe — you probably aren’t going to get there with Spanglish. But talking about the family, the kids, your jardín, la día bonita, directions to el baño, you’re fine. No problema.

Somewhere I read that the writer Denise Chavez refuses to italicize the Spanish words she uses in her English language stories. It frustrates her publisher who wants her to keep the languages straight. She must write in Spanglish because she thinks in Spanglish. When will they understand, Spanglish is it’s own lengua? Which words would you italicize; the Spanish ones or the English ones? Pero, there’s words like salsa, tortilla, vaquero, gringo … see? My spell checker doesn’t even put red lines under those. They pass. So, are they English or Spanish? No sé. Which makes you wonder if eventually all these palabras are going to be both English and Spanish, or will there be a new Spanglish Language?

I don’t have the answer but that’s okay. For now, we can enjoy the linguistic anarchy that is Spanglish. It reflects our collective culture, you know, how we mix it all up. Like putting mango salsa on your salmon. It may be geographically jumbled but it tastes good. Spanglish may drive your spell checker loco but it sounds good. It sounds the way la gente really talk around here, tú sabes?

Aloha Owyhee!

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Most folks don’t realize Oregon was originally settled by Hawaiians. For decades following Lewis and Clark’s trip down the Columbia River, Hawaiians made up most of the non-Native workforce in the Pacific Northwest fur trade. They built the first forts and villages along the Columbia River, and journeyed thousands of miles inland as part of  exploratory surveys. They left their mark in unlikely places, like the high arid rangelands of Eastern Oregon. The Owyhee River is named after three Hawaiians who disappeared there in the winter of 1819-1820. (“Owyhee” was a common spelling of “Hawai’i” back then.)

European, American, and Asian trading ships regularly sailed into port on the Hawaiian islands in the early 1800s. Many Hawaiians took the opportunity to explore the far reaches of the Pacific by signing on with companies competing for the North American fur trade. These islanders possessed all the maritime skills needed for survival in the Pacific: navigation, boat building, fishing, and swimming. Swimming might seem like an essential skill for any sailor, but in the early 1800s most Europeans and Americans didn’t know how to swim. As a precaution, at least one Hawaiian was assigned to every boat, ready to rescue any person or cargo that went overboard.

If a Hawaiian wanted to go to sea, they requested permission from their ruling monarch. The Aliʻi generally set limits on the length of employment and specified the compensation. And he expected his subjects to return to the islands. Many survivors did return with fabulous stories they retold for the rest of their lives. Others came back to visit but were anchored to the mainland by marriages with native people or, occasionally, European and American settlers. Many Indian families in Oregon Territory still have Hawaiian names.

This congenial mixing of Pacific Rim people encountered resistance when American settlers arriving overland from the East began to outnumber the people who were already here. Among this influx of Easterners was Samuel Thurston. He was described by one biographer as  “young, brilliant, handsome, splendidly educated, with an indomitable will, and almost insanely ambitious.” One of Thurston’s self-appointed goals was to exclude African Americans and Hawaiians from Oregon Territory. As the territory’s Congressional delegate in 1850,  he won passage of a land grant act that legally closed the door on anyone who wasn’t white or a half-white/Native American mix. Thurston described Hawaiians as “a race of men as black as your negroes of the South, and a race, too, that we do not desire to settle in Oregon.” After Thurston and his ilk had their way, Hawaiians could not own land, become citizens, vote, purchase liquor or testify against “whites” in court. The territory at that time included the future states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and parts of Montana and Wyoming. Some of Oregon’s racists laws remained on the books for more than a hundred years.

Many Hawaiian families in the Oregon Territory moved to Canada where they were welcomed as full-fledged citizens; some hid out with their native families on Indian reservations protected by the tribes’ sovereign status. But some stayed right where they were, as revealed by newspapers published on the islands. An article from Ka Lau Oliva, December, 1874, told of a Hawaiian woman who gathered Hawaiian language newspapers and books and sent them through a friend to Hawaiians living in Oregon. To express their gratitude, the Oregonians sent her a barrel of kāmano (salmon), “along with our warm aloha.”

And what would people on the islands do with a barrel of salted salmon? Make the popular luau dish, lomi-lomi salmon, of course! You see, everything just naturally flows together and no one can kill Oregon’s aloha spirit.

 

Photo: Sisters Luau, Sisters, Oregon, 2015, Jerry Baldock photographer.