Meet the UndocuArtists: Using art & culture for immigrant justice, & much more!

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Paul

by Favianna Rodriguez

This post has been reposted from the blog of Favianna Rodriguez at Favianna.com. It was originally posted on May 2, 2012. If you like my CulturalOrganizing.org (or even if you don’t), you should definitely be reading hers.

I’m really honored to be able to collaborate with some off-the-hook undocumented artists and writers who are not only making waves in the immigrant rights space, but also in the arts and culture space overall. If you are in San Francisco, you will the opportunity to meet some of these artists at the upcoming Undocunation event on May 3.

Last year, I had heard about Julio Salgado, an undocumented artist who was posting images all over Facebook in support of the DREAM Act and about undocumented youth coming out of the shadows. I had seen the images around but hadn’t actually met Julio, until last may when he visited the Bay and I invited him over for lunch. (Art below by Julio Salgado)

Empowered by both his queer and undocumented identities, Julio was following the tradition of using art as a tool to fight anti-migrant laws. I was so tremendously inspired by him that I committed to supporting his creative work and I invited him be a part of a delegation of artists that went to Tucson, Arizona, last September.

Julio eventually introduced me to his collaborative media project, DreamersAdrift.com. Along with Jesus Iñiguez, Fernando Romero and Deisy Hernandez, the four undocumented college graduates had started DreamersAdrift.com as a way to combat the negative language used by the media when they talked about undocumented folks in this country. Using video, art and music, DreamersAdrift.com has been a creative outlet for other undocumented students and allies to speak out about their immigration status. You can see some of their hilarious work here.

It was refreshing to see these artist take on serious subjects with humor and sarcasm. I also was really impressed that everyone involved in the production, down the video editor, was undocumented. This demonstrated to me the importance of art, culture and media coming directly from the folks most impacted by a given issues, in this case, our country’s failed immigration system. I believe that as radical artists, we have to recognize our priviledge and be able to strongly support other artists who do not have the same access we have. The fact that I was born in this country grants me access to a host of grants, public money, and artistic opportunities that undocumented artists dont’ have.

The “Undocumented and Awkward” series by DreamersAdrift.com have gone viral within pro-migrant activists who have used the videos to share the realities of being an undocumented immigrant.

They’ve also collaborated with other undocumented artists as well, such as Yosimar Reyes, who was featured in one of the “Undocumented and Awkward” videos that touched on the subject of being undocumented and queer, or “Undocuqueer.” Yosimar, a self-described “two-spirit gangsta” and author of “For Colored Boys Who Speak Softly,” has used his poetic talent to criticize the current state of immigrant politics. Issues of race, borders and “joteria,” are abundant in his work.

Julio also connected me with Felipe Baeza, a fierce, undocumented artist from New York who not only has he been actively creating art about being UndocuQueer, but has also been at the forefront of a migrant movement led by a lot of women and queer youth. Last year, Felipe participated in a sit-in in Gerogia and risked deportation. Check him out here:

These artists are a huge inspiration for me, and I’m excited to be working with them on national projects, like this print portfolio project here, and like “UndocuNation: An Evening with Artists for Immigrant Justice,” which opens tomorrow, May 3 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Designing Change

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Paul

Ever since I wrote my recent post on information design, I seem to see infographics everywhere. This one I found at the office of Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE). This is a perfect example of using information design to support organizing, by taking information that is complex and a bit dry (a series of practical policies to save the public transportation system money) and making it easier to read and grasp. I like the color scheme, and the use of the old T tokens. (See my recent post on Superheroes to learn more about this campaign.)

Superheroes Fight for Boston Transit

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Paul

It’s been a good week for superheroes. Friday saw the release of The Avengers (which was hot), and Saturday was Free Comic Book Day. But if you live here in Boston, you don’t need to go to the theater or the comic book store for a superhero fix — we’ve got our own team of spandex-clad do-gooders and they are asking you to join.

The Fast Five fight for affordable, quality public transportation in Boston. They have been spotted often across the city — at protests, marches, and transit board meetings — during the recent fight against budget cuts for Boston’s transit system, “The T.” Just as Batman lurks in his Bat Cave, the Fast Five base their operations out of the T Riders Union (TRU), part of the advocacy and organizing group, Alternatives for Community and Environment. Each of the superheroes is currently associated with a policy that could help save the T money — from renegotiating debt to drawing on snow-removal savings after a warm winter (that one ended up being approved).

If you’ve read this blog since the beginning, you know the superhero myth is one of my favorites, and I think it holds a lot of potential for framing activism, so I love that ACE has been using it. At the same time, the superhero myth’s focus on saviors is at times in conflict with organizing’s focus on collectivity and empowerment. You can see that the Fast Five campaign is trying to deal with this tension. Though the superheroes may be here to “save the day,” they are calling on others to make it happen, with the tag line “Be a Hero; Save the T.” It probably also helps that the superhero outfits are so self-consciously silly, with some quite literally having underwear on the outside. They give off a sense of “do-it-yourself” superheroism that is endearing.

While this year’s transportation budget battle is over, there is still much to do in the fight for justice in public transportation. Most of the solutions used for plugging this year’s gap are one-time, setting us up for another battle next year. And youth across the city continue to organize for an affordable 24/7 youth pass. So I have no doubt we will be seeing more of the Fast Five. If you’re in the area, grab your underwear and suit up.

Breathe: Cultural Organizing for Environmental Justice

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Paul

Today I want to share a video from my favorite group of cultural organizers: Project HIP-HOP, in Boston, MA. This song was put together to address the intersection of environmental and economic justice around the fight for affordable public transportation. It’s also up for the Rio2012 Global Youth Music Contest: you can vote for it here.

Drop the I-Word: From Paint to Pixels

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Paul

67 Sueños mural, by Pancho Pescador in collaboration with the Community Rejuvenation Project, San Francisco

In honor of the recent International Workers Day (May Day) celebrations, I write today about immigrant justice. While May Day’s long history is centered around workers rights more broadly, our workforce has always been made up of a large number of recent immigrants — particularly in the most exploitative jobs. And it was the immigrant rights movement that revitalized the holiday in the US in 2006 with its strike, “A Day Without Immigrants.”

The struggle for immigrant justice is of course a political one. But it is also cultural. It is about changing the way we think about immigrants, and the stories we tell. Despite being a nation founded on immigration from Europe and the genocide of native peoples, the dominant narrative today is of dangerous, unlawful, and above all “illegal” immigrants coming to take what is rightfully “ours.” We have moved from talking about “illegal immigration” to talking about “illegal immigrants” — a small but important shift in subject. In the process, the word “illegal” has become more than a judicial term; it has become a racial epithet, and shorthand for this dominant — and false — story.

Mark Vallen's Original 1988 Poster

But a counter-story has emerged, finding its most condensed form in the powerful slogan “No Human Being Is Illegal.” While I’m not sure where the phrase originally emerged, it seems to have been popularized by a particular piece of art. The poster, seen to the right, was used in 1988 as part of a campaign by the Central American Resource Center in LA, fighting for the rights of Central American war refugees. It features a stirring image by artist Mark Vallen. In 2010 the poster was republished, to support the current fight for immigrant rights.

The phrase has spread like wildfire, serving as a call for humanization across the world. It has spawned murals, t-shirts, posters, graffitti, and more.

Oakland Poster

Bronx Mural by DASIC

The most recent iteration of this struggle is the Drop the I-Word campaign. An effort that started with paint and posters is now taking advantage of social media and digital video. Launched by the Applied Research Center and its (excellent) website Colorlines, the Drop the I-Word campaign calls on media outlets, as well as other organizations and individuals, to pledge to stop using the term “illegal” to refer to people. As they state on their site:

Use of the i-word ignores the fact that our laws are unjustly applied. Immigrants without documents are regularly hired as cheap, exploited labor. No one else who benefits from the set up, including the employers who recruit and hire these migrants, is labeled this way. No one should ever be labeled this way. No human being is illegal.

So in honor of May Day, or just because it is a Thursday and it feels right, pledge to drop the i-word. Absolutely no human being is illegal.

May Day Art, 2012

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Paul

In celebration of yesterday’s May Day, I scoured the web for some of the art that sprouted out of this annual celebration. Enjoy!

1. Of course, beautiful posters began to make the rounds in preparation for the big day (from colorlines)

2. Some big names showed up for the celebrations, including political MC Immortal Technique:

3. There was playful street theatre, like this performance from the “Corporate Tax Dodgers”

4. And through the web, many other artists joined in the celebration, like this “sand artist”

David McCandless talks Information Design

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Paul

Following up on my recent post on information design for social movements, here is information design superstar David McCandless on Ted Talks:

Designers Wanted: Social Movement Work

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Paul

There is an important role for graphic designers to support social movements in communicating complicated information in pleasing and efficient ways.*

Infographic from Water.org

Today organizers, advocates, and activists face a uniquely modern dilemma: information overload. Confronted with the dire urgency of injustice, we so often find ourselves struggling to communicate complex issues to people who are deluged every day with massive amounts of data and information. Some social justice concerns are still frighteningly simple; it does not take much to get across the horror of an event like the shooting of Trevon Martin. But in many important arenas — such as economic inequality or climate change — half the battle in educating one another is figuring out how to simplify and communicate information in a way that is efficient, engaging, and true.

Enter the information designer. We all know that the visual is important. Yet it is still so common, walking by a rally, to be handed a double-sided sheet of paper packed with text and maybe a grainy photo. When was the last time you read that front-to-back? The world is a complicated place, but by uniting visual and word-based information in creative ways we can better reach one of the key goals of social movements: understanding.

Lifecylce of the Japanes Beetle

Designers of Information
People have been displaying information visually for, well, ever. Over the centuries, cartographers, artists, educators, scientists, journalists, and many others have developed engaging ways of communicating information through images. But the modern field of “information design” is uniquely embedded in today’s world of statistics, vast information availability, and the internet. A new breed of visuals has sprouted up under the name infographics, and some of the results are astoundingly beautiful. Increasingly popular in newspapers, magazines, and on the web, infographics come in many shapes and sizes, describing all kinds of data, processes, and relationships. (For example, see the recent infographic on racism in technology published on this site).

One of the modern masters of this art is David McCandless, whose recent book The Visual Miscellaneum has me enraptured. A “data journalist,” McCandless has been creating visual representations of all kinds of information, from global militarization to creation myths. His work shows stunningly how design can give context to huge numbers, uncover new relationships, and engage the viewer in ways that the raw information could never do.

David McCandless: Charting our (irrational) fears in the Media

Across the web one can find many examples of infographics that tackle social-justice issues. But one of the more exciting efforts has been Occupy Design, an online effort to create a “visual langauge for the 99%” in concert with the Occupy movement. Though their focus seems now largely on more propaganda-style art, they originally also created a number of infographics to communicate the economic realities underlying the Occupy movement. They offer an example of how we might begin to build explicit relationships between graphic designers and movements.

Infographic by Occupy Design

Information Design in Practice
As I see it, information design could play out in a couple of ways in social justice work. First of all, as modeled by Occupy Design, professional designers could be called upon to bring their skills to social movements. Their role would be to developing graphics that flesh out the systems of power and oppression that movements are addressing — or alternatively the history of efforts towards change.

But a second strategy could be a pedagogical one, which I believe would have a much broader effect. The act of creating information graphics is itself a process of learning. Rather than simply hiring a graphic designer to better convey information, designer/educators could facilitate the analysis of information and the creation of information graphics by members of the broader movement. This would serve as both an internal pedagogical process, in which a community of people teach one another and build research and design skills, as well as a tool for external communication.

Either way, the tools to communicate and educate are there, we just have to take them.

David McCandless's Billion-Dollar-Gram

*This argument has nothing to do with the fact that your humble blogger here is a graphic designer. Probably.

Poetry and Rebellion in Afghanistan: Mirman Baheer

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Paul

A poem that was copied at a Mirman Baheer meeting in Kabul. Seamus Murphy/VII for The New York Times.

There is a beautiful and moving article in today’s New York Times Magazine about Afghan women’s poetry. Written by Eliza Griswold, this extended piece looks at the Mirman Baheer women’s literary group, which meets at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Kabul — and particularly the women in rural Afghanistan who take great risks to call in and share there poetry. Mirman Baheer grew out of a literary network that met secretly under the Taliban, then known as the “Golden Needle,” where women shared writing while pretending to sew. But though the society is now above-ground and supported by the government, for many women writing poetry can still mean risking one’s life.

Griswold shows how in Afghanistan poetry and women’s power go hand in hand: “Pashtun poetry has long been a form of rebellion for Afghan women, belying the notion that they are submissive or defeated.” Their poetry often takes the form of the landai, a type of short “folk poem” traditionally written, even when done by men, in the voice of women, and covering topics from the bawdy to the political. Griswold quotes one parliamentarian as saying: “Landai belong to women…In Afghanistan, poetry is the women’s movement from the inside.”

I’ll let your read the rest for yourself, but let me leave you with this poem (called a rubaiya) by one of the women featured, which just killed me. It’s addressed to the Taliban:

You won’t allow me to go to school.
I won’t become a doctor.
Remember this:
One day you will be sick.

Flash Mob Protesting Transit Cuts

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Paul

During the recent protests over proposed transit cuts in Boston, young people from the Youth Way on the MBTA coalition were a major force in pushing for alternative options — responding in particular to plans to double the cost of youth passes, which would have had detrimental effects on youth’s lives and education. While rallying outside the Transportation building, young cultural organizers from Project HIP-HOP put on a short piece of street theater stressing the harm being done to youth in this process. Check it out: