Inspired in part by New Times' March 19, 2009 cover art for the feature "Are Your Papers in Order?" by Village Voice Media Executive Editor Michael Lacey, Phoenix muralist Francisco Garcia first painted an image on canvas based on that ski-masked, gun-pointing MCSO deputy.
That image later became part of the larger work Para al Arpaio, which was hung on the walls of the Arizona Latino Arts and Cultural Center for the show that marked ALAC's grand opening in December of last year.
Garcia's work depicts a schizophrenic Arizona, with a face divided in
half. One side features the saintly countenance of Cesar Chavez. The
other side shows that of Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Arpaio's
Arizona is that of a MCSO gendarme in a balaclava, pointing a gun at
the viewer. Chavez's Arizona is that of school graduates breaking the bonds of
poverty, and of mothers sending their kids to gradeschool despite widespread
oppression.
Dedicated to the Dream Act, the proposed legislation
that would allow immigrant kids to legalize their status and attend
college if they meet certain requirements, the envisioned mural had yet
to find a home on a Phoenix wall until recently, when Gil Tejeda, owner
of Arizona Carburetors, gave Garcia and his friends permission to paint
the wall of his business at 2046 W. Buckeye Road, on the northeast corner of 21st Avenue and Buckeye.
Garcia
said he approached around 10 different businesses before Tejeda's,
getting turned down each time, until Tejeda said yes, and even kicked
in for the cost of half the paint.
"It's a good idea," said Tejeda, 43, of the mural. "It makes the people think. Everybody needs to get involved."
A
naturalized American citizen with eight American citizen kids, Tejeda
said he supported the Dream Act because, "These kids are the future of
America."
The 24 year-old Garcia said some of the artists who
helped him were "Dream Act kids." That is, twentysomethings currently
stuck in a legal limbo: unable to go to school or work legally because
they are undocumented, brought here when they were young by their
immigrant parents. (Read my colleague Malia Politzer's piece "Return to Sender," for more on the plight of these young men and women.)
Currently a student at Phoenix College in
Chicano studies and art, Garcia rushed to finish the project before
beginning a six month mission as part of an urban Christian ministry.
Indeed, Garcia's Christianity informs much of his art.
In the
mural, Garcia quotes a line from the Gospel of Luke: "The good man
brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil
man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out
of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks."
It doesn't take a theology student to figure out where Arpaio enters into that equation.
You
may recall Garcia as the same young muralist whose work was censored by
the Pine-Strawberry Elementary School last year because it included the
face of an African-American child. (See, "Blue Boy,"
November 19, 2009.) The mostly white residents of Pine-Strawberry
freaked at the black face, saying it didn't represent their community.
In
the case of the Dream Act mural, the surrounding community is Hispanic,
and even local taggers are likely to leave the mural alone, Garcia
says, out of respect for its message.
When Tejeda was asked if
he was concerned what Maricopa County's rogue sheriff might say or do
about the mural, he shrugged and looked at Garcia:
"It's, what do you call it -- libre expresion?"
Garcia nodded, offering the right phrase in English, "Yeah, `freedom of speech.'"
