TRANSBORDER… (history is heavy)
Since the first time I saw those photographs, I was in awe. There, right in front of me, framed by amazing craftsmanship, inside a beautiful vessel, housed in the most prestigious of institutions and guarded by the hierarchies of knowledge and power, was the evidence I was looking for to start contributing to a much needed source of symbols and imagery of peoples and their legacy in a land and its fruits of their labor: the Mexican diaspora in the Empire.
Nacho, mi socio, was the man who unlocked the gate, opened the door and unsealed the documents: a group of mid twentieth century photographic prints from the famous and honorable Ernesto Galarza´s not so famous collection in the Library’s Special Collections Department. At the time Nacho was working inside that most prestigious of institutions, and still is. Yet, I doubt he’s ever considered the hierarchies he’s had to obey as his Superiors or whatever. Quite the contrary, being made in una familia that was made in the land he so fiercely represents, Steinbeck’s East of Eden. He is a people’s scholar, an activist and academic that traversed the paths set before him by reaching plateaus he wasn’t supposed to.
Don Ernesto commissioned those photographs (photographer’s credits are still unknown) to evidence the damages guest worker programs were doing to labor rights movements in the US after the war. Images of hordes of Mexicans coming to steal American jobs. Yet, the Bracero Program was an opportunity for at least four million of these job stealing opportunists to earn an honorable living and eventually bring along their families into their new adopted Patria. No doubt Mr. Galaraza´s views on the program were very different than ours are now, nevertheless these images capture something very different than what he was looking for: New-Americans on their TRANSBORDER journey into their and their future families destiny. Witness to many more millions of Americans origins, eternalizing those men with a very long and strong future in their gaze.
We began making this story – his – story a collaborative transnational project around 2016, gaining momentum immediately because what these images represent just needed the light of day. He knew, and I learned, that almost every individual with Mexican heritage around California has ties to this history. In my case, my wife’s grandpa was one of these men and this was the nerve I’ve been looking to hit. Me atrevo a decir que we all have feelings for our elders of the utmost respect and many times of the highest dignity one could hope to achieve as a person. They were all beings of the times they lived through, shaped, hardened and made into the rooted trunks they were to most of us (hopefully still are to some of you).
As a borderrat, living life zigzagging a line, there was always an inconceivable feeling of separation between the story of millions of americans who were once mexicans and my clan´s bunkered down nationalism (natural emotional reactions after losing their geography and enduring years of unequal treatments from our northern neighbors). Yet, during my lifetime, things have changed dramatically, or maybe I’m just realizing that everything is always changing, evolving and continuously balancing itself out. The truth is that I changed. It took me some time to understand some knowledge one of my padrinos passed on to me at least two decades ago: chicanos and tijuanenses are complementary and derivative cultures, mirroring themselves while contrasting their distinct features. An ever expanding Mexican diaspora forged into an American cultural appropriation machine that offers individuals a better guarantee of safety, property and future. Eventually, when these two cultures merge, a cyclical force will appear from a centuries long mutation… already happening though. Either by rejecting the patriarchal ways of nationalist thought or wishing that real democracy takes over and does its thing, the borders that once stood are gone, as the borders that stand now will unequivocally shift, change, disappear or multiply.
All of these ideas rushed through my body when we initially began this Art & History venture back in Salinas, those lands that have provoked so much social change. From the valley’s market arranged marriage between nature and technology, through the influx of all origins of peoples who’ve put their hands in that soil as a means to and ends, to the crossroads of culture that penetrate through the fields on rubber wheels. Nacho and I knew what needed to be done with defining and uniting imagery such as the TRANSBORDER journey of the Braceros in all their hopeful stoicism, forever captured in The Galarza collection photographs.
We intentionally contribute in dissolving the mischievously curated historical narrative that these men were modern day slaves, pawns for polliticians or growers and anything that made them lesser beings. We stand with hard facts that state the opposite: a plurality of lifelong growth, experiences and agency that immensely shadows any minutes of shame imposed on by others some time ago. The images that we made public will eventually become collective memories for millions of families and anyone who welcomes all peoples who once immigrated to this land, everybody.
It took us more than a half dozen years to get the first major public project going, not everybody wants to revisit history, especially if their role isn’t as the good guy. A small collection of huge reproductions of the Galarza photographs became the stellar protagonists in a beautifully aging Californian surfing town during September. The local Museum put their money where their mouth was and helped us produce wandering billboard sized images on wheels that were shown to hundreds of locals at their neighborhood farmers markets around the region. Generating so much attention in town with cover stories in local papers, interviews on the local radio and television airwaves with all the current buzz that feeds everybody’s pocket size apparatus.
They came with flowers, fruits, families and stories, so many stories. All these offerings for those faces on the huge prints. Faces in places they’ve never been seen before. Not one or two, but large groups of able bodied men, ready for whatever that opportunity would bring and knowing that they have everything to gain. No shame, no bowing down, just proud Hombres Mexicanos. These images can define and unify millions of memories, these faces can be placed on any of those other images of crouched down sombreros with feet in the field, that ‘are’ very true and ‘are’ very much the norm like on the job pics of full blown (or blooming) capitalism, not portraits of people.
History is BIG, history is HEAVY, this project taught us that. History shouldnt be easy to handle nor comfortable to install. It also taught us that power always has a place at every inflection point in history, specifically its resources. It takes many initiatives and a fortuitous conjuncture to crack any well built structure. We did that, by organizing a good team on a solid foundation, batos unidos on a collective journey of historical recognition disguised as an art project.
Daniel Ruanova, Tijuana, B.C., MX, OCT MMXXII
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AUDIO: listen to the stories of men who entered the US as Braceros and stayed.
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PRESS:
https://www.metrosiliconvalley.com
https://www.thecalifornian.com
@daniel_ruanova @bracerolegacy @santacruzmah @mexicalibiennial @santa_cruz_barrios_unidos
#transborder #thebracerolegacyproject #historicalclaim #nachoornelas #danielruanova #stanfordlibraries #ernestogalaraza #nanealejandrez
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The project, puts mid-fifties borderlands archival images on wheels, turning them into an orderly wall type succession of wandering billboards that translocate from the local Museum to different Farmers Markets in the region, while transmitting audio testimonies of Braceros and their descendants & creating temporary installation-spaces for cultural community dialogues where there weren’t any.
Produced by the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History for their CommonGround Biennial: (click on the image to visit the MAH’s website)
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TRANSBORDER / The Bracero Legacy Project* (Daniel Ruanova & Ignacio “Nacho” Ornelas)
Courtesy of the Stanford University Libraries Special Collections (Ernesto Galarza Collection)
Special thanks to Roberto Trujillo, Associate University Librarian and Director of Special Collections
Project Collaborators:
SPONSOR / The Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, special thanks to Marla Novo
PRINTERS / Community Printers Santa Cruz, special thanks to Ross Newport
FABRICATION / Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos, special thanks to Nane Alejandrez
ENCORE SPONSOR / Luis Alejo, Monterey County Supervisor
SANTA CRUZ BARRIOS UNIDOS Team:
Nane Alejandrez, Spiritual and Community Advisor
Aaron Chermak, Production and Logistics Coordinator
SERIO, Production and Logistics support
Kalikata Umbula, Artist in Residence Advisor
