My SALPICA experience (so far)

First of all, I wish so much I could write all this in Spanish so my Central American Brothers and Sisters could read it, but I just can’t, I tried…. If anyone is incline to translate, please do so.
Second of all: sorry my English grammar is not so good , and I don’t do Spanglish well either…

The SALPICA experiment has become a permanent tattoo in my brain. From what at certain times seemed like a haphazard, chaotic situation, I now feel a tremendous respect for the how we traveled, where we went, and the order in which things were planned.

Amherst: Upper middle class, suburban liberal college town, and- to bring some spice to that- living with a bunch of great people in a beautiful 1700’s house. And thanks for the Mexican food and the DANCING! It’s been about eighteen years since I’ve done that.

Washington DC: Sanitized, Anglo, Cold monuments. The iconography of what “represents” the force, power and political control of North America. “High Art”, museums, and of course the WHITE HOUSE.

New York: My home, or what has become my immigrant adopted home. A place in where I feel in control and comfortable, except that I am a born a Dominican who never has been to Spanish Harlem or Washington Heights; (my maternal Grandfather lives there, I just have not seen since I first arrived here when I was 18) Yes, even in New York, even as an immigrant, even as someone who couldn’t speak the language, I managed to hide behind my pale skin color to never associate, with what was most inherent in me. As part of my SALPICA project planning to find my Grandfather and giving him an DNA test, not to determine relationship, but to determine the particular ethnicity of my family line. I would have never found this out, if it weren’t for this estrange and everlasting SALPICA experiment. And then, we went to the Tenement museum: It threw me away for a LOOP! I am so grateful to have had that experience. The exposure to this particular lost the history of immigration, not in a way that I had read in a books, but as the heartfelt story of one Irish family. I felt moved; I felt that the immigration history expanded from to place much wider than my own experience.

New Mexico: WOW NM! From the fabulous Folk museum, the best place in the world right now for me, to the rich white snobs, in super over priced Santa Fe, to the drama of the wonderful Acoma people, to going down through that wonderful (and scary) rock formation, to ending at Casinolandia….what I can say. And yes, the way that the light changed, that the climate changed, the way that each particular placed smelled. … NM was absolutely wonderful. I am not a religious person, in fact, I am an Atheist, but NM, I felt something there. Especially when the Acoma tour guide (Gustavo, he said his name was) got quiet, or when I lost the group on purpose, just to be alone and feel the arid climate, the vast light, the entire landscape filled my peripheral vision. If only Gustavo knew, that he had to say nothing, do nothing, that I GOT IT. In silence.

Los Angeles: Arriving at gorgeous Santa Monica (I had a view of the water from my room, how plush is that !) where people were very, very pretty…to going to the community college with their priceless art treasures buried in the basement, filled with dust, to seeing the pride they take in that (sorry to say this) awful school mural, to then being exposed to the most amazing Xicano’s Murals. I LOVED the art of the people.

I just got say: You go SALPICA! (Mark, Ilan, Ed, Edgardo, Alethea, Abril, and a whole bunch off people I’m missing) You gave me the time of my life. I came to this program to find an answers to the old questions of who am I as immigrant in this country? Where do I stand, as an educated “American” when my English is as broken as my Spanish? How do I fit? Well, you had left me with more questions than those that I came with. You exposed me to what it meant to an American from cold monuments-to high art museums-to Indian drama-to Native American spirituality-to the Xicano struggle and back to questioning myself. You had shaken me from my NY confront zone, from pre- disposed art, and from self-indulgences. I thank you from that.
There is so much more to say, from the importance of language and hearing my own voice in my native toque, from understanding that must of I what I say (in either English or Spanish) gets lost in translation (inside my own brain) and from my experience with the rest of the artists, with the art process itself, with the many expectations from the curators, and my own misconceptions, also, with the way I see my work now, etc. But for now I will shut up.

More later,
Carmen

PS
You should had given me the exit questioner late, you know, after I have rested, reflected and emotions are more under control…