Historic Films Stock Footage Archive: AFC-275

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01:00:40 41	Interview with Chicano artist, Rupert Garcia. Speaker 1 Inrterviewer - unseen Let's let's start playing off the art thing and tell me what was like growing up like in Modesto Speaker 2 Rupert Garcia Stockton. Stockton. well from when I became conscious until a teenager, it was it was absolutely fabulous. Because everything seemed to be right. When I became a teenager, and began to go to Edison High School, I guess I became conscious of the real world. And the real world being that where we lived was by no accident, meaning in Stockton. it's divided into sections occupied by rich, middle upper, and then you have the working class. And then the working class areas were divided up into African Americans, and Mexican Latinos, and um poor whites. And in some areas, on the south side, it was a mixture of all. So that that reality was something that began to taint my earlier sense of what Stockton was about, and it seemed fantastic. So those realities about racism really, and the economic divisions began to uh they did begin to function negatively as a way of awakening about the real world. It was it was scary, and it was confusing. But it also gave me strength because it helped explain certain realities of my own life and other friends lives. On the south side, where I was raised to was predominantly Mexican, African Americans and Filipinos, most of whom were working class, and some worked in the field, and some were undocumented friends of ours undocumented. My grandmother never became documented. And in saying that part about being undocumented, we as kids grew up talking about it. I mean, as if it was just fun and games, and then later you realized that it's not fun, it's very serious. mabira (? sp), they come after you and send you back to Mexico, or wherever.Also It was a mixture of these kinds of edges of reality, these kinds of dissident, experiences, but at the same time, I could honestly say that I really enjoy living in Stockton, and going to my high school, and it was high school was wonderful for me. I mean, it was among the highlights of my life, going to high school, it really was just, it was wonderful. I can't think of anything really negative about going to high school, and which incidentally, is still thought of as being a bad school. Bad meaning you won't get a very good education and you might not last very long in on the campus or in the area. Annd the south side has had that image for many, many, many years, going back even before I was going to school in the 50s. But nevertheless, out of that, a lot of exciting people have emerged, among them., Maxine Hong Kingston and there had been doctors and scientists, you know, it's a great, great place.
01:05:04 304.21	Speaker 1 05:05 You know, when you're growing up in the house, did you speak Spanish in the house? Speaker 2 05:10 Well only to my to my grandmother, my grandmother's and grandfather and with my mother no, because she was interested because of her own experience and Mantega and growing up. She wanted her children to have, as she believed would be a good way to make it in society would be not to have an accent. And I think that's why she did that. And that's not unusual for the Americanization process after World War Two, if not before, where there was this attempt to Americanize the myth of Americanization and many working class folks from Latin America, China, whoever comes to this country, one wants their children to have a better life than they had. And one avenue is language. So the myth goes. And so because of that, I believe that my mother spoke to us only in English, but my grandmother, grandmothers, my grandfather, and other relations in LA, or in Mexico, Spanish. But in the house, it was English. Interviewer how did you feel about that? Speaker 2 R. Garcia There was a moment where it was a little difficult for me when I was at my grandmother's house Pasquala. And somebody was talking to me. And I responded in English, I understood responded in English. And they made a comment and the comment was a negative Interviewer Hold on a second, certain things little light bulb
01:07:22 442.34	Speaker 2 Garcia Okay I can't guarantee I can remember now. Speaker 1 okay, and I mean, just, you know, like, Okay, you're sort of your mom wants you to speak English. Right? Speaker 2 Garcia That was, this is my interpretation of it. I don't know if she sat down on once you have to make it Speaker 1 Interviewer No, but what do you How did you feel about speaking English? Speaker 2 Garcia nothing at all it was just a way of life I mean, speaking in any language for a child, a certain point in the development is, of no consequence. What is important is communication. The problem in a small p, about language exists because there are certain conditions that cause some language to be a problem. its not a problem. really, for someone to not speak this or that language. It really isn't. But in this country, the myth about the American culture, it creates a problem. And the problem is that they will wish you not to have an accent. Do you have to be an American? And, and there shouldn't be bilingualism and all that stuff, because it was part of our culture. But that does not that's an arbitrary imposition on the development of human beings anywhere really is. So I had no problem. But now but when that thing became a reality, the Americanization process. And when I began to encounter, like I said earlier with one of my uncles, who spoke to me in Spanish, I comprehended and I responded in English. And he said, something to the effect of, I'm not going to I'm not gonna talk to you. Well, that was that that was I couldn't understand why my tio did that. But there was a lesson there. I think about it now. And the lesson is, don't lose your language. At the time I took it personally. Where if you're young, a youngster, a teenager like both teenagers, we go through all kinds of ways of defining who we are and we're clumsy, all this kind of stuff. We can't quite figure things out completely. Well, I couldn't quite figure that out. So I felt up to the person who was very hurt and upset by it. But that's about all I mean, I didn't make any other big thing out of it. And I never had, I never really have felt tremendously bad about not being completely fluent in Spanish. I have a completely bad , even when I go to Mexico, no problem, no problem because of the fact I could comprehend, and I can respond to an extent. And over the years, I've been able to cultivate a larger vocabulary as time goes on. And So I take it as a developmental kind of a situation. So I have no problem, because my rule language of communication is images anyway, that's what I feel the I can be the most, if you will, vocal, is with images and I'm able to communicate with people who speak any language, or no language. I think that's why I that's not totally white. But it's an aspect of why I think images have become such important to me, because I can completely submerge myself my intelligence and my feelings into the production of images.
01:11:45 706	Speaker 1 Interviewer Let's go to the point of, I guess that's sort of loss of innocence, where you became aware that something else was going on? Speaker 2 Garcia Yeah. Well, there are various moments in my life that bring up the loss of innocence. And even though I mentioned earlier, it was when I was a teenager, there was however, moments when I was in grammar school where realities were coming to, to light and one of them was having friends who were Japanese American. This was in the 40s, shortly after the war, and going into their houses and meeting their parents and such and grandmothers. And I became aware in the late 40s, about the camps. And I couldn't believe it. I'm a young boy, young boy, and my friends, Jesse OG and others talking about this ordeal, and I, it was incomprehensible. But I knew it seemed to be for me, just problematic. You know, this is a kid who, I'm not even 10 yet. So that was eye opening. And when I was in the Cub Scouts, they didn't allow my friend James Harrison to be in because he was an African American. And that was very disturbing to. Um a little later, when Emmett Till was killed in the south, that frightened me. And then the Korean War happened and I used to listen to it on the radio and that kind of dampened my innocence about that everything is fine. So around that age thing, oh, announcing that I was I was in high school and junior high I used to be involved in gangs and beating up people, robbing and stealing. So I began to lose my innocence slowly and surely. But the innocence really is also a myth, because to me, I was becoming more in touch with the real world. Without losing however, the excitement of being alive, and the wonderment of all things which I had tried to maintain. and i I feel that I have maintained quite a bit of of that innocence, if you will, that makes it makes life exciting, makes meeting people exciting. Speaker 1 So let's let's actually, let's go back to that. I mean, I'm gonna do this because, you know, as I said, you're gonna get this tape, but it's certainly interesting what you were just talking about Speaker 2 Garcia About the gangster hierarchy. Yeah, well, they're growing up, there were different kinds of gang memberships. And there will be gang members who dealt in drugs, hard drugs. This is the 50s. This is mid to the late mid 59. I leave school in 59 high school in the early 60s. While there were gangs are involved in hard drugs, selling drugs, mainly heroin, and marijuana, and pills too but mainly heroin. And then there were also gangs and gang members who were involved in murder and doing hard, hard type robbery. And then there was another kind of gang that was more involved in like turf warfare gang warfare over certain sections and certain parts of town. And then there was another one, which was, well what I belonged to. I was in a group who were not hardcore into robbing armed robbery, no, not into killing. And we weren't into selling drugs. But we were still a part of gangs who were involved in gang gang warfare, and stealing cars and robbing people but not armed robbery. So it was okay. Breaking into cars. At the same time, we were very good in school.
01:16:55 1015.59	Speaker 2 Garcia continued Very interesting, with good grades. Some people were excellent in music, sports. I was a senior class president, for Christ's sakes. And so we had our legs if you will, in two worlds, the academic in the sport and gang mentality. And I personally, remember at one point, realizing that I wasn't interested in what happened to some of my friends who were involved in shootings or who died because of overdose on heroin or who were in jail. I don't think I want to do that, it didn't look like it was gonna get me where I wanted to go, which was to be an artist. At the same time, I was involved in the scanning a lot of friends, I was making drawings, playing music and singing. And nobody ever put us down for that. So it seemed like it was still the right thing to do. So that was kind of the hierarchy of the Ganglandia in South Side Stockton. Interviewer Tell me about that first comment, like i want to be an artist Speaker 2 Garcia Well, I was five years old and my brothers and cousin were in the front yard and we were going to make moc tomales for dinner, so we helped my mother make food. While she worked all day, come home, she's retired. We knew we werent going to eat it but we were five years old, you know, everything is possible. Well to make the mata we would we dug up the earth and put it in a can and poured some water in it. And and the earth became mud and turned this beautiful deep black, just gorgeous. And for the chile for the tamales we would get red bricks and scratch them together and rub them together and get powder this red pigment. It was some water we could make this kind of a paste, chili. And we would for the ochas the cornmeal you would get the ones we used from the garbage can and wash them out and put them on the fence and let them dry in the sun. Oh we brought these different things together. The morle and the mud, and it was just incredible. During it this experience I remember distinctly especially the colors in the the dirt and the mud the profound deep black, in this beautiful orange and the yellowish of the corn leaves just too much, it's beautiful. And then bring the stuff together and making these things that look like you could eat them. But we know you could not, was magical, that kind of interesting dual experience of of that. And I found it to be really visually and conceptually stimulating. I mean, then I just probably freaked out. And I didn't sit down and say this is very stimulating me that I'm five years old. But in retrospect, I think that's what happened. Because that is a clear memory, in my mind, after 40, almost 45 years, just deeply moving. And reminding me there was a story about that as a matter of fact. I was almost finished. It's very exciting moment, I'm very happy that I can almost indicate what happened in my life as a developing human being that in a way, showed me the possibilities of transformation its very exciting. And almost I almost repeat those kinds of excitements with each piece that I do. Like reliving that moment of intense experience, in feeling as if I'm involved in something that's a part of me that's also outside of me. It's also a way of feeling kind of connected too, which, which when I do think hard, I feel simultaneously reflective and connected.
01:22:03 1323.16	Speaker 1 Interviewer Let's sort of take a jump from there to I guess your involvement, like when you sort of got more radicalized and you start to, you know, you;re involvement with the posters started, I guess doing things for, for specific reasons, producing something with a much larger content. Speaker 2 Garcia Well, I have never seen myself as a radical and incidentally, no, no it's not. Because no, I think the important point to pursue just for a second, because I've always did things because I believed in them, not because I was a radical, you know, I mean, becoming a part of the students strike in 68 at State, which really turned me around in terms of understanding the possibilities of art and social change, and these systematic approaches to oppression. I lost my thought Interviewe when you were trying to differentiate between being radicalized and pursuing things Speaker 2 Garcia Oh, yeah. Yeah. I guess it evolved to that point. Last up. I got involved in that, because I believed in it, not because I was trying to be a radical, or because of some political, politically organized platform. No, because I believe that it was necessary for me, to maintain who I am, I must do that. It felt a part of me and me a part of it. And if that's being a radical, okay. But, um, but I am not out to buck the system, as they say, and you know, that's not what i'm about
01:23:53 1433.5	Speaker 1 Interviewer back in those days there was a sort of like the sense of immediacy though. How did you work something? Did your work become part of that sort of immediacy? Speaker 2 Garcia Absolutely. Because the conditions under which the strike occurred they were very immediate. Before that, I was making easel paintings. And these very Interviewer Hold on, let's talk about that kind of abuse Speaker 2 Garcia Before the strike occurred and before I began making posters and prints, I mean, oil paintings, I mean, I'm sorry, acrylic paintings, mainly and that takes time to resolve an image. Well the strike occurs and changes the conditions of everything at school as i mentioned side in general, painting at the time seemed irrelevant, because the situation required immediate responses. So at a meeting of students and faculty, there was a suggestion from someone who just came back from Europe and was aware of the strike in Paris, in May of 68 and talked to us about how the students used posters. And so that was what we did. We took that suggestion and it made absolute sense. Because we could respond immediately to a variety of issues pictorially. And so that's when I'm introduced to not designing posters , I designed them when I was in junior college and they were of a different sort to, but responding to the, the social conditions and the issues in an immediate fashion, was new for me. And it was very exciting. And it made total sense. And so I learned how to screen print, and make posters really, in the context of the strike, not in the context of any classroom.
01:25:57 1557.21	Speaker 1 Interviewer And then from that first day's strike, was that the starting for posters. Speaker 2 Garcia Yes, for me, for me. Well, a little before that, 67, I would I did some prints. But the posters really emerged in 68. And specifically, because of the strike no question about it. And I'm very happy for that. That moment. Speaker 1 Interviewer I want you to sort of tell me about how it went from the strike on to the other thing of the posters. I mean, that must have been the natural way to deal with a lot of these subjects. And that same immediacy or in other words, you come up, you know, the poster, you start on the on the poster in a political context and out it goes from there to Speaker 2 Garcia Okay. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Okay. Because in 68, and 69, I have a great learning experience, about how the world was put together. Before I came back from Indiochina in 66, I was extremely ignorant, very ignorant. Coming to school, in 66, and going to 68, I was exposed to a lot of information, history, sociology, art history, psychology, philosophy. And I begin to realize that, wow, I don't know very much, and when I began to know, opened my eyes to a lot of situation that exists in the world that didn't fall from the sky. I'm talking about wars, and the ways in which certain countries are divided up, how these folks got over there, and how these other ones got over there, and that didn't just happen on thin air, they happen because of social and historical conditions. Well, that reality led me to believe that, well, if human beings can cause those kinds of situations, then human beings can change those situations. So that was very important for me. And then, near the strike, the strike was an immediate condition to respond to something that i had learned about because it was real. Now, as I began to do more reading, and talk to other people on campus and off campus, about certain situations in this country, specifically racism and class oppression and Eurocentrism, it became the the stuff became it began to become part of my life my way of thinking that began to change in living in Stockton can be problematic. It can be dangerous. And If I had stayed there, I would have been a dangerous person, meaning very ignorant. But being in school, that state and being in that strike I begin to learn so much and became critical. And the criticality that I developed, maintained itself after school. And so when things occurred in the world, the Vietnam War, for example, I would respond with a poster or with a print. In 1970 I did a poster for Los Siete, there was a group of seven Latino young men in the Mission District who allegedly killed this cop. And later we find out after they were incarcerated, they didn't do it. But I responded to that condition immediately because it seemed so trumped up. And the poster and the print seemed to really offer me this immediacy of responding to the world. The different kinds of events, and it all made sense and fit in really well with how I was thinking and feeling at the time. And so that was the appropriate medium for the way in which I was thinking and feeling. And it worked very, very well. It really functions until around 1975. Then I began to do pastel on paper and begin to follow move on to that...
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