Photo: Mahatma Ghandi in 1931, Wikimedia Commons
by Joanne Tawfilis
A recent weekend in Joe Balderrama Park was supposed to be yet another day of positive learning, yearning, passion, and community, but in a short space of time, it became a day of anger and unfortunate problems caused by bigotry, hatred, and local, national, and international political disarray.
When I arrived at the park early on Sunday morning, Chema, Manolo, Vero, and Adrienne were also there, ready to paint. The plan was to help wrap up the final touches on our African and Islander pillars, which depicted the “diversity of the present and past residents of the Eastside.”
After quickly setting up the paint, brushes, and other supplies with chairs and stepladders, which were placed near the pillars, we enthusiastically nestled up close to the bright and cheerful colors which reflected the vibrant heritage already painted onto all four of the columns.
At first, I hadn’t noticed the large group of people huddled near the bushes on a park bench. But from my perch on the step stool, I saw men, women, and children and even an infant in the arms of its mother.
Adrienne explained that she had brought them with her from San Diego and that they were refugees from Venezuela. “They walked all the way through Columbia through Mexico,” she exclaimed nervously. She then shared that one of them had a sponsoring visa and that the group was simply seeking shelter at this point, but it all seemed confusing, and I began to feel harried and concerned.
They needed help, and here they were, in a park, far from the resources that I had any known access to on this Sunday morning. Adrienne asked if I would allow three pretty little girls who were a part of the group to paint, and when I said yes, the girls joyfully began to draw and paint and were even humming and singing softly among themselves. I watched with curiosity as I witnessed their joy at being able to paint and use the bright colors before them as they were surrounded by the huge park building walls covered with not just amazing colors, but of the neighborhood’s images and memories of their pasts and ancestry.
We needed to get them somewhere safe, even if it was just a temporary shelter. I then learned they had all slept on the coastal train station floor overnight. I had to stop and think about how these three Venezuelan families, if they were to stay in America, would also look back at buildings and walls containing their days of immigration that would forever transform their lives after leaving their home country for the mostly political reasons I’d been informed about by so many from Latin America and other places around the world. Here in our own country, I wondered if, as such a young country at nearly only 300 years old, we would ever find themselves immigrating elsewhere because of political strife.
For the next hour, there was a lot of scurrying going on with a religious group that was also in the park and offering some kind of assistance for at least one group of family members who they kindly took to the local shelter, but then explained there was only room for one of the families there.
Adrienne continued to go back and forth to the bench from the pillar she was working on. The morning moved on, and the representatives eventually returned to offer assistance to the other families.
That’s America for you! To me, after all my travels, we are the one country that I find to be so generous on the person-to-person level. The mural on the table, painted on butcher paper had grown into a series of hearts and flowers, similar to the third panel of the very first mural painted on a bullet-riddled bedsheet over two decades ago by orphans in Bosnia. One of the mothers frantically cut apiece of the mural off that one of the little girls had painted of their national flag. I was touched as she wasn’t trying to destroy it but was cutting it to be straight and then handed the mural to us as her gesture of “not wanting us to forget” where they had come from. The rest of the mural remained taped to the table, and as they quickly gathered their belongings, I quickly untaped the mural and put it aside with my belief that I would include it in this in-progress book of Balderrama Mural stories.
Representative Eric Joyce came by with his children, and what I have seen is his real interest in the neighborhood and in this Measure X effort. Again, I had to reflect on how, in America, our representatives, like our mayor, were always out there with the constituents and I smiled inside. He wasn’t there just because it’s election season; he has always “shown up” for meetings and gatherings, small and large, at least, during this past year of the project I am facilitating.
To me, “Stop the Hate” isn’t just a program, an expression, or a grant subsidy. Rather, it is an effort to promote seeking viable solutions to issues related to the rampant bigotry, racism, anger, and hard-willed attitude that fall into a lifestyle of exclusion. This applies to people of a global wave of violence, conflict, and war that seems to have no end. We have all seen it, felt it, and yet think it applies to someone else, and that sentiment alone often signifies limited inclusion of likeminded people.
Many of my colleagues are working very hard to promote peace, harmony, and unity. The United Nations established two official decades to promote these goals with over 200 nations signing up to support them. However, despite all the efforts made by institutions and thousands of individual non-governmental organizations, grass roots initiatives and individuals everywhere, we are well-aware of the eminent danger of witnessing and even participating in the expansion of the hatred that leads to the disastrous impact of violence and war.
One might think that a mere Art Miles Mural Project supported by Oceanside’s Measure X and the Indian Voices newspaper is not worthy of my putting pen to paper. Painting murals in community parks, such as Landes and Joe Balderrama Parks, are not trivial local efforts, especially as this art encourages all who see it to “Stop the Hate.”
I must, in order to keep the peace within my heart and soul, not let that precious emotion wither away with insensitivity and confusion. I can say with deep worry that days like today I feel simply overwhelmed. Today was a dichotomy of conviction and a great example of why “Stop the Hate” is important to me. It is an emphatic statement of appeal that should be addressed by every single individual on this Earth, lest we all spiral further downward to world war and the destruction of our planet and all living things. Peace begins with me (and you). My mentor and hero as well, Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury, also did and has helped me keep my own personal conviction alive through his decades of effort to mobilize so many leaders of the peace effort and Nobel Laureates to never give up the activism. We commit to and we must continue to prevail those efforts, if we really wish that “peace prevail on Earth.” Thank you, my friends and artists and visitors, and all that support this amazing monumental task of painting murals on an entire park, that yes, even transitory immigrants(with legal documents), for reminding me again that Mahatma Gandhi had it right(Peace begins with me).
