The following notes have been edited to correct errors and to add explanations and updates. Parenthetical notes and remarks from the original are enclosed in parentheses. Present day [2022] updates are italicized and enclosed in square brackets.
Friday, 18 October 1991 – The Guest House
We are up very early because Gary has told us that we are leaving for the lake at 10 to 7. At breakfast he informs us that he was wrong; we are not to pick up A. until 7:30 at Resurrection Church. We are there at 7:30, but no A. So we sit in the van catty-cornered across the street from the church and wait while Gary runs back and forth between the women's center and the church. By 8:15 there is still no A., and no Karl, either, so we come back to the guest house to wait while Gary tries to make some other contacts. Mary, Wanda, Betsy, and Kathy decide to walk down to the market for some spices, while Lucy and I stay at the house. Everyone is to be back by 9:30 AM.
About five after nine Kathy is at my door asking where's Gary. Our driver has come to the market to bring them back because Gary has returned. After a bit of confusion we gather in the living room for a conference. No one knows where A. is, Karl has not come into the office, and there is no one else at the Lutheran Church able to go with us out to the lake community. Besides, we have now missed the two Lutheran boats which run in the mornings, and would have to rent a boat to make the crossing.
We discuss our options for the day. Gary is uncomfortable taking us out to the lake community without someone from the church to accompany us. Mary would like to see a museum. Betsy wants to go swimming. Lucy is feeling intrusive visiting communities, and we reflect on this for a while, discussing how to show respect while walking around and taking pictures.
Celia has called while we are out, so I ask if there is a possibility of meeting with her. Gary makes a call and reports back that we can see her at 10:00 this morning. We also decide on the Exquartal Market and a high-class artist's shop in Escalon which carries hand crafts as well as the work of Fernando Llort, the artist whose establishment it is.
Friday, 18 October 1991 - 10:00 AM - ASTAC (Asociacion Salvadoreña de Trabajadores del Arte y la Cultura)
We are in a bright conference room, walls adorned with posters advertising various cultural events, and advocating an indigenous response to the Columbus quincentennial. Celia Moran greets us warmly and introduces us to a co-worker, Alvaro Sermeno, who is in charge of graphic design for their journal. These two are animated and enthusiastic, exhibiting the excitement of youth and dedication to their work. They alternate in describing ASTAC, sometimes interrupting each other. I have made no attempt in the notes which follow to sort out which one is speaking at any given time.
"The Salvadoran Association of Artists and Cultural Workers was formed on 22 January 1983. We joined with other artists, musicians, mimes, painters – anyone in an artistic endeavor who had a popular desire to establish unity among workers to solve the problems we face together. Since that time, our concept has been that art should serve the Salvadoran people, should play a humanizing and conscientisizing role among the people. We are concerned about rescuing the identity of our people. In this way art is tied up with the national culture.
"We are the only institute which has maintained itself through eight years solely in cultural work. We are concerned that our native foods, clothing, and customs be preserved. We want to slow down the penetration of external culture, especially from the United States, by expressing our own in song and dance. We try to reflect the situation in which people live. Through art we try to reflect the values which we want to build in the new society.
"Our work is in the repopulations, where we speak about the situation of couples. We want to help them develop more equal kinds of relationships. This is a value we try to build through our songs, to rebuild the people.
"Our organization is structured with a directorate which is elected from among all of our associates. There is a General Secretary who represents us personally. We have a number of projects, which have been presented to us separately. There is the school project, which allows us to survive, but we have not found art institutions which will support us. We go out into the communities and find art projects which the people want to preserve, then we organize workshops to teach these particular skills to others.
"ASTAC does not have funding per se. The art institute which we run is our means of support. We also have the Cultural Center for Popular Development. We try to get close to the people, then work within a workshop format in creation of different types of art. Our function is to support and train, even more than now, members of the communities.
"We have two units – communications and promotion. Promotion is the group that puts on the workshops, and communications supports this with documentation such as videos and reports. We have a small publication, which we do ourselves on a small computer, but this is not really off the ground yet. We have already published one book of poetry, the results of a literary competition. Our goal with the publications is to serve the people.
"Alfonso Hernandez was a Salvadoran poet who was killed as he was struggling for the liberation of the Salvadoran people. He died in combat in 1987 on the San Salvador volcano. After his death all of his literary work was dispersed. We are gathering all that we can find and making it known more widely to Salvadorans. His poetry is very important in the literary development of the Salvadoran people. Our goal is to rescue him as a poetic figure. We have already published some of his work.
"The book of poetry which we have published is the work of the top three winners of a contest named in his honor. These are young poets, and part of their goal is to be in service to the situation in which people live. An independent jury judged the submissions. This book is an attempt to promote the work of young writers who would not be able to afford publication elsewhere.
"We have published three numbers of the magazine Verena (Pathway). We also put out the journal Utual. This is an indigenous dialect word, a contraction of the word which means 'actual'. The writings in the journal are collected from the communities, published, and taken back to the communities as a vehicle for discussion. We also put on traveling shows of dance and music.
"The educational system here is very selective. Access for the majority is very minimal, usually only up to the third grade, and in the remote parts of the country there is nothing at all. Cultural education is very minimal, and access is very expensive. Who can afford ten or fifteen colones (half a day's wage for a campesino) to go to a musical event when they are trying to put food on the table?
"We want to generate resources for popular education, but the government is using available funds for their neo-liberal project. The government's system of education has the goal of introducing the neo-liberal program into the communities. This is the restructuring of capitalism in the countries called the Third World, a way to renew capitalism to form new capital, new consumerism. Society is being submitted more and more under a yoke. There is more exploitation, more needs are not being met for the popular classes. Our concern is that this will compound the problem we have always had, which is that the few have much and the many have nothing. It's another phase of fascism.
"I would like to add that the role of government in strengthening capitalism is to carry out this privatization. Institutions which served the people are being disbanded, like the IRA. How does this affect us? The government tries to get people to be submissive as a cultural way to be. We want everyone to have access to theatre, to dance, to music. Through privatization the possibilities for people to develop creativity are minimal. We believe that each person has the possibility to be creative. The government has launched this campaign of privatization because the popular movement has struggled collectively.
"Our singing group is called 'Teosinte' which means 'sacred corn' in the Nauhuat language.
"We were also instrumental in organizing the 1988 Festival for Peace. There were a number of international performers participating. Holly Near was here."
Question: Do you have jobs outside of ASTAC?
"The school project gives some people a stipend, but it is not really enough on which to support oneself. One of our goals is to develop markets, both here and abroad, for the things we produce.
Question: Have you received any threats?
"Roberto Franck was disappeared; he had a puppet theatre. At the time of the offensive several of our members were killed. We have been followed.
"We have twenty full time associates, and another thirty-five who work with us occasionally."
Question: Is this a studio?
"We work in this building and at home. The school is also here."
Celia: "When we were in Pennsylvania, I asked if there were an artistic group that would be willing to sister with us. I have not heard any response so far."
I give her my address and promise to work on this for her.
There is an incredibly powerful poster (quite a few, actually) in the room where we have been meeting. It shows two figures doing battle, an indigenous warrior on foot armed with a sword labelled "tradition," and a mounted conquistador with a bayonetted rifle aimed at the warrior. The conquistador's armor is emblazoned with Mickey Mouse ears and the Batman logo, and his mount, upon examination, turns out to be a Coca Cola bottle. The poster is rendered in black and white, and makes a clear and compelling statement.
After leaving ASTAC we circle back to the house to change money, then on to lunch at Arbol de Vida, the wonderful health food restaurant to which Gary has introduced us. There is general agreement that this is our favorite lunch time establishment. Following lunch we take about an hour and a quarter in the Exquartal Market, where Mary and I pair up. I purchase a red dress, and she a Guatemalan stole, primarily in green, and a white embroidered dress with a yoke and multiple tucks down the front.
Then it's on to the artist's gallery. His work is upscale and obviously the product of academic training, but with strong folk art overtones to some of it. The craft shop has beautiful item, much enameled wood and some pottery. Many of his paintings look like a Latin American Picasso, others have a decidedly Egyptian flavor to them, and still others use Mayan and other indigenous motifs. I end up spending 110 colones ($13.75) on a lithograph print titled "The Silence of Mary." It has a muted, earth tone, very limited range of color, but is very contemplative and draws one into its depths. The figure almost looks as if she were made of capiz shell.
And so back to the house. Betsy still wants to go swimming, so Gary agrees to take her over to the pool at the Sheraton and let her come home in a taxi. I hit the shower with plans to wash my hair. Water pressure is very low for the second day in a row, and I have to do the second rinse by kneeling under the lower faucet. Now it is just about 5:00 PM, and I am out on the balcony at the front of the guest house, hair clean and dressed in my new red dress. Supper is at 6:30, and the photojournalist with whom Gary is trying to connect is coming for the evening.
Perhaps it has been for the best that we did not get out to the lake. I was delighted to see Celia again, and she seemed glad to see me. The next two days out in San Miguel will be very strenuous, so a bit of down time hasn't hurt at all.
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