{"id":1938,"date":"2017-05-29T14:27:47","date_gmt":"2017-05-29T21:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/?p=1938"},"modified":"2017-07-29T20:47:39","modified_gmt":"2017-07-30T03:47:39","slug":"who-is-the-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/?p=1938","title":{"rendered":"Who is the “public”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Wait a minute!” I said. “I<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>am the public!”\u00a0I pointed <\/span><\/em>to people in the room and said, “You<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0are the public, and\u00a0you<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0are\u00a0the public!”<\/span><\/em><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

In\u00a0an interview earlier\u00a0this year, David Mendoza recalled making this comment. He was\u00a0referring to a\u00a0moment in\u00a0the late 1980s when he was in the midst of a debate about public funding for the arts. Three students \u2013 Karen Beech, Jessica Cap\u00f3, and Lizzie Trelawney-Vernon \u2013 at the University of Washington School of Art + Art History + Design \u2013 conducted the interview as part of an internship with me, Alum in Residence. We were delving into the history and files of Arts Wire, an online network that started at about the same time as the incident in David’s story. The students decided to produce a podcast series including interviews with intriguing people they found in the files. David was definitely on\u00a0their list. The hour-long interview, with David in Bali and we in an apartment near the university,\u00a0covered many of David’s experiences.1<\/sup> The following exchange took place at\u00a0the end of the interview.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

DAVID<\/span>: I want to put in one last pitch for public funding for the arts. \u00a0Anne, do you remember my pin, \u201cI\u00a0AM THE PUBLIC\u201d?<\/p>\n

ANNE<\/span>: Oh, I still have a couple, David. I should start wearing one.<\/p>\n

DAVID<\/span>: I created that pin because I got so tired of people using the word \u201cpublic\u201d and saying, \u201cI\u2019m against public funding for the arts. I\u2019m against public funding for this, or public support shouldn\u2019t go\u00a0for that.\u201d At some debate I was in, I said, \u201cWait a minute! I<\/em> am the public!\u201d I pointed to people in the room and said \u201cYou<\/em> are the public, and you <\/em>are the public.\u201d The anomalous idea that a public means someone who is not me or not many other people\u2026I just wouldn\u2019t accept that. So I created a\u00a0pin that said, \u201cI AM THE PUBLIC.\u201d And we distributed it widely. People loved this pin because they got it immediately, because they knew they were not being included when the word \u201cpublic\u201d was used.<\/p>\n

What public funding for the arts did, what the NEA did, what NYSCA and many other arts councils did, was diversify the arts in America. They realized that not just a few major European-based institutions were the arts in America: there were all kinds of others. Just last night I was listening to PBS NewsHour<\/em>\u00a0and learned there’s a revival of\u00a0Zoot Suit<\/em>, Luis Vald\u00e9z\u2019s play that he created with Teatro Campesino in California, which went on to Broadway and a movie. Now it’s being revived\u00a0again. And once again<\/em>, it has relevance, to the Chicano community especially. Teatro Campesino was supported by both the California Arts Council and the NEA. That theater would never have been supported by a Koch\/Trump type of philanthropy, though I don\u2019t actually\u00a0want to include Trump because he\u2019s really not a philanthropist. But people who were known for their philanthropy gave big money to what they liked. Nothing wrong with that, but there was nobody to give money to Teatro Campesino. That\u2019s what public support for the arts did. And, that\u2019s why we created that pin, \u201cI AM THE PUBLIC.\u201d Everyone who wore it was part of the public.<\/p>\n

JESSICA<\/span>: I just want to chime in\u2026Anne has one of these pins in the office. And when she told me the story about it, it really spoke to me and I tend to tell a lot of people about it. Personally, I am myself Hispanic and a lot of my co-workers are minorities as well, you know, Pakistani, Taiwanese. I mentioned this same pin to them, actually just today. I mentioned it to them in the art context but also in terms of what\u2019s happening today. And they loved<\/em> it, and they were just, like\u2026 YES, this is exactly it.<\/p>\n

DAVID<\/span>: Yes! Maybe your first activism after this podcast could be, just make some! Just make it!<\/p>\n

VOICES ON TOP OF EACH OTHER<\/span>: Just make some! \u00a0Yeah! \u00a0And\u2026 create some. Definitely!<\/p>\n

DAVID<\/span>: I\u2019m telling you, it was amazing. Actually the message is quite, I don\u2019t want to say deep, but profound in a way\u2026patting myself on the back a little, I guess. But I remember, for example, a Gay Pride March [in Seattle], which used to be on Broadway in those days. We were marching and had bags of them and were handing them out. People loved<\/em> this pin! They got its message immediately. Then I\u2019d see it on people all over Seattle. I think it\u2019s a very good thing to revive! They\u2019re not expensive\u2026just reproduce it.<\/p>\n

JESSICA<\/span>: It\u2019s so funny, I was just thinking about this today. After mentioning them to my co-workers, it was, wow! I just want to make more and start giving them to people. Yeah\u2026 it\u2019s just amazing. It doesn\u2019t have to be in the art context, but just in general\u2026what that actually means to people. Just making them realize they are<\/em> part of this whole debate. They are<\/em> the public. \u201cYeah! I am<\/em>, and I really should<\/em> have a bigger say in what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

KAREN<\/span>: It\u2019s a reaffirmation of your own value. This understanding that, like, wait a second, I\u2019m culpable. I\u2019m responsible. And that means that I also have power and I have agency. That is really important! We so often become isolated in the sense that we think, well, my opinion is this. But the point is not that. The point is that my opinion is as valid as the \u201cpublic\u2019s\u201d opinion, that everybody has an individual opinion, and that<\/em>, all together, is what creates any group, right? even on the scale of the country.<\/p>\n

DAVID<\/span>: And remember, you have to always be aware that when you hear someone talk about the \u201cpublic,\u201d they probably have an idea of it that doesn\u2019t include a lot of people. They\u2019re excluding part of the public.<\/p>\n

ANNE<\/span>: When you come back in June or July, David, we\u2019ll give you a new pin.<\/p>\n

JESSICA<\/span>: Yeah, we need to revive this!<\/p>\n

DAVID<\/span>: Yes! \u00a0I have one in my little treasured storage chest in Seattle. It\u2019s time, it\u2019s time again. We\u2019ve come full circle with what\u2019s happening right now.<\/p>\n

KAREN<\/span>: If you had the opportunity to share some advice or to provide some guidance to people who are wanting to be involved now and wanting to be active now, in the current moment, what might you say?<\/p>\n

DAVID<\/span>: I was so devastated after the election that when I left the U.S. last December, people here would ask, \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with you?\u201d I really had thought, with the election of Obama, that all the work we\u2019d done had slowly progressed, one step forward, one step back, and onward. I thought we finally had arrived where we\u2019d been trying to get all these years, though\u00a0of course, there\u00a0was\u00a0still a long way to go.\u00a0And then this sudden turn\u2026 I just felt like it had been a waste in a way.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ll tell you what heartens me right now, where I find solace and hope is seeing all these people who are turning up at the town hall meetings of Congresspeople around, in Nebraska and Kansas, that I\u2019ve been reading about, and in Texas. Republicans in Congress are having meetings with 800, 1000, 1500 people showing up who are well-informed, who are angry, who are speaking out. My god, we never had anything like that in those days. We would only have dreamed we could have orchestrated something like that. What\u2019s truly important now is showing up first and secondly opening your mouth. That would be the advice I\u2019d have. Show up, open your mouth, and be informed.<\/p>\n

“That would be the advice I\u2019d have.
\nShow up, open your mouth, and be informed.”<\/span><\/em><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n


\nAFTERWORD<\/span>: \u00a0At one of our weekly meetings a month or so\u00a0after the podcast recording, the group of interns surprised me with several hundred brand-new pins. You can bet that one way or another, they’ll make sure David gets some of the new ones.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

NOTE<\/span><\/p>\n

1 <\/sup>Jessica Cap\u00f3 created a website for posting the series of podcasts produced by the interns from\u00a0their work with Arts Wire files. There will be about 15 episodes in the final series. They\u2019re posted weekly on Fridays. The site is here<\/a>., and the interview with David is titled, \u201cGolden Horseshoe.\u201d You\u2019ll find a list of all the podcasts with live links to the audio at the \u201cpodcast\u201d tab, and a brief description and additional notes at \u201cextras.\u201d<\/p>\n

The podcast production is definitely low-tech, just the make-it-up-ourselves style I love. We gather at Jess\u2019s apartment a few blocks from campus (my office reverberates too much) around a dining table with a small microphone and a cell phone on the speakerphone setting. You might need to adjust your ears a bit.<\/p>\n

Final note<\/span>:\u00a0You can also read a memoir David wrote about his life since graduating from the UW, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Wait a minute!” I said. “I\u00a0am the public!”\u00a0I pointed to people in the room and said, “You\u00a0are the public, and\u00a0you\u00a0are\u00a0the public!”   In\u00a0an interview earlier\u00a0this year, David Mendoza recalled making this comment. He was\u00a0referring to a\u00a0moment in\u00a0the late 1980s when he was in the midst of a debate about public funding for the arts. Three…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,7,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-after-the-2016-election","category-the-commons-civil-society","category-re-artists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7pXN0-vg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1938"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2033,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938\/revisions\/2033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}