The Owner's Story
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Your connection to Grand Rapids- I have been living in Grand Rapids for 20 years. Over time, you start to form some of the family that you left behind in your country. I started to feel part of the neighborhood and people looked to me as the mother or grandmother of the neighborhood. I found it easy to transfer my peace and joy onto others.
I have always been an advocate for the underserved communities and that led for my storefront to become a community resource center where our community feels welcome and safe.
I have tons of stories on helping the community whether it be fundraisers for families in need due to illness or family members passing away or being the voice of reason and encouragement. I founded Grandma’s to the Rescue in an effort to help raise funds for those in need such as medical treatment, funeral expenses by selling food in the parking structure of my store, and donations from several different sources.
Owner's Connection To GR, Thoughts on Liberation, Reclamation
Liberation- Liberation of my community means to be included, to have the capacity to reach their dreams, the liberty to just be and to have. When I hear “black and brown people” I feel that we are an invincible community but we do not have access like others do. I also believe that you are liberated when you believe in yourself. There are imaginary chains that we create for ourselves and pass down to our generations. We have to cut those first to be liberated. You have to value and love yourself first. You have to believe that you have rights and that things were made for us too. Your dreams are reachable and there are no boundaries. In order to be liberated, we must never stop growing. You must cut the chains you are dragging because in reality they dont exist. When we crossed the border we did more than we had ever imagined.
Reclamation- Reclamation is the 49507 project, reclamation is the opportunity to receive funds when we didn’t qualify before. There are a lot of ways to reclaim our community. We need to classify the needs from one to another. We need to work towards equality as humans and reclaim our liberty to access. The ability to bring our voices together gives us more power to make a change. We need to be more unified to be able to participate in these systems. Build our own platform. I believe reclamation can happen through education. Education so that our future generations can see their futures, not as migrant workers but to fly to the moon, to be architects, to be something bigger.
About the Artist
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At the beginning of my journey, I got to confess that I struggle by communicating effectively with people in the English language because my primary language is Spanish. Just to mention one of the challenges that I faced during the transition from the Caribbean to Michigan. Thanks to a unique enthusiastic motivational value that helped me continue learning and built a strong desire to work hard on my vision and accomplish a goal. In 2009 I gathered a small group of people that were able to work for a common cause. So, we created a project named THE CARIBBEAN COALITION FOR THE ARTS & CULTURE, a platform that we used to create and develop a few cultural projects promoting Caribbean and Latino culture in West Michigan.
Since that point, I have been lucky enough to work and collaborate with people. They showed strength and greatness, and also happily celebrated the success of others.
A few years ago, when the immigration policies related to family separation and deportation suddenly started over, we faced negative mental and physical health implications for immigrant families locally like many others in the United States. Consequently, many Latino business owners, professionals, and people within our community in a collaboration with local agencies agreed to work together asking and recommending the dismantling of policies that are harmful to immigrant families. I personally feel like walking on an icy pavement living under fear, exhausted, and frustrated. I decided to jump into activism using art to address some of the social issues that affect us seriously.
Not many things have changed yet, however, we are still hoping and working toward seeing the light to the end of the tunnel.
It takes time to think things through and find creative solutions that bring progress to the grind of obstacle removal. Most of the time I am asking myself: are you ready for the long battle? Because it is an ongoing job to work for social changes.
Our communities are changing for the better and growing stronger to combat the hate we received from the start of our existence in this country.
I have been participating in organized groups to talk and to discuss race, social injustices. Lately, we see people come together to share perspectives and learn how to support our people of colors and minorities in our community is a great way to build and explore their racial identity and the impact it has on our nation.
I do provide pleasure and creative inspiration through visual art, also help foster dialogue, and bring important issues to the public eye. One of my most recent experiences was to create a big piece on six panels downtown right after the city experienced one of the biggest protests of police brutality.
I believe that “culture” is facing a crisis globally and it must be a global concern. Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present, and bestowed for the benefit of future generations; also includes intangible cultural traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants, such as performing arts, folklore, traditions, language, rituals, and knowledge.