Latest Essay from Dr. Marta Moreno Vega: The Need for a Community Arts University Without Walls

The Need for a Community Arts University Without Walls

By Marta Moreno Vega

It is a significant and positive step that community arts has emerged as a field of study at colleges and universities. While the field is still working out how best to engage students in community work, it is important to establish a framework that is not from the “top down” but one that engages the community scholars in the field, community institutions, artists, students and professors as equal partners and collaborators in establishing a working relationship that focus on culture and art as transformers of systems of inequity.

It is this concern that started my exploration into the possibility of developing the Community Arts University Without Walls. Invited to speak at various conferences focused on community arts at colleges and universities, I noted that the approaches discussed, while well-intended, promoted a “missionary patronizing” approach of service to the community, bringing culture and art to the community, “helping the community,” rather than one focused on advocacy based on civil, social and cultural justice.

The True History of Community Arts

The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) is now in its 33rd year. I am the founder of the organization and am presently the president. Before developing the CCCADI I was the second director of El Museo del Barrio and the founder of Amigos del Museo del Barrio Inc., and one of the founding members and first director of the Association of Hispanics Arts. This journey has included the determination to develop quality programming and, most important, to assure the inclusion of the cultures of people of color and rural poor white communities as part of the cultural living traditions that have formed this nation and global cultures.

I have lived the reality that although as a nation we function with the dream and concept that we are born equal, “with liberty and justice for all,” with equal opportunity, the reality is that our nation is still in denial of the systemic inequalities and social injustices that frame the major, historically endowed institutions of our society that generally perpetuate “less than” opportunities for people of color and poor rural communities. These institutions, while sustaining and concentrating their power due to privilege and preferential treatment, are also those that determine standards of excellence and what gets included and excluded as valuable in our society.

The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements of the late ‘50s thru the mid-‘70s opened the door for the world to see how civil, human, education, cultural and economic rights had been withheld from a significant sectors of the nation’s population. The voices of African-American communities influenced the rise of the voices of other excluded communities, all contributors to the building of this young nation.

The early phase of television sent images across the world documenting the ravages of racism, discrimination, poverty and civil and social injustice. The movements to correct historical inequities found voice in the speeches and actions of Martin Luther King Jr., Harry Belafonte, Ella Baker, Antonia Pantoja, Stokley Carmichael, Malcolm X, Felipe Luciano and many others who understood that the blight of African-American, Latino, Asian, Native American and rural white communities had to be corrected. The movement also found voice in the work of Bernice Johnson Reagon and Sweet Honey in the Rock, Miguel Alagarin and the Nuyorican Poets, Dudley Cocke and Roadside Theater/Appalshop and other cultural workers across the nation who understood that the voice of culture and art was and is integral to achieving social justice.

Therefore, community arts cultural institutions grounded in the traditions, histories and voices of disenfranchised communities emerged from the tradition of quilting circles, healing circles and freedom songs. The poetic voices of griots and declamadores spoke to the need for liberation; visual and theater artists developed works to provide communities the pathways to act in their own interests. Creative arts with meaning, with action, intertwined with aesthetic and artistic excellence, birthed the movement that today is recognized as Community Arts. It is important to recognize that the community arts movement is embedded in the movement of civil and social justice.

It is the creative arm of the movement of civil and human rights. Community art is therefore the bearer of history, legacy, tradition and voice for cultural equity social justice and human rights.. As we look at the conditions of communities of color and poor white communities across the nation, the reality is that our communities are still marginalized and under-resourced. Inequity continues to stifle the growth and achievements of young people and adults from communities of color and rural white communities. While there has been progress there is much to be done.

The role for community arts organizations for the 21st century to continue the work of achieving social and human rights and cultural equity is the imperative for us to emerge as a just society. A nation built on diversity of racial and cultural groups continues in diversity while the framework of racism and discrimination still oppresses in insidious ways.

In the past decade, institutions of higher learning have begun to explore the role of community arts as a discipline. This exploration holds promise if there is the opportunity to develop a working collaboration between institutions of higher learning and community arts organizations/institutions. The historic, theoretical and action framework grounded in cultural communities of color and poor white communities is integral to the work of cultural equity and must be integral to introducing and training students and future cultural workers in the field.

The Issues for Institutions

There are a number of issues that must be addressed by institutions developing community arts programs:

Access to Community Arts Programs: Most of these programs being developed and implemented in universities/colleges are not affordable to students from disenfranchised areas where most of the community arts institutions are based. How will institutions develop equal partnerships with community-based organizations where college students are assigned? What measures are colleges/universities taking to assure that emerging and future leaders of cultural arts institutions grounded in their communities and nurtured in the principles of the Civil Rights Movement are provided equal opportunity to access higher-education programs?

Requirements for Work Within Community Based Organizations: The work requires being knowledgeable and experiencing our communities, connected to the thinking and needs of our constituents. Working within communities requires understanding the pulse, concerns and issues that impact the lives of the community. It requires the skills to assist in assessing and developing the strategies necessary to address, correct, give voice, seek solutions, broadcast and promulgate the desired steps to effect change as articulated by the cultural community. Community organizers who are administrators, artists, cultural workers and community scholars and advocates generally staff community arts institutions and are experts in the field and are qualified as co-professors and instructors.

More Than Theory — Engaging in Practice: Understanding that institutions of higher learning may be well-intended, the approach and design of the community arts area of study tend to be theoretical and twice-removed from the subject area that is the core of learning and engagement. Students in the classroom are learning from scholars and texts that are too often written by researchers and scholars that are not practitioners within the community arts movement but observers; that is the first step of disengagement. Inviting practitioners of community arts into the classroom to share information further removes the students from the context and intent of the work. These presenters are “talking heads” to the students and generally are not seen as having the validity of the written text or university professors. In this environment, the community arts practitioners are removed from the core of their knowledge and their cultural arts context.

Their organizations are “the community universities.” Students placed in that learning environment, actualizing experiences that they will be immersed in, are exposed to significant references and experiences that correlate to their classroom university teachings.

As previously noted, the core of community arts work is activism culturally grounded in justice and equity. It is focused on developing and achieving a civil society that is inclusive and engages difference and diversity as the norm, not as an “add-on.” Community arts work is not an opportunity to have students “feel good” by doing arts projects. The object is to engage in cultural relevant projects of meaning with the purpose of changing systems of inequity through the voice of culture and art. It is about civil, social justice work that requires commitment and engagement to right the wrongs that still plague our everyday existence and therefore the nation.

Fundamental to understanding community arts work is recognizing the diversity of aesthetic experiences and standards of excellence. Diverse communities have their own criteria of excellence that are not culturally grounded in the Western European context. Important to the learning process for students in higher education is to understand the cultural histories and artistic legacies of the communities. Too often the cultural and art histories of marginal communities are not included in art history books or in the texts used in higher education. This impedes a comprehensive understanding of the communities they will be working within.

Working Collaborations/Partnerships: Institutions working to develop or who have developed courses/departments of service learning and community arts should bring community arts practitioners in at the inception of planning, not as an after thought. This will assure that concerns of community-based organizations are an integral part of the course work.

Courses developed should also be co-taught with experts from the community arts field. The processes of building community-based cultural organizations are varied and it is important for students to be exposed to first-hand information and experiences.

The major portion of course work should occur within the community arts institutions that are the subject of study, not in the university/college. Students should be fully engaged in the subject area they are studying.

A University Without Walls Concept: An Online Consortium of Institutions of Higher Learning and Community Arts Organizations

The establishment of an online University Without Walls concept should be formed by a consortium of colleges and universities in partnership with community-based organizations within their geographic areas. This consortium would develop a core curriculum that would be agreed upon by both the institutions of higher learning and community-based organizations.

The core curriculum would develop a national agreed-upon course of study. The group would agree upon the framework of required community-based courses that are part of the degree program. These courses would be framed around the cultural arts communities that are in the geographic location of the college. The framing of these institutions requires the inclusion of community scholars, experts of the cultural communities and institutions versed in the issues of importance to their communities.

The objective is to establish a course of study that engages the institutions of higher learning and community arts organizations as partners and collaborators in the future of the community arts field.

Important to the success of this concept is the engagement of young adults based within their communities and working in the cultural arts field to have access to learning and accreditation by attending University Without Walls. Embedded in the idea of an online consortium of institutions is the expectation that the degree program would be affordable for low-income students who otherwise would not have the resources to attend high-cost institutions now presenting community arts type of initiatives.

A Possible Model Until the Establishment of a University Without Walls

This past semester I developed a course with the encouragement and support of Mary S. Campbell, dean of the Tisch School for the Arts at New York University, and Randy Martin, professor and chair of the Department of Art and Public Policy. Entitled “Cultural Equity: The Community Arts Imperative,” the Fall 2009 course provided the opportunity for students to interact with founders of organizations, community arts activists, cultural workers and artists from diverse racial and cultural communities. The co-instructors, ranging from elder and younger generations of community institution builders, provided a spectrum of experiences and learning opportunities that set the basis for students to develop a comparative analysis of approaches to this work of varied cultural communities. The course was held in community based organizations through out New York City.

Four stages of the development of the community arts movement were addressed. International Cultural Arts Policy — Declarations Emergence of the Community Arts Movement Racial and Cultural Diversity of the Community Arts Movement Community Arts Today/Student Presentations focused on their work with community organizations and or projections for work within communities.

A Syllabus

The syllabus was presented to the students in the following context:

In New York City, the movement to create community arts cultural organizations by communities of color, poor and marginalized groups was inspired by the Civil Rights Movement. Each decade since this historic movement has seen existing and new migrant and immigrant groups establish communities that reflect their aesthetic vision, traditions and sacred expressions. How these cultural organizations created cultural spaces that transformed the aesthetic and cultural life of the nation has yet to be fully understood. How these institutions were and are received by the broader cultural arts community raises many issues regarding the right to culture, cultural equity, racial and cultural discrimination, inequitable funding issues and more. The course will serve to engage students in a direct learning experience with cultural arts leaders in the field. The course will contribute to expanding information on the field of community arts. Students will develop collaborative projects with community arts organizations. These exchanges we expect will develop an on going critical analysis of the course themes contributing to much needed narrative on the purpose and direction of community arts as an area of study.

 Course Requirements: Final Project/Class presentation. Active class participation and critical engagement in the class process. Synopsis of each site visit.

Readings:

Course Packet prepared by Marta Moreno Vega

“Entering Cultural Communities: Diversity and Change in the Nonprofit Arts,” edited by Diane Grams and Betty Farrell, Rutgers University Press

“Voices from the Battlefront Achieving Cultural Equity,” edited by Marta Moreno Vega and Cheryll Y. Green, Africa World Press, Inc.

“Songs in the Key of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation” by Mark Anthony Neal, Routledge Press

“Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement: Convening the Community Arts Field in Higher Education,” edited by Sonia BasSheva Mañjon

Section 1: Framing the Cultural Imperative

Sept. 10: Introduction @ NYU/Context — Framing the paradigm of Cultural Rights — Conversations of Inclusion; with Esmeralda Simmons, Center for Law and Social Justice, Medgar Evers College


Sept. 17: Power Arts Movements — Framing the Black Arts Movement and the Building of Cultural Arts Organizations; with C. Danny Dawson, curator at Voza Rivers/New Heritage Theater West Harlem


Sept. 24: Nuyorican Cultural Arts — No Longer Invisible; with Bill Aguado, president, Bronx Council on the Arts

Section 2: Building Institutions in Our Image

Oct. 1: Native American Equity Movement; with Diane Fraher, executive director, AMERINDA


Oct. 8: Empowering Cultural Educational Practices; with Kwayera Archer-Cunningham, Ifetayo, president and CEO 


Oct. 15: Advocacy for Community Arts ; with Sandra Garcia, executive director NoMaa, and Michael Unthank, executive director, Harlem Arts Alliance

Section 3: The Art of Advocacy — New Voices for

Change Oct. 22: Institution Building and the Challenges of Difference; with Laurie Cumbo, founder/executive director, MoCADA (Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts)


Oct. 29: Museum of Chinese in America S. Alice Mong, Executive Director, Jack Tchen, Professor


Nov. 5: Collective Action; with Eliana Godoy, Arts for Change 


Nov. 12: Strategic Alliances; with Marinieves Alba, artist, consultant, Hip Hop Exchange

Section 4: Final Student Presentations

Co-teachers: Sample of Questions

A set of questions was shared with the community instructors to assure that they all provided a comprehensive overview of their work. It also offered a basis for comparative analysis by the students of the varied conversations they are engaged in. The following is the response of one of the instructors for the course, Laurie Cumbo. A young cultural arts activist and founder of one of the most progressive museums on African Diaspora contemporary art, she used the questions to frame her discussion with the students about communities they serve.

Laurie A. Cumbo is the founder and executive director of the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA). She holds a Master of Arts degree from New York University in Visual Arts Administration. She completed her undergraduate studies at Spelman College where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Art History. Cumbo’s educational career has been bolstered by her extensive work experience in arts education as well as her travels abroad. She has worked at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Grey Art Gallery. Moreover, her travels throughout Europe, Africa, South America and North America have given her a global perspective on arts education. She has studied at such universities as the Utrecht School of the Arts in the Netherlands and the Fuji Studios in Florence, Italy. As a native of Brooklyn, Cumbo has utilized her educational and professional experiences to bring about an increased presence of the arts in the Borough of Brooklyn. She is an adjunct graduate professor in the School of Art & Design at Pratt Institute and teaches a course entitled “Art in the Urban Environment.” She is also a member of ARTTABLE, the American Association of Museums, the National Alliance of African and African American Art Support Groups and the Spelman College Alumni Association.

Q: What conditions motivated you to create your organization?

A: Ten years ago when I created MoCADA, I recognized that there were no libraries or museums that focused on the African Diaspora in Brooklyn, despite the fact that Brooklyn has more Blacks and Latinos combined than any other borough. As time has gone on, I have recognized that the implications behind this are that there is no documentation of the history, culture, art, accomplishments, heroes, etc., of the African Diaspora in Brooklyn. In other words, if the world ended today, there would be no record of our existence. I was also inspired by the fact that many of our master artists do not have a venue to exhibit their work in their own hometown and that means that our children are not learning about the genius in their communities. It means that they do not have anyone to model themselves after that they can see or talk to on a regular basis. I also wanted to be a role model by teaching young people about what they can accomplish if they stay focused and put in the hard work and dedication. I also wanted the museum to revitalize Brooklyn economically by having tourists from all over the world recognize MoCADA as a tourist destination.

Q: What challenges did you face?

A: I was only 23 when I first started the museum and it took a long time for people to take me seriously, combined with the fact that it remains a challenge for our people in high and low places to understand how important a museum is to the fabric of our lives. Many people simply see a museum as a place for pretty pictures. However, they don’t see it as a place to store history, preserve culture and traditions, express cultural opinions, host events important in their lives, attract revenue for local businesses in the surrounding area — and the list goes on. In addition, the level of corruption on the city, state and federal levels has proved to be an enormous challenge. An example of this would be the Jewish Children’s Museum on Eastern Parkway. That museum is as old as MoCADA, however, Mayor Giuliani and Assemblyman Clarence Norman worked together to secure $19 million for that institution simply because they are Jewish and have a strong voting block.

Q: What has been the "cost" to your personal life?

A: The cost to my personal life has been immeasurable. It has been very difficult to maintain and foster healthy family and friend relationships. It has meant that family and friends for important events have overlooked me because they thought that I was “too busy.” It has meant that I was not there for friends and family that might be sick or going through something very serious in their life like an illness, divorce, loss of job, etc. Many romantic relationships have also failed because I could not devote the time and energy that is expected of a woman in a relationship and many men have felt that they did not want to be in a relationship with a woman that “steals some of their shine.” It also means that there is very little time to take care of matters of your health. I have not been to the doctor or dentist in a decade because for the first six years of the museum, I did not have health insurance and I just got into a bad habit of not going. It has also meant that my finances are all screwed up because I went into a lot of debt attempting to get the museum started and over the years I have continued to lose money on different programs and events that did not make what was estimated. All that to say, the “cost” to my personal life has been great.

Q: What was the original mission of your organization?

A: The original mission of MoCADA in 1999 was to enhance the cultural life of the Bedford Stuyvesant community and encourage people to make the arts and culture and active part of their everyday lives.

Q: What was your original vision for your organization?

A: The original vision of MoCADA was to create a world-class, state of the art, multi-million dollar facility that would revitalize the Borough of Brooklyn economically, socially and aesthetically. My goal was to create a world-class community-based institution. I wanted this to be a place where talent from the community could be seen within a high-class institution, which would thereby change people’s respect for local talent.

Q: What were the racial and cultural issues that needed to be addressed?

A: There were and are so many racial issues to be addressed. The first is that this is an African Diaspora Museum and so I want people of African descent, African-Americans, Caribbeans and Latinos to see this as their museum. However, because I am African-American, the community and politicians also see this as an African-American thing. In other words, I can’t get a Caribbean politician to see how this museum benefits his community and I certainly can’t get any of the Latino community to support the institution. Part of the reason that I created an African Diaspora Museum was to celebrate the commonalities and connection that all of these various communities have with Africa. However, it has been very difficult to have them see this as an institution that represents them. Its also difficult for white people in positions of power to recognize why it’s important for them as well to know about cultures other than their own.

Q: What were the issues of cultural equity that were of concern? A: It has been a heartbreaking experience for me to learn about the explicit racism associated within the government, corporate, foundation and agency worlds. It has been so difficult to accept that in 2009, blatant racism is still practiced in the distribution of funding. A major part of it has been that people in positions of power of all races see African Diaspora culture as insignificant, unimportant, irrelevant and not worthy of the same resources as other cultures. Not recognizing that this same culture that has influenced every other culture. Perhaps the power structure does know that if given the appropriate resources the culture of the African Diaspora would begin to dominate the artistic world stage, so they do everything to suppress it. It is also so difficult because I want to utilize the MoCADA as a way to provide hope, opportunities, jobs and education for our communities and people in positions of power do not give the necessary resources for this to happen despite that fact that the same issues that we want to address are the ones that they utilize in their campaigns to win elections. Q: What is the status of your organization now?

A: MoCADA is now located in a 1,500 square-foot facility in Fort Greene Brooklyn within the BAM cultural district. It is a beautifully architecturally designed facility with a staff of three and a budget of $400,000 a year. We are preparing to create a larger facility and will begin a capital campaign very soon.

Q: What are the accomplishments?

A: In the last ten years MoCADA has become a major partner in the cultural landscape of Brooklyn. MoCADA’s growth and sustainability has been based, in large part, on the heartfelt support of the community and their belief that there should be a black art museum in Brooklyn reflective of the art, history and culture of the people that make up a significant portion of the borough. MoCADA continues to expand as an institution, from a Brownstone building in Bedford Stuyvesant to its current new and expanded location. We unveiled the newly designed museum in the James E. Davis 80 Arts Building in the BAM LDC Cultural District on May 18th, 2006. The new space places MoCADA within the heart of the cultural infusion of Brooklyn, and houses its exhibition spaces, museum store, staff offices, storage space and an elegant reception area. Our supporters have continued to grow with the museum. Through on-site and off-site programs, MoCADA now reaches approximately 20,000 people a year, and has a growing membership base of over 300 members. We produce several signature programs, including the Contemporary Exhibition Series, the Annual KIDflix Outdoor Film Festival of Bed Stuy, the Annual FAMflix Film Fest of Brownsville, the High School & College Internship Programs, and the National Black Fine Art Show Educational Series.

Q: Are the challenges faced in the creation of the organization now different?

A: The challenges faced in the creation of the organization have not changed. While there are many more black and brown faces in positions of power, the attitudes and reverence toward the culture of people of African descent have not changed. For many people in positions of power, there is almost a rite of passage that they must go through, which means that they have to perform some kind of act that demonstrates that they will not do anything to specifically improve the conditions of the people that they represent. Once they do that and continue to practice that form of leadership, they will be elevated to higher levels of power, which makes it better for them and worse for the communities that they come from. MoCADA has grown and more people support the institution, however, it has been a very slow process.

Q: What has improved?

A: As far as improvements, I would say that there have been people in positions of power within the art world that is beginning to change. For example, NYSCA (New York State Council on the Arts) finally has two people of color out of 20 people on the board. There are more cultural institutions in the City of New York than there were 40 years ago. However, in Brooklyn, very little has changed as far as the cultural landscape. There are no world-class institutions for people of color within this borough. I would say that media has seen the most change. They cover events associated with people of color very regularly and see the value in reviewing our exhibitions and programs. I would say that media has made the most improvements as far as people of color. Q: What has not! A: I would say that the Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York City Council budget is one example where we see very little change as far as people of color. DCA only gives out 14 percent of its budget to organizations of color despite the fact that people of color make up over 62 percent of the City’s population. The leadership at DCA is comprised of white people and they select panelists that reflect their cultural identity, which ensures that communities of color do not receive their fair share of resources. They make sure that people of color are never the majority on any of the panels. This same type of distribution of our tax-paying dollars happens on every level of City government.

Q: What are funding issues past and present?

A: A major challenge with funding has been the amount of paperwork that is associated with receiving funding on the governmental local, state and federal levels. With each new scandal in government the paperwork continues to increase for the arts organizations and many smaller arts organizations can’t keep pace with the increasing demands placed on them. Also, many (not all) foundations and corporations practice a tokenism system of distributing wealth. Many of them will give out maybe five to ten awards and will only select one organization of color to receive the grant (maybe two but not more than that). This creates a system of unhealthy competition amongst these organizations and they do not share information or collaborate because they feel it is important to be seen as that one institution that receives the lion’s share of resources. The Studio Museum in Harlem and Alvin Ailey are examples of that type of practice.

Q: What about equitable distribution of funds, public, private and corporate?

A: See above.

Q: What is the future of community arts, given the focus on diversity by "major" arts organizations and the interest of institutions of higher education?

A: I think that it is great that so many large organizations are beginning to diversify their institutions on the programming and exhibition side. However, I still do not see diversity in the hiring practices of these organizations. In 2009, many large organizations still have the majority of people of color in the security, maintenance and custodial services while a white person is the executive director or chief curator. People of color usually find themselves in the community services or education department and that has not changed significantly. A recent trend with the change in politics is that people of color are now hired as lobbyists in order to create friendships with politicians of color and secure funding for white institutions. It also makes it appear to white politicians that the institution is diversifying. The challenge with white institutions creating programming for communities of color is that they stand a better chance of securing resources to do it and to further take away from community based institutions because politicians and other funders like the cache and glitz and glamour of being associated with the bigger, sexier institutions that can give them more visibility. I don’t know what this will mean for community-based institutions. I suppose that at this time I don’t want to acknowledge the obvious because I would not have the motivation to continue to do the work that I am doing. I just pray that there is room for it all.

Diane Fraher: The response of Diane Fraher of the Native American community and founder of AMERINDA Inc. in New York also provided the students insight into areas of information critical to their understanding of the cultural and institution-building issues fundamental to community work — and to entering the field.

I, like a lot of New Yorkers, was born and raised somewhere else and became a New Yorker later. I grew up in Oklahoma, which has the highest population of American Indian people. After the close of the frontier, in the late 19th century, the federal government began a final round of forced removals of our people, relocating them to Indian Territory, in what is now Oklahoma. Predictably, the government reneged on its promises and decided to turn “IT,” as it was known as, into the state of Oklahoma. My people, the Osage Nation, were the last nation to agree to a settlement in 1907, paving the way for statehood.

Although, we are the First Nations, we are the last Americans to achieve legal and cultural equity. No Native American person had any legally recognized rights off their Nation until the American Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, when we were extended citizenship. American Indian people were the last Americans to have the franchise extended to them.

The world I grew up in was a segregated one where Indians and women need not apply, and for some the “Indian problem” had not been solved to their satisfaction. I came east to get my education after the Civil Rights Act liberated all people of color. When I got to New York, I saw ordinary people doing extraordinary things and I imagined we could all be like that. The majority of American Indian people who came to New York were artists like me, seeking recognition and opportunity beyond the poverty and isolation of the reservations. That is still true today.

Indigenous North American people see themselves as related to one another. We are much better at working together for the common good than being successful as individual artists. A general consensus emerged among us that we needed to be defined by more than our problems and needed to do it in a culturally relevant framework. It became almost necessary to start a community-based arts organization in order for any of us to reach our full human potential. American Indian Artists was founded in 1987 as a group of artists’ response to the missing or erroneous images of Indian people in mainstream American.

Native Resistance: The struggle for cultural sovereignty

Historically, U.S. federal and state governments punished Native American people by denying them the right to perform their traditional music and dances, speak their indigenous languages and express themselves through the visual artistic medium. This was a national effort implemented on the regional and local level to destroy Indian cultural and religious identity and replace them with European beliefs. The colonization and establishment of a European dominant culture had a devastating long-term effect on Native American communities. The challenge from within to creating AMERINDA came from the legacy of that despair which eroded our individual abilities to envision ourselves as worthy or effective.

Assimilation policies created degrading myths, which still must be fought today. This legacy profoundly challenged the creation of AMERINDA and its potential from without. Such myths include: Native American art is exclusively crafts and traditional; Native American culture is primarily dead or dying; and Native American people are passive, marginalized and powerless. Despite such policies and myths, through the years Native American communities have produced acclaimed writers, painters, actors, dancers, musicians and sculptors, as well as the vibrant contemporary work from artists of many traditional art disciplines.

The work of these artists helped to restore and strengthen the Native American community against continuing marginalization, discrimination and poverty. Native American artists and their work have enormous potential to bridge cultural and ethnic divisions within our society. Yet continued marginalization and ethnic and economic barriers prevent effective distribution of authentic contemporary Native American art to mainstream American and even global audiences. The enormous potential of Native American art to address critical economic and social justice issues has not yet been fully realized. This is due to the lack of funding support for Native American organizations and community-based organizations serving communities of color and an overwhelming lack of awareness of the indigenous perspective in the arts. Institutions that support Native American art can have a powerful effect on cultural sovereignty for the entire Native American community. Sovereignty and self-determination is a birthright it is not something that anyone else arbitrarily decides to bestow on another. It is often treated in an imperious manner because people don’t want to recognize it.

After five centuries of Native resistance the struggle has revealed an imperative for cultural sovereignty. Native attorneys now fight in the courts for Native Nations’ continued sovereignty. Contemporary Native artists assert their cultural sovereignty by smashing the images of the mythic past and the static, isolated present. Because of forced exile and past assimilation policies, their artwork has a powerful and direct influence on how non-Indians view American Indians, what they know (or think they know) about Indians, the generalizations they make and stereotypes they hold, how their perceptions were formed and their interest in learning more.

We believe that Native American artists should be given opportunities to realize their full potential to create and exhibit art that will build their own communities as well as make a significant contribution to the building of a more just society.

The core of AMERINDA’s work is to continue to build the Native American community from within and to develop bridges between Native American artists and mainstream audiences. Expanded mainstream venues for viewing authentic Native American art will benefit individual Native American artists, which will in turn benefit entire Native American communities.

 One of the most important lessons of the struggle for equality is the necessity of personal sacrifice. Real change is not for the faint of heart. The artists of my generation had to sacrifice some of our personal dreams in order for the dream of cultural equality for our communities to be born. This is especially true of women artists. Conversely, the difficulty of sacrificing one’s creative production has been sustained by the strength of community. When I get discouraged, I also take solace in our elders and those who came before. Their sacrifice was much greater than ours but it paid for us to still be here, exercise our rights and envision something better for ourselves and those who come after us.

The mission of AMERINDA is and always has been to make the indigenous perspective in the arts available to a broad audience through the creation of new work in contemporary art forms. The group of artists who came together to found the organization envisioned it as a physical and cultural nexus for American Indian people in New York City. In order for AMERINDA to serve our community we must listen to the needs of the community and respond in a culturally relevant framework. Our recovery as a colonized people demands that we assert our cultural as well as our political sovereignty.

One of the racial issues AMERINDA addresses is the entrenched denial of American Indian people in American society. There is very little mention of Indian people or their contributions and impact on American history. The majority of Americans know very little about contemporary Native American people and what they do know is shaped by an imaginary romanticized vision created by Hollywood. Contemporary American Indian art has a well-documented history but it is not integrated in the rest of American art history. The result is that American Indian people are seen as figures of the past—invisible to the rest of contemporary American society. It is imperative that Indian people shape their own image through a vital contemporary art movement.

The denial of our existence has lead to an “alter-Indian art” created by wanna-bes and driven by cash and opportunity. An imperative of cultural equity demands integrity in the process and transparency throughout. AMERINDA’s programs and services provide this for our community.

Through perseverance and careful planning AMERINDA has successfully positioned itself within the American Indian community to provide important services and recognition and produce and present works of artistic excellence. The original challenges from within have been greatly diminished because AMERINDA has strengthened the community’s perception of itself through the work. The original vision has proved prescient.

The challenge to gain any recognition and respect in the mainstream remains difficult at best with mixed progress in some areas and much more work to be done in others. Forming meaningful partnerships and alliances on multiple levels with other arts organizations outside communities of color has created new opportunities for artists and changed the overall perception of who a Native American artist is and what is happening in contemporary Native American arts in each individual instance. But these partnerships have limits because all organizations have their own core mission and program, which they must advance.

Arts organizations serving communities of color are now on the threshold of another epoch in their history, the challenge to endow the legacy of creative production accomplished over the last 40 years by these organizations.

The struggle for recognition is directly influenced by having access to adequate resources — financial, physical and human. AMERINDA and other community-based arts organizations are stable but they remain fragile. Black, Latino, Asian and Native American have evolved from “minority” into “diverse” and most recently “multicultural.” Yet the people they serve remain the same and the needs of each generation have to be met. The philanthropic community needs to recognize this and invest in endowing the legacy.

Since the 1980s, equitable distribution of public funds in particular has been set back. The emphasis has been shifted away from an investment in equal access to artistic excellence toward budget size, with arbitrary thresholds as requirements for support. August members of the philanthropic community no longer even accept applications from small to mid-sized organizations, thereby limiting their ability to flourish and in some instances their demise. A new paradigm for recognizing success in communities of color needs to emerge instead of re-enforcing that the expectation that communities of color will eventually look and act like people of non-color and then they will be worthy of recognition and support.

There is no longer a sense of urgency about creating or maintaining cultural equity for the majority. In some cases the emphasis has been dropped altogether. The culture wars of the 1980s saw the extinction of “Expansion Arts” at the National Endowment for the Arts. The municipal arts agency in New York City has so far resisted the idea of making an equal investment in Cultural Equity Groups as they now do for Cultural Institution Groups. Program support is often just enough for groups to fail to fully emerge, even after decades of service.

Corporate funding continues to overwhelmingly be an investment in making artists better business people and not better artists who enrich the communities where they work and live.

If the current trend continues, New York City will go the way of Paris after World War II: an international city with extraordinary large institutions that care for and exhibit the treasurers of western civilization for an international audience but no thriving community of artists who actually advance western culture.

The Imperative: Community Arts Moving Forward

The need for community-based arts institutions to serve poor, rural and communities of color and rural poor communities has now been established after the last 40 years of work. The next challenge is to endow their legacy of creative production in those communities. This will take a movement of community artists and leaders, funders and politicians and anyone who else who cares about the quality of life of all Americans.

If we are to engage young people in this work, we need to provide the historical and living realities that are critical to achieving cultural equity in our society. We must also keep at the forefront of developing programs in departments focused on community arts work to make certain that integral to the creation of curricula, and programs is the cultural arts community that is embedded in the work. Most important is to assure that young people working within our communities are assured access to programs of higher learning focused on their cultural communities. Noting the programs I have been invited to address, it is overwhelmingly apparent that students from the communities that are the target for service learning and community arts are not present. Most of the universities and colleges offering these courses are high-end institutions with extremely high tuitions.

Young, developing community arts professionals can’t afford to attend programs that are about their communities yet exclude them. Communities at risk, underserved and marginalized communities need to have young people from their communities be engaged in institution building within the communities that nurtured their growth. Training cannot only be the privilege of a few who are engaged in this work as “course work” and not as a long-term commitment.

Experts from the community arts field must be placed at the center of institutional community arts curriculum . These professionals are integral to the formulation of programs to assure the participation of “on-the-ground expert practitioners and institution builders” who are grounded in the work. Also, it is imperative to ensure that young people from the cultural arts communities being discussed are critically present in these programs.

As we move forward with a group of other community arts advocates and colleges, the exploration will continue to work on establishing an online virtual University Without Walls to assure that more community participants are engaged in the development of programs in higher education and community arts organizations speak to issues of equity in all areas of our civil society.

This essay is was written for the Community Arts Newtork as part of the Community Arts Convening & Research Project, 2009-10, funded by a Nathan Cummings Foundation grant to the Maryland Institute College of Art. The essay was reviewed and selected by the project's Editorial Board: Stephani Woodson, Arizona State University; Amalia Mesa-Bains, California State University Monterey Bay; Paul Teruel, Columbia College Chicago; Marina Gutierrez, Cooper Union; Jan Cohen-Cruz, Imagining America; Ken Krafchek, Maryland Institute College of Art; Lori Hager, University of Oregon; and Sonia BasSheva Mañjon, Wesleyan University.

Marta Moreno Vega, Ph.D., is president/founder of the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute. Moreno Vega is a former executive director of El Museo del Barrio, Association of Hispanic Arts and Network of Centers of Color. Moreno Vega is an author and documentarian.