1Voice Summer 2019

Never Too Old to Play With Dolls
Some children play with dolls and imagine their
lives as grownups. Some adults keep their
childhood playthings as a reminder of a more
carefree time in life.
Yolanda Gutierrez displays an impressive collection
of colorful dolls behind glass in her Pico
Union restaurant to honor her homeland.
“This is our culture. This is our heritage. This
is Nicaragua.”
Photos by Lisa Weingarten
Gutierrez’s exhibit is a riot of characters, from
women in regional dresses to mythical shamans.
Each one’s city is written on its base – Leon, Masaya,
Estelí, Chinandega, Diriamba, Granada – giving
the display case the look of a national congress.
Gutierrez is from Managua. She came to Los
Angeles in 1977, when then-dictator Anastasio
Somoza began cracking down on insurgents led
by Sandinista Daniel Ortega.
“Now we’re facing some of the same pressures
under Ortega. It’s nowhere as open as Honduras
or El Salvador, but Nicaraguans are also fleeing.”
Gutierrez built her business by selling meals
out of her home near Vermont and 27th Street.
When she opened a restaurant on Pico Boulevard,
she named it “The 27th” in reference to her roots.
She and her husband have three children, 12
grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. “This
country has given me so much. I love America.”
Yolanda Gutierrez holds one of dozens of dolls she displays in her Pico Union restaurant.
Inaugural OxyArts exhibit
“Compass Rose” by Debra Scacco.
OxyArts on York
Occidental opens Highland Park outpost
to document a community’s transition.
York Boulevard and Armadale Avenue is
Ground Zero for the community-based arts
hub of Occidental College. Oxy Arts is housed in
a new center at 4757 York Blvd. featuring a gallery,
performance space and classrooms.
Oxy Arts is home base for NELA Stories, a project
to collect personal accounts of local history. The
project draws on the expertise of the Institute for
the Study of L.A. (ISLA), the Center for Digital and
Liberal Arts, and the Special Collections Library.
The center was also the Bob Baker Marionettes’
summer home.
www.oxy.edu/oxy-arts
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit…
Continued from page 1
book group with a stream of racist and sexually
demeaning posts.
Scores of Independence
Day rallies around
the country called on
Trump to end the ICE
raids and deportations
he continually threatens.
Speakers in Olvera Street’s La Placita drew attention
to a shameful chapter in local history with
parallels to our current political crisis.
In the 1930s, immigration agents would surround
La Placita, sweep up Latinos and load them
We can’t undo those past shameful
chapters, but we can avoid
repeating them. It’s time to say,
“Never again is now!”
onto boxcars like cattle, then “repatriate” them
to Mexico. About 2 million people were snared
in the Depression-era
dragnets, including
U.S.-born and naturalized
citizens and legal
residents.
There is still time
to stop another atrocity
from staining our national character. We can’t
undo those past shameful chapters, but we can
avoid repeating them. It’s time to say, “Never
again is now!”
ARTS & CULTURE 7
Pico Union…
Continued from page 6
“I expected digital art, not painting in public,
but I feel proud every time I pass by that box,”
he said. “And I’m a little shocked that it’s still
there.”
Public art has its challenges. Taggers have
hit all five boxes, and the original project had no
maintenance plans. Butterfield’s new proposal
includes graffiti-abatement among the jobs students
can perform for community-service hours.
Video Production students created a short
documentary about the utility box project.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_
KAzvOMVMM&feature=youtu.be