Martínez, Renée M.

English

San Jose State University

Learning A New Way: Non-Violent Conflict Resolution and Community-Based Art Projects

SJSU ScholarWorks

San Jose State UniversitySJSU ScholarWorksNational Association for Chicana and ChicanoStudies Annual Conference2001: 28th Annual: Beginning a New Millennium -Tucson, AZApr 1st, 8:00 AMLearning A New Way: Non-Violent ConflictResolution and Community-Based Art ProjectsRenée M. MartínezFollow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/naccsThis Event is brought to you for free and open access by the Conferences at SJSU ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in NationalAssociation for Chicana and Chicano Studies Annual Conference by an authorized administrator of SJSU ScholarWorks. For more information, pleasecontact scholarworks@sjsu.edu.Renée M. Martínez, "Learning A New Way: Non-Violent Conflict Resolution and Community-Based Art Projects" (April 1, 2001).National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Annual Conference. Paper 8.http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/naccs/2001/Proceedings/8As I contemplated giving this presentation, I was reminded of what tenyears ago would have been my own healthy skepticism regarding thetopic of teaching non-violent conflict resolution through community-based art projects.  Before becoming an artist, the activist, policyanalyst and educator in me might have questioned the wisdom ofdirecting human and other resources toward art — and to do so withsuch lofty goals as helping achieve peace.  Yet these days, especially asan artist, and I am guessing others in this room might concur, I believein and know the incredible power of art, and base this on what perhapsonly could be called “the authority of the Soul.”Activist, academician and artist Audre Lorde eloquently voices suchconviction in her essay, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury,” where she imploresBlack women to use this art form as the “revelatory distillation ofexperience.” (Lorde, p.37) Lorde asserts that poetry (or more broadly,art), “…is a vital necessity of our existence.  It forms the quality of theC H A P T E RS I X77Renée M. MartínezL e a r n i ng  A  N e w  Wa y :  N o n - Vi ol e n t  C o nf l i c t  R e s ol u t i o n  a n dC o m m u n i t y - B a s e d A r t  P ro j e c t slight within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survivaland change, first made into language, then into idea, then into moretangible action.  Poetry is the way we help give name to the namelessso it can be thought.  The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears arecobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experience of our dailylives.” (Lorde, p. 37)Lorde argues that this art provides not only the language to dream ofchange and revolution, but also the language to demand and implementthem.  And yet in this persuasive essay she also acknowledges that ourchildren cannot survive on our dreams alone.  Lorde reminds us thatthe children shout out, “If you want us to change the world someday,we at least have to live long enough to grow up!” (Lorde, p.38). For me, this imperative brings us to the issue of the violence faced byour youth.  According the Children’s Defense fund and the U.S.Department of Health and Human Services, in 1995 in the U.S. a childdied from gunshot wounds every 2 hours, and 3 million children eachyear were reported abused or neglected.  “In 1993, over one-third ofmale high school youth, and nearly 1 in 10 female students, reportedthat they had carried a weapon at least once during the previous 30days.  One in 7 male high school students reported carrying a gunwithin the prior month.” (Weitz, /chapter 1.html).Violence is just one of many serious challenges and life conditionsfacing our young people.  Referred to in the psychological and socialpolicy literature as stress or risk factors, others include poverty, racism,discrimination, and unemployment.  I focus on violence because itdeeply permeates our children’s lives, and also because the stakes arevery high.  Society is just recently beginning to see this crisis ofviolence, especially as it impacts our children.  For the past decade, oneimportant voice of leadership in this arena has come from Dr. DeborahProthrow-Stith, M.D., Assistant Dean for Government and CommunityPrograms at the Harvard School of Public Health, and author of DeadlyConsequences: How Violence Is Destroying Our Teenage Populationand a Plan To Begin Solving the Problem.78She advocates a public health analysis of youth violence, and strategiesthat develop alternative and proactive intervention.  Prothrow-Stithsees a need for more primary responses, such as prevention andeducation, and also secondary responses such as early intervention andbehavior modification.  These contrast with common societal tertiaryresponses, which for the most part are reactive and involve the criminaljustice system, often emphasizing punishment and retribution.  Shepoints out that our society’s de facto response to youth violence wouldbe comparable to dealing with the public health issue of smoking-related lung cancer solely by surgically removing tumors in advancedcancer patients (a tertiary response with questionable success rates),rather than trying to prevent people from becoming smokers (a primaryresponse), or helping them quit smoking (a secondary response).Prothrow-Stith and others argue for strategies that help cultivate aculture of non-violent alternatives for our children, and do so especiallyfor those most at risk—young Men of Color living in poverty.In the midst of our society’s almost exclusive reliance on the criminaljustice system to punitively address the issue of youth violence, moreand more people, from a variety of perspectives, are advocatingalternatives to such current limited strategies.  For many of us, thisrecent trend is a welcome and long overdue change.  Because for us,not only has it often felt as if an entire generation has been written offand vilified as so-called “super predators,” but it seems a war has beenwaged against our youth.  We know this even without horror stories ofattempted summary executions of Latino youth by the Los AngelesPolice Department.  Given the epidemic proportions of violence among youth, more andmore individuals, communities, organizations and policy makers areanxious to find solutions to the crisis.  Fortunately, the discussions arebecoming more sophisticated in understanding the roots of risk,accounting for larger social contextual issues and the synergisticrelationship of stress factors which shape our young people’s adolescentdevelopment.  The psychological literature is often cited for successfulexamples of “resiliency” or children’s ability to survive adversity. As79the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development notes, communitycommitment is fundamental to any efforts for helping youth survive:  They must have sustained, caring relationships withadults; receive guidance in facing serious challenges;become a valued member of a constructive peergroup; feel a sense of worth as a person; becomesocially competent; know how to use the supportsystems available to them; achieve a reliable basisfor making informed choices; find constructiveexpression of the curiosity and exploration thatstrongly characterizes their ages; believe in apromising future with real opportunities; and findways of being useful to others.(Weitz, /chapter 1-1.html).Increasingly, community-based art programs are becoming popularalternatives to helping provide our young people with creative non-violent spaces and activities.  For many youngsters whose lives aretouched by and at times engulfed in violence and destruction, suchprograms have the potential to provide avenues for creativity, self-expression, and non-violence.  In doing so these programs can perhapshelp make room for our children’s energies and self-definition to be part ofa constructive process, empowering them to voice their hopes and dreams.The vital importance of art, and the value of teaching it to our childrenis not a new concept in Chicano communities.  The transformative andeducational properties of art are deeply embedded in the ChicanoMovement and Chicano culture.  Whether in the work of TeatroCampesino, or such art organizations as Los Angeles’ Self HelpGraphics (modeled in part after México City’s socialist TallerTopografica Popular), or Chicano muralism, community-based art ispart of our collective history and identity.  What is now new, is thebroad array of voices converging around a call for using art to addressthe many issues confronting our nation’s youth.In what might best be described as a classic situation of “politics makesstrange bedfellows,” interesting and previously unexpected partnerships80have popped up across the country.  From this we find a national trend,supported on local and state levels, advocating the development andfunding of youth art programs.  While each voice has it’s own agenda,priorities and point of origin, the current common thread is artadvocacy.  From one corner we hear the community-based organizationswho have and continue to offer successful art programs that usuallyprovide ethnic/racial identity affirmation, coping skills development,personal empowerment and social service components.  Add to this,voices outside but supportive of the community, which might becharacterized as social planning in the settlement house tradition ofusing arts education as part of an individual’s personal and socialdevelopment; here too are voices of allies for equity in access to arts.There also are voices, generally philanthropic, which long ago broughtthis country our public libraries, parks and schools, with the intent ofexposing the masses  to “Culture” (with a capital “C”), and come froma well-intentioned but essentially ethnocentric and assimilationistmissionary position.  The newer voices in this discussion are those of federal and localjuvenile justice systems — perhaps for good and caring intentions,maybe out of desperation, or simply a realistic cost benefit analysis(where it is argued that an art program can have a per participantannual cost of $850, versus a youth detention “boot camp” program with a $28,000 annual price tag per person).  Federal, state and localpoliticians have joined the mix, generally seeing art programs as possiblesolutions to what they often define as the problems of youthdelinquency — which can include everything from gangs, drugs,violence and property crime.  Concurrent with such arts programadvocacy, and not entirely separate, are the increasing efforts in schoolsand communities toward teaching non-violent conflict resolution, angermanagement, empathy, tolerance, multicultural and diversity education,as well as other innovative endeavors, such as restorative justice efforts.Like any coalition building, the most successful relationships are basedupon knowing what each partner brings to the undertaking, and beingvery clear about what they can or can’t be relied upon to do.  In many81instances we and our community-based organizations are ahead of thetrend, and bring well-honed experience and expertise.  Our perspectivesare essential, if only to help inform and balance those of partners whomay be from outside our culture or communities, or those who may notshare the profoundly personal commitment we have to our children.  As the interest and funding for youth arts programs expands, communityinvolvement must be part of project design and implementation.A pivotal moment in the movement focusing attention on youth artprograms came in 1994 when the President’s Committee on the Artsand Humanities was appointed and charged to “offer ideas about howwe can provide children with safe havens to develop and explore theirown creative and intellectual potentials.”  (Weitz, /introduction-1.html).The Committee issued the landmark report, Coming Up Taller:  Arts and Humanities Programs for Children and Youth At Risk.  It convincingly documents the transformative power of the arts inimproving children’s learning, and their social, academic and emotionaldevelopment.  (Weitz, /introduction-1.html, /introduction-2.html). Ashonorary Committee chair Hillary Rodham Clinton notes, “We knowthat the arts have the potential for obliterating the limits that are toooften imposed on our lives.  We know that they can take anyone, butparticularly a child, and transport that child beyond the limits thatcircumstance has prescribed.” (Weitz, /introduction-1.html)  Coming Up Taller discusses the need for technical assistance, financialsupport, and community links to public agencies. (Weitz, /chapter 5.html).The Committee also called for better assessment and evaluation ofprograms.  In addition to conducting an in depth study of nine programs,they complied a list of over two hundred successful community-based artprograms across the nation. (Weitz, /appendix.html)This report spawned many efforts including the annual Coming UpTaller Awards (co-sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts),which recognize successful programs. (Coming Up Taller, /awards.html).So too, it helped inspire many related arts efforts, influencing thegrowth of Americans for the Arts which helps provide resources, 82public policy development, and serves as an information clearing house.  One of the primary focal points of this consortium is promoting the artsto “rescue youth and deter crime.”  (Americans for the Arts, /education/youth.html). They also helped develop the Institute for CommunityDevelopment and the Arts, which promotes local public and privatefunding for the arts.  The Institute represents a partnership of cities,counties, state legislatures, the NEA, President’s Committee on theArts and Humanities and the Bravo Film and Arts Network.  (Americans for the Arts, /education/youth.html).Another important NEA partnership that followed the directive of theComing Up Taller proposal, was an effort to quantifiably document thesuccess of youth arts programs.  In spring of 1999, National Endowmentfor the Arts chair Bill Ivey gave testimony before the U.S. House ofRepresentatives.  He referred to the YouthARTS Art Program for atYouth At Risk, a research effort co-funded by the NEA, Department ofJustice, Americans for Arts, and local arts councils in the cities of SanAntonio, Portland (OR), and Atlanta.  Citing preliminary data, henoted the impressive improvement in participants’ communicationskills, ability to complete tasks, attitudes, self-esteem, school interest,resistance to negative peer pressure, and having fewer court referrals.He also announced the production of a multimedia tool kit to providecommunities with information on art programs for at-risk youth.(National Endowment of the Arts, a.). These research results and the toolkit can be helpful in building new partnerships and identifyingpotential funding sources.While violence prevention and non-conflict resolution may not be the explicit or central focus of most youth arts programs, all programsgenerally involve some component of team building or developinggroup communication skills.  This may be done out of necessity —simply to manage group dynamics, or to facilitate working on a groupproduct — or as a specific learning goal.However in 1997, the NEA initiated an innovative program called thePartnership for Conflict Resolution Education in the Arts.  Co-sponsored83with the Department of Juvenile Justice, it is part of a nationaleducation and training effort to advance the principle of conflictresolution, and the development of conflict education programs in youthinitiatives.  The partnership “seeks to benefit youth and their families by providing community arts programs that integrate conflict resolutionprinciples in a personal, accountable, holistic and coordinated manner.”(NEA, c.). They contracted the National Center for Conflict ResolutionEducation to provide two-day workshops for arts-based youth programs.Program staff and artists, and representatives from collaboratingcommunity organizations participate in workshops.  Thus far they haveworked with roughly twenty programs nationwide. I very much hopethat this type of training will become increasingly accessible to youtharts organizations. We have hundreds of incredibly vital and successful community-basedart programs currently serving our youth.  I believe their work can onlybe enhanced by integrating non-violent conflict resolution into theirexisting efforts. And as new programs are initiated, I hope that thisemphasis becomes an integral part of how we teach our children.  In “Poetry is Not a Luxury,” Audre Lorde remindsus that:…it is our dreams that point the way to freedom.Those dreams are made realizable through ourpoems that give us the strength and courage to see,to feel, to speak, and to dare.If what we need to dream, to move our spirits mostdeeply and directly toward and through promise isdiscounted as a luxury, then we give up the core—the foundation—of our power…we give up thefuture of our worlds. (Lorde, p.39)  Our young people are our most precious resource—the degree of risk they face in their lives is not exaggerated, and should never beunderestimated.  We must provide safe and supportive places for our84children to explore and grow into themselves, into their future selves.Providing opportunities for creativity and art may be one of our besthopes to offer our children safe passage to their future.R e f e r e n c e sLorde, Audre.  “Poetry is Not a Luxury” in Sister Outsider:  Essays and Speeches by AudreLorde, Freedom, CA:  The Crossing Press Feminist Series, 1984. Americans for the Arts, Web Site.  http://www.artsusa.org/education/youth.htmlCarnegie Council on Adolescent Development, Great Transitions: Preparing Adolescentsfor a New Century, Carnegie Corporation of New York, New York, NY, 1995.  Quoted inComing Up Taller:  Arts and Humanities Programs for Children and Youth At Risk.President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities by Judith Humpherys Weitz Children’s Defense Fund, The State of America’s Children, Yearbook 1994, Children’sDefense Fund, Washington, D.C., 1994.  Quoted in Coming Up Taller:  Arts andHumanities Programs for Children and Youth At Risk. President’s Committee on the Artsand the Humanities by Judith Humpherys WeitzComing Up Taller, Web Site http://www.cominguptaller.org/awards.htmlNational Endowment of the Arts, a. Web Site, “Testimony of Bill Ivey, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Before the Subcommittee of the Interior,U.S. House of Representatives. April 28, 1999   http://www.arts.endow.gov/endownews/news99/fyi00testimony.html National Endowment of the Arts, b. Web Site, “NEA Partnerships: Partnership for ConflictResolution Education in the Arts”  http://www.arts.endow.gov/partner/Conflict.html.National Endowment of the Arts, c. Web Site, “NEA Partnerships:  Creative Partnerships for Prevention: Using the Arts and Humanities to Build Resiliency in Youth”http://www.arts.endow.gov/partner/Creative.htmlProthrow-Stith Deborah with Weissman M.  Deadly Consequences: How violence isdestroying our teenage population and a plan to begin solving the problem.New York: HarperCollins, July, 1991. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary forPlanning and Evaluation, “Trends in the Well-Being of America’s Children and Youth:1995,”  Washington, D.C. 1995.  Quoted in Coming Up Taller:  Arts and HumanitiesPrograms for Children and Youth At Risk.  President’s Committee on the Arts and theHumanities by Judith Humpherys WeitzWeitz, Judith Humpherys.  Coming Up Taller:  Arts and Humanities Programs for Children and Youth At Risk.  President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.  Washington, D.C. April 1996.  http://www.cominguptaller.org /report* Links in resources page may no longer be active. 85

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Learning A New Way: Non-Violent Conflict Resolution and Community-Based Art Projects

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