When Jimmy Lucero was young, his family kept him in line with stories of "la llorona" -- the crying woman.
"She's like the bogeyman people talk about in any culture," he said. "They used it in my family to keep us kids from roaming around."
In the stories, la llorona cried at night for her children. Angry with her husband, she had drowned the children to punish him.
"Her spirit goes around at night, looking for kids, and if she finds you, she could drown you, like her kids," he remembers his family telling him. As a child, he believed the tale.
As an adult, Lucero worries about stories that make immigrants seem like the bogeyman.
"I think the media has sensationalized a lot of the crime, and what's going on in the Hispanic community," he said.
Symbolic paintings of la llorona, and paintings about immigration, are among the images Lucero plans to show at Bountiful/Davis Art Center's Summerfest Exhibit, opening with a reception at 7 p.m. next Friday.
Immigrant background
Lucero, of Salt Lake City, was born and raised in Santa Barbara, Calif. He's the son of working-class parents who were children of immigrants.
"When I was growing up, there was no sense of discrimination at the time. It wasn't a key issue like now. I dated women, or girls, at the time from very affluent communities, and then I also had other friends in the neighborhood I grew up in. It was a blue-collar neighborhood where everybody dated each other, liked each other, and got along," he said. "What I'm facing now, this issue is about social-economic level, as well as an issue of race. It's very evident there's a lot of hate going on."
Lucero says he wishes people would take a step back, take a deep breath, and realize that the U.S. is not a bad place, and that other people are trying to realize the American dream, too.
That's one of the reason's Lucero was invited to show his work in the Summerfest exhibit.
"I think it's beneficial to the community to be able to have access to all sides of an issue, and the arts often can communicate in ways that words, especially angry words, cannot accomplish," said Emma Dugal, executive director of the Bountiful/Davis Art Center. "It'll give people a chance to maybe see things from a different perspective, and it may evoke some angry feelings with some people, but I still stand firm that it's good to be exposed to a different point of view."
Lucero teaches art at the University of Utah and at Westminster College. He also works with youth, teaching free drawing lessons through the Mestizo Institute of Culture and Arts in Salt Lake City, and helping teens create public art projects. A current project is a mosaic decorating an underpass in Salt Lake City, with images honoring pillars of the community.
"Jimmy is classically trained in art, so you see the influence of a lot of great painters, like Titian, in his work," said Dugal. "He has a way of juxtapositioning the classic art with a contemporary flair, or a contemporary message."
Lots of symbolism
Many of Lucero's paintings are focused on immigration.
"There's a lot of reference toward my family, when they came to the U.S., and the trials and tribulations they had to go through, being introduced to the environment of an industrialized nation and them having to acquire skills in order to keep up with their new life," Lucero said.
Some of these paintings show the cards the artist and family members were dealt, with game cards representing different points in their lives.
Other symbols in Lucero's paintings include walls representing borders, belts and pulleys to represent the U.S. as an industrialized nation, green for money and the idea that the grass always seems greener on the other side. The Statue of Liberty is also incorporated into paintings.
"In one painting, her arms are up in the air, because she's overwhelmed with so many immigrants coming into the country," said Lucero. "An eagle with a serpent, representing the Mexican flag, is landing on her arm, and more are coming in. ... She either welcomes or is denying their entry."
Seeking open minds
Lucero says he hopes people will have an open mind when they view his art.
After all, almost everyone in the U.S. comes from a family that immigrated at some time, he said.
Building walls isn't going to solve the immigration problem: "We live next to a Third World country ... of course people are going to immigrate -- if you think they're not, you're living with a blindfold on," he said.
"The last thing people want is to leave their family and move to the U.S. ... It's heartbreaking to move away to make money and send it back, and they're taking a huge risk coming here with coyotes."
They take the risk, he says, to support their families, since their own communities don't offer decent jobs and wages.
"Immigrants all want a better life than they had for themselves, for their kids," he said. "Unfortunately, their country doesn't allow success like America."
PREVIEW
- WHAT: Summerfest exhibit
- WHEN: Opens with a reception 7 p.m. July 30; continues 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 2-5 p.m. Saturdays, through Sept. 3
- WHERE: Bountiful/Davis Art Center, 745 S. Main St., Bountiful
- ADMISSION: Free; 801-292-0367
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