Esperanza Peace & Justice Center

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Index of information about Esperanza's Funding Cut

Esperanza's agenda seen as the root of its defunding
San Antonio Express-News
Sunday, November 16, 1997

by Elda Silva

When City Council voted to reduce arts funding in September as part of a "back to basics" budget, grants to most arts agencies were cut by 15 percent -- with one notable exception.

The Esperanza Center, whose sponsorship of a gay and lesbian film festival provoked criticism, lost all $62,500 of its city funding -- 16 percent of the center's budget -- sparking a controversy that garnered national attention.

Two months later, the organization that promotes social and political change has had to cancel some events and scale down others. But its director and its board are unshaken in their commitment to the organization, in spite of the fact they have yet to receive an official explanation for the defunding , says executive director Graciela Sanchez.

"Each day it's a different excuse," Sanchez says. "Before we got defunded it was because we were 'in-your-face', we were 'flaunting' it. After we got defunded, according to (Councilman Robert) Marbut, it was because we didn't bring in tourists."

In an article in the New York Times, Mayor Howard Peak described Esperanza as an "in-your-face organization" that goes "way beyond what people want their money spent on."

Members of Esperanza believe council members bowed to pressure from social conservatives and right-wing religious groups including the Christian Pro-Life Foundation, a group that mailed out "Family Alert" fliers urging supporters to call council members and speak out against funding the Esperanza.

Some critics of the organization say, however, the source of Esperanza's funding troubles is not in its gay and lesbian programming, but in its social agenda.

"I think one of the problem Esperanza has is the fact that they are not an arts agency," Peak says. "They get involved in other kinds of activities and what we were funding through our arts programs were arts agencies and not other kinds of activities."

This year, the Esperanza Center celebrated its 10th anniversary. Sanchez was one of the founders of the organization, which started on a shoe-string budget as an advocate for women, youth, people-of-color, gays and lesbians and other disenfranchised groups.

Though the organization has grown over the years, Sanchez says, the basic vision for the organization has remained the same.

"The idea was for communities interested in social, economic, cultural and environmental justice to find a home and to share resources, to promote an agenda which on a very simple level worked toward social change," she says. "On a more complex level, it's about revolution. It's looking at the root causes of the oppressions that we find ourselves in."

The center's vision has drawn supporters including author Sandra Cisneros, who describes Esperanza as "cutting edge," and historian Antonia Castaneda.

"It has been a venue, a place where people who have been historically marginalized have been able to come together and engage with each other and to engage with the larger society, and it is a place where one can go see art and hear music and performances that one does not normally see," Castaneda says.

Along with visual art exhibits, the center's cultural programming include Mujercanto, a festival showcasing female artist; The Other America Film Festival, an annual film and video festival and the MujerArtes cooperative art studio for women living in San Antonio's low-income communities. A video arts program for youth had to be canceled due to funding cuts.

But Otis Parchman, a member of the city's Cultural Arts Board, says for many Esperanza isn't "enough of an arts organization."

"I think they're as much a lifestyle and political (organization) as much as anything else," Parchman says. "That doesn't bother me, what they really are. It's just whether they qualify for arts funding. There's other organizations that aren't full-time arts organizations either and that probably needs a little looking into."

Doris Miller, a former Cultural Arts Board member, has similar reservations.

"As I understood their grant applications, the Esperanza used the arts as a tool to achieve their goals of a better society not to better the arts," Miller says. "I'm not against what they do. I think they are trying to do some things that are worthwhile, but I think that their ultimate goal is not the arts. It's social betterment. Arts funding should go to organizations which use teaching, exhibitions, performances, etc. to further understanding of and excellence in the arts."

Rob Blanchard, a gay-rights activist openly critical of Esperanza, applauds the center's defunding.

"Different people come at this from different angles, but I don't think a political organization should be funded with taxpayer's money," says Blanchard, a professor of communication at Trinity University.

Esperanza staff member Jennifer Simmons is mystified by those who say Esperanza is not an arts organization.

"I don't really know what it means, 'You are not an arts organization.' We have a gallery. We have a theater. I've worked as a professional artist. Graciela has gone to film school. Where is the not-an-arts-organization?" Simmons says.

"We're one of the few organizations that are bringing in artists who can reflect those images of ourselves as women, as poor people, as disenfranchised people," Sanchez says. "That reflection has to take into consideration the real, the whole self, not just part of the self, and so that means we have to talk about social issues that people say we can't talk about because that makes us a political organization.

"I would claim that anybody -- people of color, or women, or the disenfranchised -- whatever they create is going to be political if they're doing it for community."

Pedro Rodriguez, executive director of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, says Esperanza is no more political than any other arts organization in town.

"They are basically a cultural organization, and most of what they do is culturally directed, that is artistic and cultural, and the fact that their work is sometimes political doesn't make it any less cultural," says Rodriguez who would like to see city funds to Esperanza restored.

In the wake of losing city funding, the Esperanza has had to cancel some programs and scale down others. But Sanchez says there is no question the center will survive.

"We have to" she says. "Each day many more people continue to come to our space, to raise money, to send money in. People I don't even know just keep coming up with ideas, so they've all been hurt, they're all very angry and they're all going to help keep this organization alive."

What do you think? E-mail us at esperanza@esperanzacenter.org.