Esperanza v. City of San Antonio: Politics, Power, and Culture

Frontiers, 2003 by Kastely, Amy

The 1994 cultural diversity debate ended with the DACA director refusing to implement the 5 percent reduction.11 In the wake of this victory for "nondivisive" cultural diversity, business and city leaders sought greater control over the city's arts and cultural funding and sought to focus funding on the promotion of cultural expression that would be attractive and comfortable for "the whole city" (which many people understood as a code word meaning class-privileged Anglos) and "tourists" (which many understood as indicating Anglo and Hispanic middle-class travelers). In addition, the city eventually fired the DACA director, dissolved its status as a city department, and replaced it with a much smaller, less autonomous Office of Cultural Affairs (OCA). Recognizing its vulnerability, OCA abandoned the earlier commitment to cultural diversity in favor of a funding program based on the model of "cultural tourism" that included evaluation of an organization requesting funding based in part on its attractiveness to tourists.

During this debate, city officials identified Esperanza as a group that would challenge the ways in which city funding favored Anglo interests and discriminated against Chicano and African American communities. Esperanza could mobilize hundreds of people for public protest, letter writing campaigns, and petition signing. Esperanza was, and is, committed to cultural rights-the right to maintain and participate in one's cultural tradition and the corresponding obligation of government to protect and nurture the cultural traditions of all people. For city officials-particularly those concerned with public election-Esperanza was a troublemaker. For the next three years, city officials worked to silence the debate over cultural diversity, and defunding Esperanza was one piece of this effort. In 1995 some members of the city council argued for complete defunding, but could not muster a majority vote for more than incremental defunding.12

THE 1997 DEFUNDING: ESPERANZA WAS (AND IS) A TARGET

Esperanza was created in 1987 by a group of young Chicana women, some queer and some straight, who dreamed of a place for community-based organizers, activists, and cultural artists to meet, discuss, and act against all forms of social, political, and economic oppression. Most of the women grew up in working-class San Antonio and wanted to do progressive political work in their hometown.

For fifteen years, women of color have led, worked, and shaped Esperanza as a vital cultural arts and activist organization. Today, Esperanza is alive with women and men, old and young; Latinos/as, black Americans, Asians, Native Americans, and whites; queer and straight; working class, poor, and middle class. The organization is feminist, politically progressive, outspoken, and deeply rooted in San Antonio. Esperanza is run by a very hardworking volunteer board, a full-time paid staff of only four people, scores of volunteers, and hundreds of participants and supporters. As a community of people working for and within larger communities, we are committed to multi-issue work for social justice, and to long struggle for change in the world and in ourselves.