The Press Democrat: How Sonoma State turned the fall of farm labor icon Cesar Chavez into a teaching moment
The Press Democrat newspaper on September 18 profiled the process behind Sonoma State’s reimagining of the farmworkers’ mural on the second floor of Schulz Library. Reporter Austin Murphy, after first providing context to last spring’s troubling revelations about farm labor leader Cesar Chavez, wrote about how SSU is meeting the moment in its approach to the mural.
“Few institutions, if any, have navigated those challenges as deftly or with the creativity and open-mindedness of Sonoma State University, whose campus library featured a Chavez-themed mural titled, ‘Tiene la lumbre por dentro/He has the fire within.’
“Created by the Oakland-based artist Johanna Poethig, that eight-feet-by-24-feet installation is a work of wood relief: stained, painted, carved, drawn on with a wood burning tool, and featuring half a dozen figures. Two of those are Chavez.
“Rather than reflexively removing that suddenly problematic piece, SSU officials covered it with brown butcher paper, then took a beat.
“‘We wanted to have a moment to think,” recalled interim provost Stacey Bosick, who has taken the lead in shaping the university’s response to its Chavez conundrum.
“‘In a political climate where we’re all about cancellation and erasure, how do we do this right? How do we turn this into a teaching moment?’”
Read the article in its entirety here.