Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin, “Defend Los Angeles” (2025), digital illustration/photographic collage (courtesy the artist)
The USA authorities is terrorizing undocumented immigrants throughout the nation. In Los Angeles, the Nationwide Guard was deployed unlawfully inside a sanctuary metropolis, county, and state. A number of the most memorable pictures of the LA protests have museums within the background. But, by and enormous, town’s main arts organizations stay silent.
In a metropolis of over 800 museums, fewer than a dozen have publicly voiced their help for the undoc+ neighborhood, with the vast majority of establishments completely talking out in solidarity with “immigrants” and “migrants.” This alerts a systemic concern we face within the arts ecosystem. Whereas each undoc+ particular person is an immigrant, not each immigrant is undocumented. Conflating the 2 alerts the lack of understanding that arts organizations have on the topic; it is usually a transparent identifier of the dearth of undoc+ voices in positions of energy in museums and different arts organizations. In a neighborhood the place standing signaling has been a trigger for deportation traditionally, inclusive language is critical to mitigate proximity to authorized hurt. Undoc+ stands for at the moment or previously undocumented, indicating a lived expertise, not a authorized differentiation.
The phrase “undocumented” didn’t make it to the checklist of phrases to take away from grants if a company hopes to safe arts funding from the present administration. But, museums and humanities organizations refuse to make use of it. Undoc+ artists in the US have been featured within the Whitney Biennial, Made in LA, have had main retrospectives at museums nationwide, and have participated within the Venice Biennale. But museums at the moment nonetheless can’t discuss undocumentedness and presume that talking about immigration is one and the identical.
In current days, we now have discovered that Honduran, Ethiopian, Ukrainian, Dominican, Haitian, and Vietnamese folks have died in ICE custody whereas witnessing congressmen and girls denied entry to detention facilities the place undoc+ immigrants and residents alike are detained. Undocumentedness — opposite to what mainstream media would have us imagine — is just not a Mexican or Latine/x unique concern, however a difficulty with world ramifications. Undocumented can also be not the alternative of citizenship in a rustic with a number of authorized layers of safety, or lack thereof, for sure teams, residents, dacamented, exiles, refugees, and extra.
Group-focused museums are starting to affix this dialog. The Japanese American Nationwide Museum (JANM) led the way in which in issuing an announcement on the “Defense of History, Democracy, and Civil Rights” on February 11, which publicly questioned “the policy to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to carry out mass deportations without due process, a policy historically used to target marginalized communities.” The assertion was launched 4 months earlier than the Nationwide Guard and Marines arrived in Los Angeles, concentrating on marginalized communities for mass deportation with out due course of.
Right this moment, solely a handful of arts organizations have adopted in JANM’s footsteps. Plaza de la Cultura y Las Artes, the Chinese language American Museums, Grand Performances and JANM launched a joint assertion opposing the “unjust mass deportation of immigrants;” the Social and Public Artwork Useful resource Middle claimed their “unwavering solidarity with our immigrant communities;” Vincent Value Artwork Museum’s temporary communiqué solely mentions the phrase immigrant as a referential; and the Museum of Latin American Artwork’s assertion solely makes use of the phrase “immigration” to talk of enforcement. However the place are the bigger establishments? The place is LACMA, which serves your entire inhabitants of this county? Or the Getty, Broad, UCLA’s Hammer Museum, and each different arts group within the metropolis — the place are these voices on this dialog?
If museums can’t make the most of the phrase “undocumented” publicly, how are they serving the undoc+ inhabitants of LA? In a county of over a million undoc+ people, why is undocumented a nasty phrase within the arts sector? Los Angeles County is sort of 50% Latine/x, 15% Asian, and 19% Blended-race, which means that greater than half town is both undoc+ or the kid or a grandchild of an immigrant (undoc+ or not). Your entire accountability for making house to discuss undocumented considerations inside establishments mustn’t relaxation upon the shoulders of artists who stand in solidarity.
I just lately known as out museums to do higher by the undoc+ neighborhood by way of Instagram, demanding a solution from the Museum of Modern Artwork, Los Angeles (MOCA) as Barbara Kruger’s Mural at Geffen Modern grew to become the visible axis of the protests. Two days later, MOCA said its solidarity, claiming, “we stand proudly with LA.” Their temporary message centered extra on aggrandizing a mural made by a White girl than standing in solidarity with undoc+ folks, whom they failed to say. That’s as a result of so far as actuality goes, the “contributions of immigrants” for all intents and functions may simply seek advice from European visa holders. The personal responses I obtained for my authentic submit spoke of every little thing from the dearth of language inclusion in wall labels to the exclusion of undoc+ workers positions (which, for the file, may be carried out legally). Then there have been numerous excuses citing the obstacles mounted by conservative museum board members. If museums primarily serve the agendas of a handful of people, and museum workers concern voicing their solidarity, why is attendance nonetheless thought of the predominant measure of success? If museums maintain ostracizing their neighborhood, how can they count on our help?
On a constructive be aware, the LA nonprofit Self-Assist Graphics spoke out concerning the “cruel and deliberate escalation in the targeting of immigrant communities—especially Black, Brown, Indigenous, working-class, and undocumented people,” and ICA LA joined this dialog to “stand in solidarity with those peacefully protesting the unjust deportation of undocumented immigrants.” Additionally, La Plaza de la Cultura y las Artes launched a challenge to straight uplift the narratives of individuals lacking due to the actions of ICE raids in LA. These initiatives present a slight but much-needed nuance to highlighting the complexity of this concern, and supply a glimmer of hope that museums may at some point unite in genuine solidarity with undoc+ folks, like they do with different communities. All of which leaves me questioning: Might museums at some point grow to be sanctuaries for undoc+ artists?
Editor’s Observe, 6/15/2025, 5:26 EDT: This text has been modified to reply to an announcement by the Museum of Modern Artwork, Los Angeles.
