Oral history interview with Richard Lou, 2023 December 28-2024 March 19

Transcript

Preface

The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Richard Lou on 2023 December 28 – 2024 March 23. The interview took place over Zoom in the narrator’s office at the University of Memphis in Memphis, TN and was conducted by Laura Augusta, for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Richard Lou and Laura Augusta have reviewed the transcript. Their corrections and emendations appear below in brackets with initials. This transcript has been lightly edited for readability by the Archives of American Art. The reader should bear in mind that they are reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose.

Interview

[00:00:02.77] LAURA AUGUSTA:  All right, hi. Good afternoon, Richard. 

[00:00:05.65] RICHARD LOU:  Hey, Laura, how are you? 

[00:00:07.47] LAURA AUGUSTA:  I'm good. It's so good to see you. 

[00:00:09.75] RICHARD LOU:  Igual, igual. 

[00:00:11.80] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Yeah. It is—today is December 28, 2023. This is our first of what I hope to be several recordings. Um. And I am sitting here in my office in El Paso, Texas. Where are you? 

[00:00:26.11] RICHARD LOU:  I'm sitting in my office at the University of Memphis in Tennessee. 

[00:00:31.03] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Thank you. So I thought we should start at the beginning, um, whatever that means. [Richard Lou laughs.] And I've been reading through the materials you sent me and spending time with your CV and various articles. Um. I realized I don't know exactly where you were born. So let's start there. 

[00:00:50.11] RICHARD LOU:  Okay. I was born in San Diego at Sharp Memorial Hospital, which is still standing. And, um—and actually, when I was at Mesa College, uh, teaching, Sharp Memorial Hospital was just like four blocks away, which was really weird. 

[00:01:12.07] But I was born in San Diego, and—but I grew up in Tijuana until I was around eight or nine, something like that. And, um, my father is a paper son from China. And—and my mother is from a small colonial mining town in eastern Sinaloa called Pánuco. And it's an ancient town. Um. I think it was 1500s it was founded by the Spaniards. And, um—and so then she migrated up to Tijuana when she was 14 or so, by herself. And my mom and dad met in Tijuana. And my father was in—in San Diego because he was discharged from the US Marine Corps during—after World War II. 

[00:02:11.89] As I mentioned before, my father was a paper son and so he traveled back and forth between Coahoma, Mississippi—so he was part of the Delta Chinese, and—and traveled back and forth between Coahoma, Mississippi, and his small village in China in the Hoiping (Kaiping) district, what used to be called Canton Province imperial—back in the imperial times. 

[00:02:39.71] And, um—and so the reason that he would travel back and forth is because of the Jim Crow laws that wouldn't allow Chinese to go to public schools in Mississippi, whether it was the Black schools—the segregated Black schools, or the segregated white schools. And so Chinese families would either cobble money together to start their own small school amongst other families and hire a teacher to teach their kids, or they would become Catholics. They'd send them to parochial school, if possible, or they would send their kids back to China. 

[00:03:19.44] And so my father was sent back to China to be educated, by and large. And my mom only went to the second grade. Only finished the second grade. And so, you know, they were brought together by poverty and, um, imp—imperial notions of the United States and the Chinese Exclusion Act. And—and so there was all these larger forces at play that brought my parents together, as well as personal circumstances. 

[00:03:55.35] And so actually I have a older sister that died at nine months, Delia—no, not Delia. Delia is my aunt. Um. And then I have an older sister, Linda, myself, Mina, and then Francisco. But my father was married twice before, and so—he was married in China as a young man. And so I had an older brother named Robert, who he and I were incredibly, incredibly close. But he died quite a few years ago now. 

[00:04:32.07] And then I had two other brothers, Dennis and David, who—we were estranged from them, from personal circumstances between my father's second wife and himself. But I have a wonderful niece, Jessica, from, um—from my brother Dennis, who I've gotten to know more and more. And then I have other nieces from my brother Robert: Debbie, Michelle, and Michael. And then my sister Linda has a daughter, Michelle. And my other sister has a—has a daughter, Skye, and a son named Blake. And then there's my four kids, Gloria, Maricela, Magda, and Ming. 

[00:05:28.90] So I grew up in Tijuana. And my dad was a—you know, there was a lot of things going on. When I was a small boy, my parents actually started a business. My dad had lots of small, little businesses when he got out of the service. And—and you know—and when you hear your parents' stories—and we had a lot of opportunity to sit down and talk, mainly because we had a swap meet business for over 20-some years. And, you know, when you have a family-run business, a small family-run business, a mom-and-pop thing, you spend a lot of time with your parents [laughs], you know, selling stuff or setting up or traveling to buy merchandise. And so it was a really enriching time 'cause I got to learn a lot of their stories, you know. We'd be sitting in the car, and I'd like, So, Dad, what happened then? And what happened then? And what happened then? And then I had parents that were really wonderful storytellers. 

And so my father, when he got out of the service—and he was in beyond, um, uh, the war because he was part of the occupational force in China, because he spoke Japanese as well as Mandarin and Cantonese and English. And so they found him very useful. In actuality, he used to teach Japanese to Navy and Marine Corps officers during the war and actually wrote a book, which I now proudly have. I found after decades of looking. 

[00:07:11.96] But, anyways, so after—after the war, my dad had all these small businesses and, um—and then met my mom in Tijuana. And then they got together and started having children. And then they put a business together, which was a grocery store called El Ranchero. 

[00:07:35.29] And, um—and so during that time, I was maybe four—three or four or something like that. And I remember going to the grocery store and et cetera. But then my father, who started the business with a partner who was another ethnic Chinese man but was a Mexican citizen became greedy and called the Mexican immigration office on my father [laughs], because my father was a US citizen owning a business in Mexico. And so my father was deported back to the United States and lost the business. So then, after that, um, my mom, you know, was trying to figure out what to do, and my dad as well. And so they ended up in Yuma, Arizona, because we had a cousin, Richard Loo, L-O-O. And he had two grocery stores in Yuma, Arizona. 

[00:08:46.39] And Richard Loo was kind of a very astute businessman and partnered with my father to run a Chinese restaurant called Chinese Village. And, um—and it was a very popular restaurant, a very large restaurant. And, um, you know, my mom and I would—my sister—my older sister moved with my father to Yuma. And my mom and I stayed behind in Tijuana. But we would travel back and forth between Tijuana and Yuma, Arizona, traveling through this really treacherous road called La Rumorosa, which is a mountain—a mountain town, actually. But then the side of the mountain is incredibly treacherous. But anyways, we would drive back and forth. 

[00:09:42.16] And my father had this amazing restaurant. And he had his own TV show, believe it or not. Imagine this Chinese guy, you know, in the early '60s in Yuma, Arizona, with his own TV show, where he would introduce movies and—you know, sponsored by his restaurant. And so my sister would sit alongside him, and sometimes I would sit alongside him on the—on the television set and—and promote his restaurant and promote his—promote the movies. 

[00:10:23.60] And so the business was like really—his business acumen was like really amazing because part of the—he had a really kind of theatrical flair, my father. He—they bought two rickshaws from Hong Kong. And so if you were to go to his restaurant, park in his parking lot, a rickshaw would pick you up from your car. And then they would haul you over to the front door of the restaurant. And then you would, you know, get off of the rickshaw, et cetera. 

[00:10:59.30] And there's actual photographs of my mother and my sister Linda on the rickshaw in a parade in Yuma, Arizona. I don't know if it was, you know, 4th of July or whatever. I can't imagine being in a parade in 4th of July in Yuma, Arizona, though, so it might not have been 4th of July. It might have been New Year's or something like that. 

[00:11:21.71] But anyways, um, the restaurant had a banquet hall and a—a bar. And they had live music and all sorts of things. And so, um—so then my sister went to school in Yuma. And I wasn't of school age yet. And the lease ran out on the restaurant. And, um—and so my father decided to just no longer pursue a business. He had had his fill of running businesses. 

[00:11:54.74] And then he came back to San Diego and became a butcher at Mayfair Market. And so while he was a butcher at Mayfair Market, now we're living back in Tijuana all together again. And now Linda and I are going to school at Harborside Elementary School in Chula Vista. And so that's when I have vivid memories of my father driving us to school and crossing the border every day. And I think that became a very formative—ideologically, a very formative and psychologically a very formative point for me because I was constantly—my identity was constantly questioned. And my, uh, position in regards to my relationship with the United States was always interrogated and tenuous. And, uh—and so that became—that sort of question became very, very, as I mentioned, formative. 

[00:12:57.47] And then also because I was biracial, you know, being half Chinese and half Mexican. And became—you know, so there was another layer of this sort of—trying to constitute some kind of identity for me, even though, you know, when you grow up, you just feel like a normal person [laughs]. But it wasn't until you go and visit your friends, and then they're eating stuff you see on TV, and you're eating, at home, this fusion food, like chorizo with steamed rice [laughs], you know. 

[00:13:35.87] So anyways, my sister and I go to Harborside Elementary School. And so my father would take us early in the morning and drop us off. And, um—and then after school, they would drop the—we would take the bus to my cousin's house, the Homs. And so we would wait for my godfather, who was our neighbor in Tijuana, to get off of Rohr Industries. He worked for the defense contractor. Jorge. 

[00:14:08.95] And he would pick us up and then—'cause my father, you know, was still at work. And he would pick us up 'cause he would get out early, and then he would drive us back to Tijuana. And then we would always go to El Panteón Jardín, which is the cemetery close to our house. And we would—Linda and I would sit in the car while my godfather would go and visit the grave of his son that died as an infant. 

[00:14:40.67] And so that was part of our routine, you know. Cross the border. Our identity'd be questioned every day. Go to school. Wait at our cousin's house. You get picked up by my godfather, who was our neighbor, go to the cemetery and watch him reminisce and pray at the graveside of his son, and then go home. 

[00:15:07.74] And so, um, growing up in Tijuana, you know, my first language was Spanish. And, um, we would play baseball all the time, and we would play baseball in the streets. And my best friend, Chuy Ramirez, at that time, his father was a taxi mechanic. And so we would play all the time. And his house—our backyard connected to his backyard. So I would jump the cinderblock wall and then go to his house. And his backyard was filled with cars 'cause his father was a taxi mechanic. And so there would be, like, all these beautiful cars. 

[00:15:56.01] And there would be a dozen cars in their yard, you know, in their backyard. And there would be tarps, and the hoods would be open waiting for Don Amador to fix them. And in the front yard, there would be five or six more cars. And it was—I thought it was lovely growing up amongst all of that. 

[00:16:20.49] And Don Amador would say, Ricardo, Chuy, go get some—all this in Spanish—go get some gasoline. And they would—he would hand us a garden hose that was cut in three-foot lengths and a plastic milk jug. And we'd be there sucking gas out of cars and bringing the jug of gas back to him so he could pour a little bit in the carburetor to prime the car and get it running. 

[00:16:51.03] And then the other thing that I really enjoyed with Chuy and Don Amador—and he had an older sister named Carmela—is that we would have these games where we would—say, for example, Don Amador was always testing the cars after he fixed them. So we would go on these rides in all these different cars. And Don Amador—and Chuy and I would be in the back seat kind of peering over, right, the bench seat of the front. And he would—we would drive by. And on our drive, he would say—he would have a competition to see who could identify cars. And of course, this is the early '60s, and so there were a lot less cars. And mostly the cars were American cars. 

[00:17:40.26] And it was so much fun to be able to identify cars just by looking at the stoplights, the back end of the fenders, the curvature of the trunk, the styling of the bumper. And that was so much fun. And it gave me a long—lifelong love of cars and—even though I don't—so I just look at old cars and kind of fantasize about them. 

[00:18:11.86] But anyways. And one of the games that we used to play in those cars was—and, you know, remember, this is Southern California, Northern Mexico, northern western Mexico—we would play, who would sweat first. [Laughs.] So we would get in these cars that are parked out in front of Chuy's house. And, say, me—me and another kid would get in the car and sit as still as possible. And then all our friends would be peering in through the windows. And whoever sweated first would lose, and whoever sweated last would win. And so, oddly enough, I had a really great talent for not sweating [laughs] immediately. And I was never able to cash in on that talent. But, um—but those are the sorts of games we would play—baseball, see who would sweat first, or how to throw rocks. 

[00:19:16.70] So we would go to the cañones, you know, and, um, put rocks in our pockets and make slings. And we would be out there for hours, uh, using a sling to throw rocks. And whenever we would go, you know, walk around the different neighborhoods, we'd always would make sure we had rocks in our pocket to make sure that we could defend ourselves against other [laughs]—other neighborhood kids. So. 

[00:19:44.60] But, you know, growing up in Tijuana was a really kind of magical place. But at the same time, it was kind of—it was sort of fraught with some conflicts because we were biracial. And so there was this one neighbor that we had that actually circulated a petition to have us kicked out of the neighborhood. 

[00:20:10.46] And, um—and these sorts of conflicts that we would have as a family because of, you know, being biracial children fueled a mythology of my mom that I had, that I thought that she was—that she had some kind of weird extra hormone because she was always fighting with people. And I didn't learn till much later on that the reason she was fighting with people is because, you know, we would come home crying because we were being ostracized. But, you know, we were like four or five or six, and Linda's five years older than me. And I certainly didn't understand why. And Linda understood. And poor Linda, you know, because she was also a girl, took the brunt of a lot of the racist shit that would happen to us. 

[00:21:21.34] So anyways—so I became kind of accustomed to—when my father would come home from work, he would—he would jokingly ask my mom, Well, who did you fight with today? [They laugh.] And so, as I mentioned before, I'm like, why is my mom so aggressive, you know? And I didn't understand, you know, until much later when all of these things became—were revealed to me, whether through my older sister telling me or me probing, right? Asking questions of my mom and dad. And then they would tell me. 

[00:22:02.18] And so, anyways—but, you know—so—t so growing up in Tijuana was both magical and painful at the same time, right. And I know there was a larger pain because of, uh, um, my parents losing their business because of someone else's greed. And so we had a—we had a really nice house in Tijuana, and that was because my parents had this business and then because of my father's union wages in the United States supported a—a much nicer, um, material—material existence in Tijuana, right? 

[00:23:00.69] But so—but when we moved back to the States, then we were like working class, which, as a kid, you don't know the difference. But I remember moving from a really nice two-story home in Tijuana to a single-wide trailer [laughs] in Chula Vista. 

[00:23:21.58] And we lived in a single-wide trailer in Chula Vista for, I don't know, about nine months or something. Something like that. And, um—and then—and the only memories I have of that is watching Peter Pan on TV and actually getting my first bike. My dad bought a used bicycle for me from the—from the flea market next to the trailer park. 

[00:23:53.08] And then we moved to a duplex that was owned by the Quinns. And the Quinns were actually the family of my father's second wife. And he became—you know, he was very close to Al Quinn. And Al Quinn had a son and a couple of daughters. And Al Quinn's son's name was Michael. And he and I were like super good friends And in actuality, we're still in touch. 

[00:24:24.83] And so Mike Quinn would pal around, and his home was like amazing. His father, Al Quinn, and his mom, Maria—and actually, Maria was ethnic Chinese but from Tijuana. And his mom was stunningly beautiful, you know. And I'm just a nine-year-old boy, you know? And his father was like tall and handsome. 

[00:24:53.10] And he's the only—he's, like, the first person that I ever saw work with their hands for pleasure, right? 'Cause my dad was really good. He was—I mean, in Tijuana, they would call him ingeniero. Ingeniero! You know, when they would see him because he was so smart. And, um, he—he built—he and my brother, Robert, and this man, Macario, that was like my father's right-hand man built the den as an addition to our house in Tijuana, built a dining room and a den and then a second story with, you know—with a bathroom. And my dad knew how to do all that stuff, how to build stuff like that. 

[00:25:46.84] And then Reina, which was a close friend of the family, she owned a platanera. And—and my father designed the- the rooms where they would put the bananas in and use some kind of gas to mature them. So they would get the bananas green from the interior of Mexico. And my dad designed the entire process of how to mature the bananas using some kind of gas. I don't know what it is. And so they would always, you know, welcome my dad like a hero to the platanera.

[00:26:27.62] And so anyways—so my dad was very smart in that kind of way, and just smart in general. And so, um—and I know I was going somewhere about that, but things keep popping in my head. Here's another thing that was sort of curious about—oh, yeah, I remember now, the Quinns. 

[00:26:55.65] And so the Quinns were like—Al Quinn was like a really good friend of my father's. And so we rented from them in that duplex. And that duplex was like right on—there was an abandoned house—not an abandoned house but a house up on blocks behind our duplex where my sister Linda would hide so she wouldn't have to go to school. 

[00:27:19.60] And—but behind that and all around our houses, all this industrial—it was like heavy industry, zoned commercial heavy industry 'cause they would park all their heavy equipment—you know, skip loaders, diesel trucks, et cetera. And then maybe a couple hundred yards west of our house was the saltworks. 

[00:27:51.40] And the saltworks was these ponds 'cause it was the bay. The San Diego Bay was basically our backyard. And so there would be all these drying ponds, and it would be this giant, glistening mound of salt that was like two or three stories tall, that us as kids would like go and we would not climb on it because we would be afraid of being buried, but we would certainly go stand around when they were closed and put chunks of salt in our pockets and walk around licking the salt. 

[00:28:25.02] But anyways, um, there—you know, when we lived in the—in the duplex, you know, we were still going to elementary school at Harborside. And I was probably like in the third or fourth grade by then. And—and it was a one-bedroom apartment—a one-bedroom two-plex. And my dad bought a travel trailer, a small travel trailer that he put in the carport. And so my sister Linda would live in the travel trailer with her friend Carmela because Chuy and Carmela, Don Amador's kids, came and lived with us so they could go to school in the United States. So—which circles around to, growing up, we always had people living with us. If it wasn't Macario, my father's right-hand man, you know—you know, Chuy and Carmella, and then later on Don Angel lived with my parents for, I don't know, 15 years in a trailer parked next to their house. 

[00:29:40.73] And then—then friends from the swap meet, Don and Jeannie they had a motorhome. And they would—they were like snow—reverse snowbirds. And they would travel all over the United States during the winter months and then come back. And they would stay with us for like four months—four or five months, parked in our front yard. And we would run extension cords out there to their motor home. And then they would have dinner with us, you know, every day for months. 

[00:30:18.02] And, um—you know, Malena and her boys live with my mom and dad for I don't know how many years. Dominic—Dominic Doyle, a good friend of my father who got a divorce—they were friends. They were both butchers at Fedmart. You know, the list goes on and on. Just my parents were so welcoming, you know. And then you know—you met my mom. [Laughs.] 

[00:30:46.19] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Yeah, yeah. 

[00:30:49.61] RICHARD LOU:  So, um—so we always had—we always had people that were either extended members of the family or—or—or just friends, you know, living with us. And my father and my mom just didn't see that—didn't—didn't make some kind of demarcation in regards to who was welcome and who was not. 

[00:31:26.10] And so, um—and at the—you know, going back to the duplex, there were a couple of really weird things that happened at the duplex that kind of stuck in my mind and have still stuck in my mind. And that was the neighbor, their friend, parked there—he parked his car in front of our house and blew his brains out. And so his car was left out there for, I don't know, a couple of weeks, the windshield just all, you know, covered in blood. 

[00:32:03.59] And then also the same neighbor—we were all watching TV in our living room. The living room served as mine and Chuy's bedroom too [laughs] because our bunk beds were in there. And the next thing we know, the neighbor kids are banging on our doors screaming at us to—if they could call the police—for us to call the police, and that the dad was trying to kill his mom—their mom. And then we look out the window, and the mom is running with a knife stuck in her head and then the husband, you know, right behind her. 

[00:32:49.36] And so that—so that—you know, living in that duplex and in that area, I mean, there was these really violent incidents. But at the same time, you know, living in that area was filled with very imaginative kind of play. 'Cause in that area that I was telling you about where they would park their trucks and et cetera, it was this big field where my friend, Tomas Briones and I would play army. So we would get shovels and dig trenches and just move the earth around. And this is—and in the backdrop is that big, giant pile of salt, that big mountain of salt. 

[00:33:36.30] And so we would—we had these two plastic army helmets. And, um—and we'd just dig trenches and pretend that we were fighting in some war of our own. And then I think a lot of that had—a lot of that had to do with—with, you know, idealizing my father's participation in World War II, although my father didn't talk a lot about it. But I heroicized my father and then romanticized his participation, I think, as, as young people, we have a tendency to do. 

[00:34:18.35] And so my dream was to be a tank commander [laughs] when I was in elementary school. Not a department chair, but a tank commander. And so I would—

[00:34:31.17] LAURA AUGUSTA:  They're similar—similar jobs. 

[00:34:32.26] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah, [they laugh] they are similar. They are very similar and—just different kind of war. [Laura Augusta laughs.] But—but I remember, you know, reading all sorts of books in the library, checking them out, all these, you know, books on fighter planes and the schematics. And there weren't too many books on tanks. But whatever books I could get, I would get. 

[00:35:05.03] And, um—and my love for reading, which, now that I'm no longer a department chair, I've been able to get back to, was sparked by my fifth grade teacher, Ms. Powers. And I had really wonderful teachers. I had really wonderful teachers in—in—at Harborside Elementary. You know, Ms. McQueeney, which is my first grade teacher, and Ms. Stump, my fourth grade teacher, Ms. Powers. 

[00:35:35.98] And what Ms. Powers would do is she would—she would start reading a book to us, and we would be completely enthralled. And—and then like somewhere three-fourths into the book, she would close it and say, If you want to know what happens, it's at the library. And oh my god, I would literally run to the library 'cause I couldn't stand not knowing what happened next, which to this day I binge-watch, you know, stuff because I can't stand not knowing what's going to happen, even if it's really crappy, you know. 

[00:36:19.76] But anyways. And then Mr. Strickland was a fabulous teacher. And he was kind of like a hippie kind of guy. 

[00:36:29.85] And then there was this other magical thing that would happen at Harborside, and also really horrible things too, is that when I would walk—I remember walking to school. And I was probably in the fourth grade or fifth grade. And, um—and I would cross the railroad tracks, and then, you know, I would be approaching school. And then this car—I don't know what kind of car it was then, but it was a Jaguar XK-E, like a 1967. And the—and I saw it. I'd never seen a foreign car in my life. And, um—and it—it was a teacher's—it belonged to a teacher. And they drove in, and it—I was starstruck. 

[00:37:30.84] And then—and then for every day after that, on my way to school, I'd try to meet that car so I could stare at it. And—and I guess now that I'm talking to you, Laura, I guess maybe that was my introduction to aesthetics, right, and the pleasure of looking at form was probably through cars, looking at cars. 

[00:37:57.76] And, um—and so that image of looking at those cars stays—stays with me, you know. And to this day, maybe three or four times a year, I'll look at that car, you know. I'll look at it and look at how much it is. Not that I would ever buy one, but I just keep that—the shape of that car and the sound of the car, you know, just resonated with me somehow. 

[00:38:36.22] But anyways, another couple of things at—at—at Harborside Elementary School that kind of sticks with me, like the Jaguar, you know, is a couple of kids, uh—well, actually, a really good friend of mine, Sean Murphy, who we still keep in touch—and we became really close friends. And his family was like, you know, a second family to me. And Sean is Mexican Irish [laughs], and his father was—was a meat cutter too. And so—so we had a lot in common. But there was this one kid. His name was Myron. And Myron actually would dress in a vest like this. And, of course, back then we didn't know what was wrong with Myron other than there was something off about him. But during recess, he pretended to drive a bus. And then he would like shuffle his feet all around the playground pretending to drive a bus. And then he would invite us to—to board his bus. So he would do this motion [puts arm out].And so then there would be a couple of us kids that would get on his bus and then shuffle around behind him. And so there was that really kind of magical thing. 

[00:40:14.54] And then there was this other kid. His name was David. And, um—and he used to sing "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida." You know that song? Actually, it's a rock group from—Iron Butterfly, a rock group from San Diego. And he used to sing—he used to hold a concert in the baseball field. And he would be standing on the pitcher's mound. And the rest of us would be sitting in the bleachers while he would, you know, a capella, just sing "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida." This is probably like fifth grade or something. And then we would applaud. And he would—that was just, I guess, our thing. 

[00:40:56.45] But the same kid—you know, I got to see cruelty like I've never seen before, 'cause, I mean, there was—I don't know if he had Asperger's or what. And, you know, growing up during that time, there was not a—we didn't, of course, know name for it. But there was these two kids, these two bullies that during—during recess, they caught David going to the bathroom. And, um—and they bust open his bathroom stall. And the one kid, that one tall kid that he and I got almost into a fight—it wasn't going to be a fight. He was going to smash me 'cause I was a lot smaller than him. But anyways, Tony grabbed David by the feet and pulled him off of the toilet while he was defecating and dragged him out into the corridor. And I'm like playing somewhere in the playground, and all I hear is this like—oh, no, no, I was drinking at the drinking fountain. 

[00:42:10.27] And it was—the drinking fountain was a concrete trough with spigots, and that drinking fountain was right next to the bathroom. And I look up, and I watch these two bullies drag this kid. And his pants are down. And he's—and poop is being smeared up all up his back and into his hair while he is screaming like—and wailing like a wounded animal, not understanding these kids' cruelty. 

[00:42:56.68] And I remember standing there watching, feeling, like—like having this out-of-body experience, completely helpless and watching someone else's pain, and—like primal pain, you know. And so that always stuck with me, watching how—like, why? Why do you—why do you—why do you—I'm trying to understand, what was the pleasure or the purpose in this cruelty? And, um—so that has always stuck with me. And, um—

[00:43:52.15] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Those are—y—those are such extreme experiences of both beauty and violence, right, or of cruelty. And I think—sometimes I think about childhood as being—as you say, you're in it, and you don't describe the context, you just know the thing that's happening in front of you. And I wonder now, as an adult, when you look back, how do you describe that community where your family lived? How do you describe that place where you went to school? What do you—do you imagine it being a typical place in the US during that time? Do you imagine it being atypical in some way? How do you describe it now, in broad terms, I think? 

[00:44:32.44] RICHARD LOU:  Right. I think—well, in broad terms, considering the context of the Trump era, I would consider it a really benign place, you know, where—because now the cruelty is a great sport. But I think it was, um—although I was greatly affected by all these things—I mean, someone killing themselves in your front yard—basically your front yard, that's kind of typ—that's an anomaly. Or your neighbor's trying to kill his wife, that's kind—I don't think that's—that's not typical. That's atypical, I would certainly hope. 

[00:45:14.60] But children being cruel to each other, especially when that other child displays difference, right—and I think that's how—that's why that became so powerful to me, right, because I understood more or less the idea of difference and being—and being isolated. And, of course, not understanding him, absolutely. But that sort of focused cruelty based on difference, I did understand. 

[00:45:58.58] And so I think that—that affinity, right, and shared pain but, at the same time, disembodied pain too, for me as a witness became frightening, you know, because I felt I didn't have any control over what was going on, especially 'cause these are kids that were bigger and apparently without kinda boundaries, right. Any boundaries that most of us would recognize. But, um—but—so I think that part, I think, was unfortunately probably pretty typical, you know, of elementary schools or middle schools or high schools, et cetera. 

[00:47:02.89] But the other part—the other parts, as I mentioned before, the suicides or the—the abuse that the father had, that's like not something that you would think that you would see in some neighborhood growing up, maybe because, you know—and that neighborhood was not exactly—well, I don't know, because I certainly won't want to prescribe it to class, you know. I think it just happens everywhere, but certainly not to—'cause we only lived there for a couple of years. Suicide and then an attempted murder, I mean, that's [laughs]—that's quite a bit. 

[00:47:50.75] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Do you—do you remember your parents talking to you about those events or think through them with you? 

[00:47:55.10] RICHARD LOU:  No, we never—

[00:47:55.91] LAURA AUGUSTA:  No—

[00:47:56.63] RICHARD LOU:  No, we never talked about it. We just like reacted to it. The kids—we said, Yes, come in, call the police. You know, and then they called the police. But I don't ever remember us talking about the suicide, no. Mm-mm [negative]. The—you know, the father stabbing the mother. Nope. 

[00:48:17.85] And then the things that happened at school, I never talked about. I'm sure like—I'm sure like—you know, my sister Linda was already graduated from elementary school, so she didn't see it. And then Mina was probably in kindergarten, so she wouldn't. And I don't think I ever told them about it. But I just—I remember—I just remember thinking about it quite a bit. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[00:48:48.32] RICHARD LOU:  You know, and, like, it's something someday I need to write about, and—and put it together. 

[00:49:00.59] LAURA AUGUSTA:  I want to go back to your parents for just a moment. And I actually don't think that I've asked you their names. Can you just tell me their—remind me their names? 

[00:49:09.05] RICHARD LOU:  My mom is Guillermina Arredondo Lizarraga. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Okay. 

[00:49:13.28] RICHARD LOU:  And my father was Ming Yet Lou. But he would introduce himself as Lou Yet Ming, 'cause that's what older Chinese do, is introduce the surname first, right? So you introduce your family—so you position yourself basically through your family. So individual last, family first. 

[00:49:37.77] LAURA AUGUSTA:  And you said that he was a paper son, and I wonder if you could tell me a bit more about what that is. And I—I know you've done research also into the Mississippi Delta Chinese communities. And so I'm very curious about that—like, why did he end up in Mississippi? And how does that form part of his story as well? 

[00:49:56.56] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. How my—okay, so this is—I didn't know my—obviously, I didn't know my father was a paper son. I didn't know this until after he died. And my oldest brother told me, my brother Robert. 

[00:50:15.72] But I will tell you this, Laura. I remember when my father died. And see, I have three uncles. I mean, they're all—they're all passed. And it was—when my father died, we were getting ready for the funeral, et cetera. So my uncles came over to our house. And it was the first time, as an adult, that I saw them all together instead of like seeing one uncle and another uncle. 

[00:50:45.95] And the one uncle that I would see quite a bit was—his name was Hong. And whenever I would see my father and my uncle Hong together—I mean, my uncle Hong was probably like five [feet], four [inches]. My father was six foot tall. [Laughs.] Right? And no disrespect to my uncle, but my uncle would speak English—like pidgin English. And my father's English was like perfect, you know. And, uh—and they were both educated in China, and—although my father went to a public school, and my uncle—this is what my father told me—went to a private British school 'cause, you know, my uncle Hong is the oldest. So the oldest son, they're always favored in the Chinese tradition. 

[00:51:41.64] And so, um, I remember seeing my uncles, the three of them, standing next to each other. I was in the limousine, and my sisters were with me, et cetera. And I look out the window, and I see them standing next to each other. And they were all around five [feet], four [inches], five [feet], three [inches]. 

[00:52:05.92] And I'm—and thinking to myself, What the hell? You know, but then we're in the grieving process. And then I start thinking—it's like, all three of them, their English is like—when they speak English, it's very broken. And then my father speaks, you know—his English is like perfect. And then I just sort of put it away, right. 

[00:52:33.37] So off we go to the funeral. And so maybe about a month or two later, I'm visiting with Robert. And he tells me. He goes, You know, our father is not, you know—he was adopted. And then that image of my uncles standing next to each other just flooded right back. Right? And I'm like, wow. 

[00:53:00.59] And then my—my cousin Joe Lo would tell me every once in a while about certain things about our family—and so—that he would allude to it. But I never put it together, you know. It wasn't as definitive as your oldest brother saying—and I'm like, how do you know? And he said, My grandmother told me when I lived in China. 

[00:53:32.79] I'm like, Okay. And so—and then my cousins—and my Uncle Hong's children, they later on told me as well, that they weren't related, that they weren't brothers. Although they would also tell me that my uncle Hong would fiercely not want to talk about it and would fiercely exclaim that they were brothers. And he didn't want to hear any more about it. 

[00:54:05.41] And so, um—so a paper son is that my grandfather, who's not my grandfather, used the documents of his son to bring a child back from China pretending to be his son. And so my best—my best guess is that we have—I have documents where it shows my father going—or this Ming going to China when he was two or three. I think two. And then he comes back when he's 11. 

[00:54:49.94] And so I'm—I'm assuming that that first child probably died in China. And then they got another child from the Lou Village to bring him back to the United States. You know, and this is all during the Chinese Exclusion Act, right. But doesn't—the Chinese Exclusion Act doesn't end until, I think, 1946. So migrating, immigrating is, like, highly restricted. 

[00:55:25.90] And, um—and at the same time, the reason I have these documents is because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, you know. Whenever countries—governments act as these sort of micro-fascist entities, fascists are really good at creating records. [Laughs.] So they would have to travel with documents. Otherwise, they would be deported even if you were born in the United States. So that didn't make a difference. You know, so there's documents of my father entering and exiting, et cetera. And so I have some of those documents. But anyways, so it's using someone else's papers to come in and live in the United States. So that's what a paper son—that's what a paper son is. 

[00:56:13.05] And the reason that he comes to Coahoma, Mississippi, is because the grandfather, who is not my grandfather—but he's here, and so—'cause he migrated as part of the labor broker endeavor or practice because, um, right after the Civil War, um, cotton—cotton plantations, cotton farmers didn't want to pay the newly freed, enslaved—former enslaved folks. They didn't want to pay them. 

[00:56:52.19] And so they brought in another ethnic group. You know, the railroads are done. So they started bringing in other ethnic groups straight from China or after working on the railroads. So they would bring the Chinese to Mississippi to pick cotton, Louisiana, and Arkansas. So a lot of Chinese migrated to those areas. 

[00:57:20.74] And, uh—and very unlike Chinese migration to, like, large cities, where there's a concentrated mass, like San Francisco or Los Angeles or New York, Chicago, the—the Delta Chinese lived apart. You know, maybe a couple of families in one town. In a bigger town, four or five families. But they were all spread out. They weren't all in one—in one place. 

[00:57:54.15] So it provided a different kind of experience, a different kind of American experience, right, the Delta Chinese and the urban Chinese growing up in Chinatowns across the United States. And the other part too is, you know, living in the segregated South and having to deal—being this—being outside of the binary of Black and white and trying to navigate that. 

[00:58:24.19] I remember my father telling me—because, you know, he spoke English really well, that they would—and in any kind of immigrant community, you know, those that had command of the dominant language, right, were incredibly useful, and would be sought out by other members of the community. And so because my father, you know, spoke all these languages as a young man, different families would seek him out. 

[00:58:56.54] And so he—I remember him telling me that this one—this Chinese man died. And they trot him off to try to arrange a funeral service. So they brought the body over to the white funeral parlor. And they're like, No, we don't do that. Take them over to the Black funeral parlor. They're like, Nope, we don't do that either. And so, like, imagine that weird, you know, in-between space of not being—of not belonging and trying, like, to just take care of a critical, tragic, basic function of living, which is taking care of your dead. And so finally the—the—the Black funeral parlor took care of it. But trying to, like, negotiate, right, these different racial spaces was a constant in the Delta—the Chinese Delta community. 

[01:00:03.72] So because the grandfather was here—and so that's how my father ended up in Coahoma, Mississippi. Which was, like, really interesting too for me and us kids growing up in Tijuana and San Diego and having a father coming from China and the rural South. And it took me a while to, like—to kind of understand the context of his stories because he would tell us stories, et cetera. 

[01:00:38.21] And then also, it would—you know, I didn't understand why he did certain things, or where some of this knowledge would come from. Like say, for example, really simple stuff, like why we ate fried chicken and steamed rice every Sunday. That was our Sunday dinner. I thought it was a Chinese thing. And sure, Chinese eat fried chicken. But that was not solely a Chinese thing. That was a Southern thing. I didn't know it until I moved to the South, and I'm like, Whoa, [laughs] wait. 

[01:01:15.07] And then I remember this other thing that happened too is, when I was a young man, I was home from college. And my dad was retired already. And he says, Hey, Richard, take me to the music store. So I drive him to the music store, Harper's Music Store in Chula Vista. 

[01:01:34.69] And we get out—you know, we're talking, and we get out. And I'm—you know, we're talking and having a lot of fun. And then he goes up to the counter and he tells the clerk, says, I want to see your harmonicas. And I'm standing next to him going, Harmonica? And so he buys this beautiful $200 harmonica. And actually, my son Ming has it. 

[01:02:00.76] And, uh—and, uh—and so in my brain, I'm like, huh, that's some gift. [Laughs.] So we get in the car. And I said, Hey, Dad, so who did you buy the harmonica for? He says, Oh, I bought it for me. I'm like, For you? I'm like, oh. I go, Oh, I get it. You're retired now, so you want to learn how to play the harmonica. And he says, No, I know how to play the harmonica. And I'm like, What? So I keep driving, and then we go home. He takes the harmonica out. And I'm standing there watching this man—I mean, he's my father. Obviously, I've known him all my life. He starts to play the blues beautifully on the harmonica. He didn't play too long because he was a smoker, right? 

[01:02:58.86] And I'm like, how did this Chinese guy learn how to play the blues on the harmonica? Because I didn't—I couldn't make the connection, right, 'cause my world was Tijuana and Southern California and not, you know, the Delta—the Mississippi Delta. So it wasn't until I moved to the South where I make those connections. And I go, oh, that's what was happening during that time, that this other life of my father made a—made a significant appearance. 

[01:03:41.20] LAURA AUGUSTA:  That's so beautiful. Do you know how he learned so many languages? 

[01:03:48.70] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't know how he learned—I guess he learned Mandarin because that was what he was taught in school in China. So of course Cantonese because that's his native language. But then, um, you know, Cantonese, I'm assuming—because he went all the way through high school, so I'm assuming that's the official language of China. And then Japanese because a teacher of his, high school teacher, told him, look—'cause my father wanted to go to college, et cetera. And, uh—and his teacher said, If you're going to go to college, go abroad because it's much more prestigious if you studied abroad. So my father studied in Japan. 

[01:04:41.78] So he went to Tokyo. And he was there for, I would imagine, at least a year or so. But then—and the Japanese were already in China. But then, uh, the Marco Polo Bridge incident happened while my father was in Japan, and so—which accelerated the conflict between—which was really actually the beginning of the real larger war between China and Japan. 

[01:05:16.03] And so here's my father, ethnic Chinese, in Japan. And he said that there was already kind of conflicts being ethnic Chinese and Japan occupying a part of China. But it wasn't until the Marco Polo Bridge incident that—that the conflict widening, right—that there was much more direct conflict between the Japanese where they were living and Chinese exchange students. 

[01:05:48.58] And so, because—and my dad—so I said, Wow, so how long did you—he said he hung in there as long as he could until he felt that it became dangerous. But he said that he was kind of left alone at first 'cause he's a big guy. He's like six foot tall. And he said that a lot of his friends left, went back to China, and so there was less and less Chinese students. And so then he became more of a target. 

[01:06:21.69] So then he—he, um, went to the American embassy because he was a US citizen. And, you know, you—I mean, if you had an option to go one place or another, you're not going to go to a widening war between—you wouldn't go back to China, right? And he left China, you know, during that time where there was lots of famine, et cetera. Um. You know. 

[01:06:55.92] And so he went to back to the United States. And when he was in the United States, and he came back to Coahoma. And then they—then he tried to strategize what he was going to do. And so then he went to, um, Colorado, and there's a mining college, an engineering and mining college in Colorado. And so—'cause his father wanted him to study to be a mining engineer, so he would go back to China to help develop the resources, right? That's like a typical immigrant dream, right. Become educated in the United States or somewhere and then go back and help your country. And so he was in Colorado for—I think he said nine months to a year. 

[01:07:50.39] But he had altitude sickness. And so he—that's where he learned how to swim because they told him, if you—learning how to swim will help you build up your lung capacity, et cetera. So he was an amazing swimmer. So he learned how to swim. But the altitude was just too much. 

[01:08:13.26] So then he went to a school in Oklahoma. And all I—what I remember him talking about—I can't remember what school it was in Oklahoma. But it was near—well, of course, Oklahoma is filled with, you know, reservations. But that's—since he thought—since most people thought he was Native American—so he would hang around with all the Indigenous folks and so—while he was going to college there. 

[01:08:43.56] But then World War II broke out, right, shortly thereafter. And so he comes back home. And then in March, I think March of '42—December 7, of course, '41, is Pearl Harbor. The United States declares war, I think, the sec—the following day. And then he gets actually drafted by the army. But then he goes and enlists in the Marine Corps in Jackson, Mississippi, which is the capital. And so then they send him to San Diego, and he does his boot camp at Camp Elliott. So he's in the service in early '42, and he doesn't get out until '46, I believe. War is over '45. He gets out in '46, 'cause he was in the part of the occupational force in China. 

[01:09:50.74] So that's how—that's how he learned those languages. And then he also learned Spanish 'cause of my mom. Now, his Spanish is really funny [laughs], 'cause, you know, being—I'm not—being bilingual and hearing my father speak Spanish—I mean, he could hold a conversation. I mean, it's amazing his ability. I mean, here he is like 40-something learning another language, and he—he learned it. 

[01:10:19.19] He would say certain words oddly. And some of the words that he would say would be, like, hilarious because like when I would go to Tijuana, I would say, oh—you know churros, right? Everyone loves churros. And he would say, Richard, you going to Tijuana? I'm like, yeah. He goes, don't forget to give me a bag of chorro. Chorro is diarrhea in Spanish. And I'd be like, Dad, churros, churros, not chorro. He'd be like, Okay, whatever. Just get me a bag. [Laura Augusta laughs.] 

[01:10:52.35] So, you know, other—my grandmother would come and visit us. My grandmother, Petra, and my grandfather, Antonio, would come and visit us and stay for a couple of months. And they would—and they—my aunt Kika and her two kids, and my aunt Gloria and her two kids, and we would all sleep together in the living room, my grandmother in the middle and all the rest of us like satellites around her. And, um—and we practically all, three families, four families, lived together in my parents' house for the summer. 

[01:11:36.06] And, um, then I remember one time my grandmother—my father is talking to her, telling her this amazing story that I can't remember. And the story went on for, I don't know—you know, it felt like it went on for 20 minutes, but it probably was like four minutes or five minutes. And I'm laughing. My dad's laughing. My grandmother's laughing. 

[01:12:01.31] And I looked over at my dad, and he felt very satisfied with that, with his story. And it was a great story. And my mom—my grandmother is just beaming like this. And then she pulls me over, and she says, Mijo, que dijo? [Laughs.] Son, what did he say? She doesn't understand anything. She just was enjoying my father enjoying telling his story. But that was really funny. 

[01:12:31.32] LAURA AUGUSTA:  He sounds so entrepreneurial but also just kind of fearless and resourceful. I mean, I can't imagine—that trajectory has so many intensities to it and so many places. And it's really a remarkable story. 

[01:12:47.10] RICHARD LOU:  Well, Laura, you know, it wasn't until, I would say, maybe six—maybe a year ago that I finally understood one of his stories. 'Cause I remember after he got out of the war—you know, we're talking, we're probably at the swap meet, or we're probably driving to Los Angeles or coming back from LA. And I'm like, Hey, so what'd you do? What'd you do? What'd you do? And so—'cause there's, like, gaps that I want expanded in these stories. 

[01:13:18.37] 'Cause I remember him telling me that after he got out of the war—he said—I said, Well, what did you do? He says, Nothing. He says, I checked into a motel, and I slept for like a month or three months. I can't remember what. And it wasn't until maybe a year ago that I understood, he was depressed. He said he slept for over a month. That's all he wanted to—

[01:13:45.35] And here's the other part, Laura. He had a family. He had children. He didn't go home. He checked himself into a hotel after the war. 

[01:14:01.34] LAURA AUGUSTA:  What do you make of that? How do you make sense of that? 

[01:14:07.17] RICHARD LOU:  I could never make sense of it. I can only assume that he was, like, decompressing, because, I mean, he didn't talk a lot about the war. But he did tell me certain things like, say, for example—I mean, horrific things. Like one of the—actually, the reason that he survived World War II is because he spoke Japanese. 

[01:14:36.90] So he was—he was—he was in two of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific, Guadalcanal and Tarawa. And I can't remember if it was Guadalcanal or Tarawa, but he was supposed to be on the third wave of Marines. So I'm thinking that it would probably be Tarawa with all those folks who were killed. The first few wave—the first probably seven or eight waves, all of them were wiped out. 

[01:15:10.09] So anyways, before he was to get on the landing craft, he said that a sergeant came up to him and said, Hey, Lou, I understand you speak Japanese. And my father said, Yeah. He said, they said, Why didn't you tell us before? And in typical of like—my dad said this. He says, this is what the military teaches you. Keep your mouth shut. So he says—my father says, No one asked me [laughs]. 

[01:15:35.34] And so they moved him from the third wave to the 15th wave, and that saved his life. But when he gets on the landing craft with the rest of his—you know, now he's no longer with his platoon, right? He's with another group of Marines. Oh, and also he was wounded in Guadalcanal. And, um—and so now he gets on the landing craft, and the coxswain hands everyone a 10-foot wooden pole. And I'm like, what's the pole for? And my father said, We were instructed to move the bodies away from the propeller. So all of his comrades that went before him, he had to push their bodies away to keep them away from the propeller. 

[01:16:36.49] And then he would talk about the famine he would see—I mean, he saw before the war and then during the war with the Japanese occupation—doesn't matter whose occupation. It's—it's—I mean, I can't even imagine it, just the brutality. I mean, we're seeing it now, right now in Gaza. 

[01:16:59.05] And, um—and so there is this one story I remember him telling me that—that he's a sergeant now, part of the occupational force. The war is—the war is over, right. But the Chinese infrastructure is completely torn asunder, right. And so he's walking, and he—no, no, someone told him that a—that an army sergeant was selling food to the Chinese. Leftover food from the mess hall. So he was taking—taking garbage cans filled with scraps up to this hillside. And my father said he encountered this long line of Chinese waiting in line with, you know, whatever they had in their hands and paying this army sergeant I don't know how much for a dollop of food scraps from the—from the mess tent. 

[01:18:07.68] And my father, since he outranked this guy, told him that you're going to do this for free now. If not, I will make sure you will be court-martialed for stealing. And so that's what he did. So imagine—I mean, seeing your countrymen being, number one, starving, number two, taken—taken advantage of by the people that are supposed to be there to protect them. I'm sure it was, like, enraging. 

[01:18:43.13] And then I remember another story that my father—so he's on furlough. So he's part of the—as I mentioned, part of the occupation force. He's on furlough. He goes back home to his village in China, Tung How, And so he's—he's, like, this hero. He's this sergeant, and he's big and tall. And so his family makes him this wonderful dinner. And so—and he sees in the yard in the dark before dinner that they're burying—they dug a hole, and they're burying the feathers of the chicken. And my father figures out they don't want to let people know that they have chicken. So they have to hide the chicken that these folks—who knows how they got ahold of. But they were going to do something special for my—for my father returning home. And my father talked about how he had to eat the food to honor their sacrifices, but it was incredibly difficult knowing that all these people were suffering. 

[01:20:10.91] That's just, you know, two or three stories out of the years of being in the war that he saw, and experienced, you know. So that kind of gives me one one-millionth of a glimpse into why he—after the war, he didn't go back to his family and just checked into a hotel and slept. 

[01:20:42.13] And so I remember asking him, So what did you do after that? And he's like, Well, then I would walk around. I would walk around. And he said he would go to the Embarcadero, which back then in San Diego, San Diego had a major tuna fleet run by the Portuguese. And he would hang out there, you know. 

[01:21:09.52] And then he saw that the Portuguese fishermen were cutting the heads off and throwing them in the trash. So my dad went up to him and says, Hey, you guys are throwing these in the trash? Or are you guys putting them away for—he's like, No, what do we need fish heads for? So my dad says, Well, can I have them? They're like, Yes, take 'em. So my dad got those fish heads and would take them to the Chinese restaurants for stock. So that was the—his first business coming back home from the war is gathering fish heads and selling them in restaurants for—for stock. 

[01:21:50.88] And then after that he—then after that—or actually, he kept doing that for a while. And then he opened up a little travel agency, a one-person travel agency. So he would go and, um—and get visas from the immigration office and then would get, um, steamship schedules and then rented a little storefront. And he bought a typewriter, and he was in business. And so all the Chinese would, like, make reservations on the steamship through him, and then he would fill out their visas. 

[01:22:33.47] And so there was this one time this one guy going back to China brought a little gristmill. My dad said, What's that? He says, It's a mill. That's how I make bean cakes. He says, You can have it. I'm not going to take it with me. 

[01:22:53.03] So my dad asked him how he did it, and so then my dad started growing his own soy. So he rented out a basement, created this irrigation system, and then started growing his own soy so he could make bean cakes, and would sell them to the gambling dens in San Diego. 

[01:23:18.24] So—so he gave up the—left the fish head, started growing the soybeans and then making bean cakes, selling the soy beans also, and then doing the travel agency thing until he started—until he, I guess, created enough capital to—and in conjunction with his ex-wife's—well, his wife's—his second wife then—brothers, they opened a small grocery store called Chinese-American Market. 

[01:23:56.70] And so then he—there was conflict between him and his second wife, and, um—and so then that didn't work out anymore. And then he met my mom in—in Tijuana. And she was a—she just came up from another marriage 'cause, you know, in Spanish, the euphemism for being eloped or eloping, if one can elope when they're 13, is—she said, Erra robada. So someone stole me from my home. 

[01:24:47.70] And so my mom was living with this man, Jesús. And he—and this is in Concordia, which is in the eastern part of Sinaloa in the mountains near—near her hometown of Panuco. But my mom wasn't born in Panuco. She was born in Ciudad Obregón, in Sonora, in southern Sonora. But my grandmother and my great grandmother, they're from Panuco. They're from that area in the eastern mountains of Sinaloa. Eastern mountains, it butts up against Durango. 

[01:25:28.86] And so my grandmother somehow ends up in Ciudad Obregón. And she marries this man named Rodolfo Arredondo. Doesn't go well. He's like a—according to my mom, he was a gambler and a womanizer, et cetera. And so my mom was born in Ciudad Obregón. She has an older sister, Delia, my mom, her younger brother, Heraclio who we called Guero, and a little brother named Ricardo. That's who I'm named after. 

[01:26:06.65] So her father, Rodolfo Arredondo tires of family life and puts all five of them on the train. And—so my grandmother, Petra, the oldest daughter, Delia, my mom, Guillermina, Heraclio, my uncle, and Ricardo, he puts them on the train and sends them back to Panuco. 

[01:26:39.35] Now, of course, the train doesn't go directly to Panuco, but sends them home. And my mom says she looked at him through the window, and that was the last she ever saw of her father. And she was about eight years old. And that was formative, obviously, as it would be to anybody. And so she goes back—they go back. 

[01:27:05.81] And my—and my mother grew up in extreme poverty. You know, they didn't have money for shoes until she went to elementary school, but she only went to elementary school for two years. But she remembers, you know, helping take care of her brothers and sisters while my grandmother would go—would go and sell clothing from village to—you know, go to one mountain village to another walking, carrying bundles of clothing, and would sell wedding dresses out of the Sears catalog. [Laughs.] 

[01:27:43.45] And my mom—my mom would tell us stories about when my—she would also accompany my grandmother, you know, carrying stuff when she was a little girl. And if they were at some mining town or some other mountain town, and if it got too late, they would—they would—they would come home walking through the mines. And my mom said that she was petrified because, you know, they had to listen for the ore carts rumbling along or the air shafts that would plunge to who knows what. And so she would—she would talk about being so afraid to move but be afraid not to move. So they kept walking. 

[01:28:48.77] So, you know, when she was 13—when I [laughs]—I remember talking to my mom about this. And she said that, yeah, she had a boyfriend, and they eloped. She's 13. And I'm like, you know—I'm like, okay, how does that happen other than in crazy super conservative places here now? Or it was just part of that time period. 

[01:29:27.08] And, so, um—so she was living with this man, Jesús, her husband. She says, marido. My marido. But that was short-lived because her mother-in-law didn't approve of her. And, um—and my understanding from my mom is that Doña Angelita didn't want some poor girl to be the wife of her son. 

[01:30:05.72] And so when Jesús would go to work, my mother's marido, Doña Angelita, would show up and would chase my mom around with a broom trying to beat her. And so my mom was, you know, kinda of—was small. I mean, you remember her. But she was fast. [Laughs.] And so that went on for a couple of weeks. And my mom never told her marido, Jesús. And my mom calculated. And I remember her saying—she said—'cause I asked her, You never told him? Why? You know, thinking about that this is some kind of normal relationship. But, you know, I'm looking through a contemporary lens, right? 

[01:31:06.15] And I said, Well, why didn't you say anything? She said, I could never pit a son against his mother. And so I left. So she left. She's probably 14 or so, or 13 and a half or whatever. And I think she said they were only together, I don't know, two or three months or something like that, maybe half a year. I'm not sure. 

[01:31:40.30] And so she doesn't go home. She goes to Mazatlan, where her oldest sister Delia is. And she stays there for a while and kind of, like, gets her feet beneath her. And then she leaves for Tijuana by herself. And so she's in Tijuana, 14, 15, something like that. 

[01:32:04.68] And, um—and she's there making a living. And then you know how, when you move, you know, most people try to live in the neighborhoods where the same people from your village are. And that's what happens. And, um, yeah, so that's how—that's how my mom ends up in Tijuana. 

[END OF TRACK aaa_lou24_1of6_digvid_m.]

[00:00:01.54] LAURA AUGUSTA:  All right. So we're just coming back. Um. And we took a break right when you were talking about your mom arriving to Tijuana when she was quite young, right. And starting her working life in Tijuana, is that right? 

[00:00:15.46] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. That's correct. Or continuing her working life, right. And yeah, so she was working as a waitress at a—at a restaurant, or a coffee shop. I can't remember which. I think it's a coffee shop, 'cause that's where she met my father. 

[00:00:36.90] And I think there were two reasons that my father was coming to Tijuana. I can only surmise. One is there was a really large Chinese, um, community there, in Tijuana, you know, 'cause it's right there next to San Diego and so—and I'm sure because of the Exclusion Act, people couldn't migrate to the United States anymore so they started going up to Canada and to Mexico and to other parts of the Americas. 

[00:01:08.97] And so—and the other part—so there was a large Chinese community that you could go and visit and he had lots of friends. But the other part, too, is his second wife was part of a very—was like the most prominent Chinese family in San Diego. It was like—they're like the founding family of Chinatown—of Chinese Chinatown. And I'm sure he probably wanted to escape whatever—whatever conflict was happening—was happening there. And so he could enter into another—a completely different world. 

[00:01:46.62] And so that's where they met. I remember my mom would always joke that my father would like—kept showing up ordering coffee. And, um—and according to her, not a very large tipper. And so they would always, you know, joke back and forth like that. And so until they started getting together. And so now my mom was like very—still very young. And my father was 18 years her senior. 

[00:02:17.48] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Oh, wow.

[00:02:18.47] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. And so, um—so that—so 15, 16 now, and so plus 18. So that's—that was the gap—the age gap. And so they were married for 40-some years. And, um, so—and they got married in—actually in Ensenada, and had their—had their honeymoon in Ensenada. And I remember my father—I think—I don't know how long they were in Ensenada for, but long enough for some of my father's friends to come and visit while they were on their honeymoon, they went out fishing. And they had been—my mom and dad had been together for a long time before they got married. 

[00:03:19.67] And, uh—and in actuality, I think they were married after I was born. So this is like after Linda, and after the first daughter, Doraluz—and after the first daughter, after Linda, and after—shortly after I was born, they got married. 

[00:03:41.32] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Why do you think they waited? 

[00:03:43.88] RICHARD LOU:  I think for some divorce papers to come through, right. And so I think that was the reason why. And then also—I'll have to check—I'm pretty sure the miscegenation laws in California were already removed. But if they were, they weren't—it wasn't that, you know—all that sort of thing. 'Cause I mean, if they were married like, say 1960, I mean, the Loving case was '67, '68, right? 

[00:04:22.85] But I think California got rid of its miscegenation laws earlier. But I don't—I'm not sure how much earlier. And I'm not sure what vestiges were—were in place, just socially, right. And so, um—so then they got married. And—but they had already set up a household. They already owned the home in La Colonia Roma, and where my dad—you know, because they bought it. It had the kitchen, a living room dining room, and one bedroom, and one bath. And then by the time my father was finished adding, as I mentioned before, it was three bedrooms, two full baths, of course, the kitchen, living room, den, and dining room. 

[00:05:25.67] And so—and even when—in almost all the houses that we live, Dad just kept building stuff. Although we didn't—they didn't purchase a home until—in the United States until 1974, which was in Imperial Beach. And that home, he kept—he built all sorts of stuff. 

[00:05:49.21] You know, so, it was—when they bought it, it was a one-bedroom—three-bedroom, one bathroom home, and with a dining room. But then he—actually he and I and then also my sister's husband, Jim Smith—my sister Linda, second husband, Jim Smith—helped build my—helped my dad build—extend the dining room and build a bathroom and a laundry room, and then another room in front of the dining room.

[00:06:30.51] Now that's kind of funny. And, uh, I remember my dad—I was—I think I was in high school—no, I was—I think I might have been in college at Southwestern, which is a community college. Back then the community college is free. And, um—and so I remember my dad said, Hey, what are you doing for the 4th of July weekend? I'm like, I don't know. He says, Don't—he says, I'll need you. 

[00:06:59.70] So about a month or—about two months before the 4th of July weekend, we had laid a concrete pad in front of the dining room, a 20 by 20 concrete pad. And my dad had a small motor home. And, uh—and so when he told me about, you know, the 4th of July thing, I said, what are we going—after we laid the concrete pad, I said, What do you have in mind? He says, We're going to build a room addition. 

[00:07:30.43] I'm like, Okay. And he says, We're not—I'm not going to ask for a building permit. [Laughs.] I'm like, Okay. So on the Friday evening, he pulled his motor home in front of the concrete pad so you couldn't see it. And we had to be done by Monday morning. 

[00:08:00.46] And so on Monday morning, we had put the—extended the roof, put up all the walls, all the outdoor cladding, all the windows in, so when you were to—when he pulled that motor home away, it looked like the house. [Laughs.] You couldn't tell. And so that's what we did. And then [cross talk]—

[00:08:23.57] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Did anyone notice? 

[00:08:25.21] RICHARD LOU:  Huh? 

[00:08:25.45] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Did anyone notice? 

[00:08:28.40] RICHARD LOU:  No one ever noticed, [Laura Augusta laughs] until we sold the house a long time ago. But then people are like, hey, this is not in the original plan, so. But a lot of stuff was not part of the original plan. [Laura Augusta laughs.] 

[00:08:42.17] So anyways, but—he was always building, building, building, building. And—and—and between the two of them—I mean, always saw them as like genuinely sort of equal in match. You know, it was like a really wonderful partnership. They would have their rows, right, like most any couple, but they got along pretty well and very respectful of each other. And my mom was pretty tough and my dad was a strong person, too. They kind of—they matched pretty well, I think. Although my father was six-foot tall and my mom was probably four [feet] 11 [inches] or something like that. So they did look kind of odd together. 

[00:09:35.47] And—but my dad did most of the cooking, and, um—and my mom did a lot of the cooking, too. But my dad was a fabulous, fabulous cook. And my mom didn't really care too much, but she was good, too. But my grandmother, oh my gosh—my grandmother and my aunt Kika and my aunt Gloria—and I think especially my aunt Gloria, who my daughter, Gloria, is named after. My aunt Gloria was—was a—was an amazing cook. 

[00:10:09.61] And some of my fondest memories is—and I think I miss this greatly—is that when I lived in Tijuana, it really felt like a—a—even though it's a big city, right, it felt like a really tight community. I felt really at home, 'cause I would—as an adult, I would drive to the gas station and Pepe, who I grew up, worked at the gas station. So I got to see him. 

[00:10:39.03] Or I would eat at some taqueria on the street eating birria, and my aunt would drive by and go—honk her horn and say, Come have dinner. You know. And my aunt Kika and my aunt Gloria would be there. And they were just visiting my mother or something. 

[00:10:59.84] And so it was like anywhere I went in Tijuana, it was like—it always felt like home. And of course, I've been so—it's been so long since I've been there on a regular basis, you know, and it's changed so much. But it felt like—even though it was a big city, it felt like a small community where it didn't take—didn't take much for you to like know somebody, and be able to—and feel safe, you know. Feel safe and feel welcome. 

[00:11:35.53] And more as an adult, right. When as a kid, as I explained earlier, it was fraught with some conflicts. But that was mostly coming from one or two neighbors. But one or two neighbors is enough, in a small knit community, to really be disruptive. 

[00:11:58.26] But anyways, um, here's the part that I don't think I've finished explaining. I remember when I was talking about like my mom like fighting with everybody—so what would happen was, you know, say, for example, you know Linda and I would come home crying, and probably more me than Linda because she was five years older, and not understanding why we were being ostracized. So my mom would interrogate us and go, What happened? Which any regular parent would do. 

[00:12:26.88] And then when we would tell her what happened, she would march over to the neigh—to whoever's house and ask them what happened. And then this one neighbor was bold enough to tell 'em, we don't like your biracial children. So they got—so my mom would start yelling and screaming and cussing at them, which she, um, was quite adept at [laughs]. And—and I don't—I won't say found joy in it, but I would—I will say, um, it didn't take much. And—for her to go into fighting mode. 

[00:13:14.59] And, um—and, you know, when I think about her—when I think back to her life, which was, you know, not an easy one, filled with all sorts of challenges that—that are indescribable, right. I think the fight mode was one that she felt would be—that was not like her default, but almost, you know. So my mom was like—in her family was incredibly well respected, but also feared, you know. And her brothers and sisters and cousins knew not to upset her. 

[00:14:12.46] But at the same time, they knew that she was very gracious and generous, you know. But you didn't mess around with Guillermina. And, um—and so she was—I don't want to call her a character because I mean that's like too one-dimensional, but she was an incredibly complex human being. And she and I had like a really, really close relationship. And, um—and it was a relationship that I miss and revered. 

[00:14:48.64] And, um—and I had a really good relationship with my father. And I miss him, too. But with my mom, it was like really special. And the other thing, too—you know, the other thing too—and at the same time, there was like not a major conflict, but there was this—I think I might have talked to you about this, Laura—because she practiced, you know, in a sense, curanderismo, which is something I like couldn't understand growing up in the United States and being indoctrinated in this Western world. 

[00:15:28.83] And my mom coming from, you know, the mountains of Sinaloa and having a very strong sense of who she is and her belief systems, and her gift, what she would call a don, her don. And so she would do spiritual cleansings and—and would read the tarot cards for people. And—and, you know, there was a time, a period in time as a young adult and as an adult, where I would see all these women come over to the house all the time, all the time, and seek her counsel. 

[00:16:14.16] And—and then also, she would like—that I, you know—that learned about later, you know—for example, someone's husband was being wayward and she would go over to their house and like cast a spell, and do something to their doorway—I have no idea. And then, you know weeks later, then the woman would come back and report back what happened, et cetera. And so it was like stuff that was like beyond my understanding. And so I had a—not a hard time, but it was—I mean, it was just like I don't understand this to the point where actually [laughs]—where she and I would always banter. We would always like kid each other, et cetera. But there was this one time where—where I—because after work, I would come and see how she was doing. As she noticed that I had a headache. And—but I didn't tell her. I didn't want to tell her. 

[00:17:25.22] And she would say, Oh, what's wrong? What's wrong? I'm like, Oh, nothing. And she goes, I can tell. I'm your mother. I know when there's something wrong. So I'm like, Well, I have a headache. And she goes, Well, let me fix it. I'm like No, no, no, no, don't Mom, because I knew what she—I didn't want to become entangled in that thing that I didn't understand, right. 

[00:17:46.35] And so—and she was also very—highly interested in homeopathic stuff. And so then—so I relented and she starts rubbing my elbow, which I'm like, I have a headache. My arm doesn't hurt. And like within two seconds, my headache was gone. 

[00:18:09.38] You know, she's looking at me and she goes, Well? And I didn't have the capacity to say, Yeah, you fix it. I just said, I still have a headache. Even though it was gone, 'cause I couldn't—I couldn't bring myself to that point where I could accept a larger power that she had, that I couldn't fathom, that I couldn't connect to, that I couldn't—that—that—it was incomprehensible to me. 

[00:18:39.12] And it was frightening. Frightening to like say, yes, you have this thing that I don't understand. And [laughs]—and she knew I was lying. And because she always would say, como eres embustero, [laughs] 'cause I would joke with her all the time. And she always would call me a liar. "You are such a liar." [Laura Augusta laughs] And 'cause I would embellish whatever she was doing for fun and we would just laugh all the time. 

[00:19:14.25] And, um—but I couldn't—I couldn't give her that, for some reason. Or I couldn't give myself that, that there was this—that my—someone that I was so—that I loved so much and had this close kinship with had this thing I couldn't under—ever understand. And so I guess that was my way of like pretending that I had some level of control over something that I did not. So—

[00:19:53.24] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Did you—sorry to interrupt, but did you talk to her later in life about these healing traditions, where she learned them, kind of how—

RICHARD LOU:  I did. 

[00:19:59.99] LAURA AUGUSTA:  —did she tell you about that? 

[00:20:00.92] RICHARD LOU:  I did. I did. And we both did a little bit. You know. A little bit. And in actuality, I'm like talking to my sisters to like find out more. And I remember talking to my brother and he's like, Oh yeah, all these—he goes—you know, he's 10 years younger than me. He's like, Oh yeah, all these women were always at our house. [Laughs.] 

[00:20:25.74] And, um—but the thing that we talked about, my mom and I, was how—'cause she had read the tarot cards for everybody except me. And it was clear that I didn't want her to do that because I didn't want to enter into that realm. Not because I'm religious or anything, because I'm not. You know. I've been an agnostic since I was 13 and—to her disappointment, you know. And, um, I just—I don't know. 

[00:21:02.69] And so I remember her and I talking about that and I telling her that. And she said, You're the only one I wouldn't—I wouldn't do it for you anyways. And, um, I never asked her why. But I think—I think I wasn't at the point yet, Laura—you know, not in my relationship with my mother, but in my own maturity, you know, to like ask. I was too afraid—my fear overcomed my curiosity, you know. 

[00:21:37.48] And I'm a—I think I'm a pretty curious person. But that was just something that—and actually, I remember her and I talking about this. She stopped doing it because she started becoming afraid of it, too. And so, yeah. I think she read—I think she read the cards for Tina and for Roxanne when we were—when she was in Milledgeville. And Roxanne would—would remark to me every once in a, while she would say, I'm still waiting for that tall, dark, handsome man. [They laugh.] 

[00:22:20.18] But anyways. You know—but—there was a—I remember she would call me her right-hand man. And we would have very frank discussions. And, um—and I enjoyed that my mom would—would seek my counsel, you know. And when she disagreed, we disagreed and then that would be it. And so we had—I think we had like a very, very mature relationship as mother and son. 

[00:22:59.73] But I do remember—we dis—we were having a disagreement about something. She asked for my opinion about something. And she got so mad at me that she started spanking me, and I was 36 years old. [They laugh.] It was the last spanking she gave me. And it was in our front yard—it was in her front yard, right in front of her house. She turned—she got so mad at me she turned me around and started whacking me on the butt. But that was—I'll tell you, Laura, that's a memory I'll always treasure. [Laura Augusta laughs.] And I—really, truly, I think of it with great fondness that—that—that, you know—that—I think her understanding of our relationship will never change, you know. You're the son and I'm the mother, you know. And even though it had changed, but not for her. 

[00:24:14.89] Now my dad wasn't—he didn't—he wasn't the—he was like the talking type, that would make you just feel bad when necessary—when he felt it necessary. And him just saying stuff to you was just like crushing, not that he did it often. He actually rarely did it. He was very—he was very permissive. Where my mother my mom was like, no. You're not going to give me shit. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[00:24:43.35] RICHARD LOU:  And you're going to get it. Yeah. Just one look from her, man, you knew it was over when you got home. 

[00:24:55.92] LAURA AUGUSTA:  I—I think it's so interesting to hear about the importance of family in your narrative in the—even the way that you described your dad's name or the placing of the family name first, and thinking about that as a way of identifying the self. And so I want us to have lots of time for more family stories and we'll keep working through a lot of relationships and stories. But I wonder, when you were a child, were there moments as a child when you started thinking about—and I don't even know the right way to frame this question—where you started drawing, or where you started not thinking of yourself as an artist, per se, necessarily, or maybe yes, but where you started developing a relationship to visual art? 

[00:25:44.05] RICHARD LOU:  Actually, it was writing. 

[00:25:45.43] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Really? 

[00:25:46.24] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. 

[00:25:47.41] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Okay. Tell me more about that. 

[00:25:49.27] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. So I think it started in the second—or maybe the—I think the third grade. I started writing poetry. So actually all through—all through elementary, junior high, and high school, I wanted to be a writer. So not—I didn't think of myself as a visual artist, but actually as a writer, writing short stories and poetry. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[00:26:22.21] RICHARD LOU:  And when I went to college, I thought—briefly, I thought that I wanted to be—I wanted to study American literature, and be a—and teach high school—and teach literature in high school. That was my goal right after high school. Go to college and become a teacher, a literature teacher. And then when I got to college, I'm like, okay, being a writer doesn't pay well. 

[00:27:01.72] LAURA AUGUSTA:  I'll be an artist. [Laughs.] 

[00:27:03.25] RICHARD LOU:  Or I'll be an artist—I know. So I switched to psychology. So I'm like—so I was a psych major for like maybe a year and a half or something. And then my oldest sister, Linda, got a 35-millimeter camera from her boyfriend. She didn't know how to use it. I certainly didn't know how to use it. But, you know, I'm in college. So I said to Linda, Linda, I'll take a photo class. I'll learn how to use it and then I'll teach you how to use it. She's like, Okay. And I think—and so my first photo teacher, Bob Schneider, who I just talked to last month or so—he—he was such an inspirational teacher. And he wa—he jus—he was young, too. And not that much older than us. 

[00:28:10.02] And I think what happened was—'cause once I got in—once I started taking pictures and getting in the darkroom, I think I had reached a level in my emotional development and psychological development, or—or intellectual development, if I [laughs]—that I knew there was a creative side that I needed to embrace. And I remember—I remember clearly when I was developing prints, in my head, I said, This gives me the same joy as writing. 

[00:28:49.61] And clearly, you know, artists and writers are not like rolling in money. But—but there was—I had reached the point where I'm like, I need to—I need to pursue being a creative person. And so then that's when I switched to the visual arts. 

[00:29:11.96] And when I transferred to Cal State Fullerton, my good friend Jim Elliott and I—and, um, you know, we were both photo majors, and I was still taking literature classes. I was taking advanced poetry classes and American literature classes. And there was a time where I'm like, Oh, I might switch back. Because there were faculty members in the—in the creative writing that were interested—would talk to me about switching over to creative writing. 

[00:29:53.32] And I remember clearly, you know, when I wasn't working in the studio on my printmaking or my photographs or whatever, I would go to the library and check out records, you know, on William Carlos Williams or Theodore Roethke and listen to them read their poetry—read their poems. And I loved that. I loved it so much. 

[00:30:25.44] Uh. I remember checking out a record, Dylan Thomas, him reading his Christmas poem. And I would listen to it over and over and over again, sitting in that little, you know, booth with the record player and hearing these poets—Sylvia Plath—you know, hearing these poets recite their own words. And, uh—and I found it absolutely—absolutely enthralling. 

[00:30:58.75] And then I had this amazing teacher, uh, Sher—Dr. Sherwood Cummings, who was a Mark Twain scholar. And, um—and he looked like Mark Twain [laughs]. He had white hair and a white mustache. And, uh—and he took me under his wing. And he—he provided the kind of mentorship that I dreamed of in the—in the academy. That I think, you know, all students dream of. 

[00:31:40.26] And how it came about was—was [laughs] he had assigned Howard Nemerov's "The Vacuum" for us to read. And the following class meeting, you know, he was going to have a discussion with all of us. And so everyone's like—did everyone read—you know, Dr. Cummings is like, Did everyone read the assignment? Howard Nemerov's "The Vacuum." 

[00:32:12.36] And we're like, Yeah, yeah. So what did you think? And so students were like commenting blah, blah. And then I raised my hand—and, you know, this is something that's like weird for me to—I don't know, I thought it was out of character, but I guess it was. I said to Dr. Cummings, I can—I can write better poetry than that. It was like such a freshman thing to say, you know. 

[00:32:42.24] And Dr. Cummings, instead of like—you know how some faculty will just like crush you, right? He's like, You do? Would you like to read it for us, Richard? And I'm like—you know, finally, I'm going to get my break, right, and get—become—and get discovered. And so I'm like, Yes. And he said, Next class meeting, bring two or three poems and then be ready to read them in class. I'm like—I'm so—I'm overjoyed. So the next class meeting, I bring, you know, three or four of these poems. And he's discussing something or other. And then he sets us—and then he's like—he looks at the clock, he goes, Richard, did you bring your poems? We have about 15, 20 minutes. 

[00:33:36.79] And I said, Yes. And all my classmates are like—they're all like looking at me, right. And I read these poems and everyone is like applauding, et cetera. And I'm like, yes! And so Dr. Cummings says, That was very good. Do you have more? And I'm like, Awesome. Do I! 

[00:34:01.34] And, so I'm like, Yes. He goes, Well, we'll find some time later on in the semester where you can bring more poems and read them to the class. And I'm like, Oh man, this is awesome. So I used to ride a bicycle. I was riding my bike home from class. And on my way—you know how you rewind the tapes and you play everything over? About two blocks—about two blocks before I got to the house I was living at—not my house, I mean, it was where I was living—this great shame bathed over me and the sense of like really deep humiliation. And I'm thinking, Oh my God, how embarrassing. My poems are shit. You know, they're like juvenile. They're like sophomoric. Awful—awful creations. 

[00:35:03.00] And I was like—I was just in turmoil. And I would—I pulled them out when once I got home and I read them over and over again. I'm like, How could I do this? How could I subject myself? How could I think that I was like good? 

[00:35:25.67] And so the next class meeting, you know, Dr. Cummings is up there lecturing about something—the assignment or leading the class in some discussion. And class is over and I stayed back. And I said, Dr. Cummings, could I talk to you? He's like, Yes. Yes, Richard, how can I help you? And I said—and I told him what I just got through telling you, that on my way back there was this sea of humiliation that washed over me, and why. And he looked at me, and he goes, Richard, now I can teach you. [Laughs.] 

[00:36:08.18] LAURA AUGUSTA:  [Laughs.] Wow. 

[00:36:12.88] RICHARD LOU:  And—and I'm not kidding, Laura, for the next year and a half until I graduated, he and his wife had me over every Wednesday to their home for dinner. And then after dinner, he and I would go out for walks. And he would talk to me about his life, about art, about literature, et cetera. And it was the most wonderful thing that I will always cherish. You know. 

[00:36:43.19] So I said, I want to be like Dr. Cummings. To be that kind of teacher. You know, not to wield the kind of power that we have indiscriminately, you know, capriciously, you know, but to help students find their own voice. And so I was lucky that way, to have really amazing teachers, you know, like Bob Schneider, who was also the same kind of way, and would open up—would show photographs and—and dissect them in a way that allowed us to enter in through a portal that he opened, to have a very full and enriching engagement with the image. Or Dr. Cummings, you know, and he—his welcoming, you know, and his nurturing. 

[00:37:45.11] And then and then I had other teachers, like Eileen Cowin who was amazing—she was the photo teacher—who was amazing at, you know, dissecting images and so welcoming. And then my sculpture teacher, Jim Jenkins. And Jim Jenkins was a—he's a kinetic sculptor. All of these—they're at Cal State Fullerton. And he was contracted by—by Louis Malle, a filmmaker, to create a sculpture for one of the—one of his movies. And—and Jim—and Professor Jenkins asked a graduate student in sculpture and me to help him build this sculpture. And I was like, I'm not a sculpture student, you know. I'm a photo student. 

[00:38:46.10] But he's like—and so he wrote a note to all my faculty saying Richard is going to be working on this sculpture for the next week. Please excuse him from class. And we would work from eight in the morning till 10, 11, 12 o'clock at night for a solid week until this thing was built. And then we get—we got to deliver it. 

[00:39:09.15] And so those are the sorts of things, you know, that I was like lucky enough to—to participate in and to get a glimpse of like this whole other life, you know. And I'll never forget that, always be grateful to those amazing teachers, right, that opened the door to another way of thinking about, you know, art making, what it took, the sort of labor—intellectual labor and physical labor and creative labor. 

[00:40:01.85] And, um—and—and I think the most important thing is joy. You know, the sort of joy they had in not just teaching, but in their own creative pursuits. 'Cause I helped Jim Jenkins do other stuff, too, a few other projects as well, and how welcoming he was, you know. 

[00:40:29.82] But, you know, Dr. Cummings was at a whole other—whole other level. So I got a really great education at Cal State Fullerton, to say the least. And, um, that really sustained—has sustained me, you know. 

[00:40:52.70] LAURA AUGUSTA:  What does your family think about studying art? 

[00:40:56.12] RICHARD LOU:  Okay [laughs]. My dad was deeply disappointed. [Laura Augusta laughs.] But he got on board later on. Now my mom was supportive like from day one. You know. And for someone that had up to a second-grade education and all of a sudden, your son is going to college, you know—but she was like, You're going to study art? Good. Awesome, go. Go, go, go. And my dad was just like—when I told him, he was like, Oh [sighs]. [Laura Augusta laughs.] You know, 'cause he wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer, right. You know, the regular stuff. But he came around. But I'll never forget a couple—a couple of things. One time—I think I mentioned Dominic—Dominic Doyle, who lived with us, and he was from Oregon. And he was a butcher and worked with my dad and a lovely fellow and a dear friend of my father. 

[00:41:55.78] And, um—so we were working—I think I was digging a hole, that my dad—he wanted to plant some trees and the two of them were like—here was the relationship with working my father, which I loved working with my father. When I was a young kid, he would do most of the work and I would watch. Then the older I got, then he and I would be working together. And then the older I got, then he would be sitting telling me stories while I did all the work [laughs]. And that was awesome, you know. 

[00:42:35.93] But anyways, I'm like—I think I was digging a hole or doing something, you know, digging for footings for concrete or something. And Dominic says, Hey, Lou, so Richard's getting an MFA. And he's like, What's that? And my father said, Yeah, that's a master's degree. He said, That means he gets a smaller shovel. [They laugh.] 

[00:43:07.43] But my dad had like that kind of ama—really amazing sharp wit, you know. But I'll never forget that—because he wanted to be an engineer, right—and that I got in a show at MIT. And when I—when I—the folks at MIT contacted me, called me and said I was—they selected my work to be in the show, I'm like, just wait till I tell Dad. 

[00:43:48.65] So I drove over there and I said, Hey, Dad, guess what? And I had already shown like in Italy and in New York and all that. And I would tell him, he would like, Oh, that's awesome, son, that's awesome. You know. And I said, Hey, Dad, guess where I have a show at? And he's like, Where? I said, MIT. And he goes, MIT? I'm like, Yeah. "The MIT?" I'm like, Yes. "Oh my god, I can't believe it. I can't believe it. You're going to have a show at MIT?" And I said Yes. And he says, We're going to the reception. 

[00:44:26.93] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Wow. 

[00:44:28.07] RICHARD LOU:  "We're going to the reception." But Laura, he died. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Aw. 

[00:44:35.02] RICHARD LOU:  Yep. The reception was, I think, in October and he died in September. 

[00:44:39.73] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Oh wow. 

[00:44:42.61] RICHARD LOU:  But he got to know that I was having a show at MIT. But it was so funny. It was finally something relatable, right. 

[00:44:53.51] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Yeah. Yeah, a place he knew. 

[00:44:56.73] RICHARD LOU:  A place he knew. 

[00:45:00.42] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. So you finished at Fullerton in '83, right? 

[00:45:03.99] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah, right. 

[00:45:05.22] LAURA AUGUSTA:  And did you know you wanted to do an MFA right away? 

[00:45:09.27] RICHARD LOU:  It was my last year—when I was a senior, that's when I like—Oh. 'Cause at, you know—at Cal State Fullerton, there was a lot of—not a lot—I mean, no, there were a lot of courses that I took that were like with graduate students, you know, seniors and graduate students. 

[00:45:28.70] You know. Like this wonderful six-hour a week critique class that—that Eileen Cowin ran. That was awesome. And in my advanced photo class with Darryl Curran, um, there were graduate students in there, you know. And so we would have critiques and discussions, et cetera. 

[00:45:49.45] So that was like—number one, like there's such a thing as like an m—a master's degree in whatever I'm interested in? I didn't even know. And so I would hear other—I would hear the graduate students talk about their—what they were doing. And then there were other students that were interested in—you know, like, there like that were seniors like me that were interested in getting master's degree. 

[00:46:17.42] So I'm like, yeah, I want to do that, too. I want to pursue this. I want to keep learning and challenge—feeling challenged, et cetera. And so it wasn't until my senior year that I'm like—that I made up my mind, this is what I'm going to—I'm going to get a master's degree. 

[00:46:37.13] Number one, as I mentioned, I didn't even know such a thing existed until I got to Cal State Fullerton. And then number two, because I saw the intensity of the other graduate students' work and the breadth and scope of it, that I'm like, I want to do that. You know. I want to be able to find that space, that intellectual space where I'm challenged to do work like that, you know. And—because what I've been doing is just like a small taste, right. And my—I think I guess my appetite had grown a lot larger than what I was doing. 

[00:47:26.20] And then the other thing, too, is that a lot of it had to do with Dr. Cummings, too, you know, creating this ideal, right. And, um—and also because faculty in the art department were encouraging me, too, especially Eileen Cowin and, um—and Dr. Cummings, that this is something that I could—I could do. So then that's what—so I did. 

[00:48:02.04] So back in the day before the internet, you know, you would go to the library and check out books about graduate schools, right. Every year they would print out these annuals. So that's what I did. I went to the library in—in Chula Vista, checked out the book, and then started going through it and writing down addresses. 

[00:48:26.65] And I think I wrote—I think I wrote to like almost 100 graduate—graduate schools and—probably not 100, but not all of them had photo. But I had to ask. And so, um—one—one of the schools I was interested was actually the school in Buffalo, New York, um, because, um, a photographer that I really loved his work—now I can't remember his name—oh, Danny Lyon, with a y, was teaching there. 

[00:49:13.70] And another school I was interested was in San Francisco State. It may be—'cause I was interested in going to that school for my undergraduate, but I didn't. And I'm like, maybe San Francisco State. So I wrote to all these schools and I thought I would like process them in a very scientific kind of way. But I didn't. 

[00:49:36.60] And so Sam Wang from Clemson University wrote me a handwritten note on a little yellow piece of paper, like that [holds hands up in a square]. And I said, Damn, I'll just go there. [They laugh.] You know. Completely impulsive, based on emotion, that someone—some human, rather than what all the other schools sent, a form letter, here's how you apply, this is what our program is. Here's our brochure, look it over. 

[00:50:10.46] And then Sam Wang wrote, Come on. Come to Clemson, pretty much. And I'm like, That's it. And so—and then the other part, too, I was like, going to Clemson is like the perfect place for me because number—you know, it's the opposite of where I am. [Laughs.] I'm coming from Los Angeles, and San Diego and Tijuana, like super cosmopolitan. And especially in LA, I mean you're right like in the middle of a major art scene, you know, with major faculty members that are like doing stuff in New York and Chicago, blah, blah, blah—not that they're not doing that in South Carolina. 

[00:50:56.16] But I was thinking to myself, if I can go to a small—I mean, a college in the middle of nowhere, and if I can sustain an art practice there with—with much less stimulation then Los Angeles, then this is—then this is a real deal for me. You know, so—you know—so when I left, it was actually my sister and I—my sister, Linda. We drove to Clemson together. And Laura, I've never been east of Yuma, Arizona. 

[00:51:40.33] LAURA AUGUSTA:  [Laughs.] That's a lot of country you drove across. 

[00:51:44.11] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. And—and so—okay, so we try—I mean, we lived in Yuma, so that was all familiar territory. And then crossing Arizona, I mean, that was all—even though I've never been there, it was familiar territory, high desert, right? New Mexico, West Texas, it was like, yeah, you know, we've driven through the Sonoran Desert to go see my grandmother in Culiacán lots and lots of times. So that kind of terrain is like very, very familiar. But when we got to East Texas, that was a mind blower. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[00:52:22.20] RICHARD LOU:  I'll never forget driving into Shreveport, Louisiana, Linda and I looked at each other, and we're like, What's that smell? What is that weird smell? What's that weird smell? And it wasn't until the next day that what we were smelling was moisture—is the moisture, the water in the air, is the humidity. We were, you know—

[00:52:44.88] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Yeah. 

[00:52:45.36] RICHARD LOU:  We've never encountered something like that. And then, of course, the vegetation, that was—for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles, forest, forest, forest, forest, forest, water everywhere, water everywhere. That was like a mind-blower. And, um—and so then we drive in to Clemson and we stay the night across [laughs]—across the street from Del Taco at the Holiday Inn. 

[00:53:23.38] And so Linda and I are just like incredulous at what we're looking at. And she's never seen anything like that, and of course, neither have I. And, um, the next morning we get up, and it's like, hey, let's have breakfast, because she leaves the next morning, the next—that day. 

[00:53:43.14] So we went [laughs] to Del Taco and Linda says, I'll have the huevos rancheros. And the young woman at the counter is like, Excuse me, ma'am? We don't have that. [They laugh.] And I'm looking at the menu, and like, it's right there, you know. And Linda's like, yeah, huevos rancheros, right there. Huevos rancheros. 

[00:54:11.79] "Excuse me, Ma'am, we don't have huevos rancheros." And so I'm like, Oh. So then I pronounced it the way I thought she would understand, right. And then she's like, Oh, we have that. And so my sister was so mad. But it was like we were in a whole other world, right. [Laura Augusta laughs.] 

[00:54:34.57] And we've never been in any other world other than a Mexicanized world, right. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[00:54:44.43] RICHARD LOU:  But we've never been in a region where, um, there was like a whole other way of speaking and—and et cetera. But the one thing I did find in the South is that it felt a lot like Mexico, because in the South, people like have—place great value in family, and there's a sense of—especially in the more rural areas, there's a very formal way of communicating. 

[00:55:17.78] There's a sense of formality that I was accustomed to growing up in Tijuana, right. And especially the way you address strangers, et cetera. And people are super friendly. And so—and as I mentioned before, that was like—and growing up in Tijuana, that sense of community, that tight community, just like something that I missed when we moved to—to the United States in Southern California. But then something that I found when I moved to the South, oddly enough. 

[00:55:50.48] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. That's really interesting. What—what—but in that period of time when you're going from being a senior at Fullerton to moving to your MFA program, what kind of work are you making? 

[00:56:05.36] RICHARD LOU:  I was making—they were narratives. And, um—and so I was making these diptychs. And they were based on—kind of based on—um, the second image would be like this insight. So you would see—so the first image was like a larger point of view, like an establishing shot, like in filmmaking, right. So it'd be an establishing shot. And then the second image would be like a close-up of something that you might have missed in the establishing shot. So—so that was the kind of work. And it was all done at night. I loved night photography, black and white. And then they were all—the two images were printed on one piece of photographic paper. So I had to create an easel with little doors. 

[00:56:58.22] And so there was like—so I had to like use two enlargers and print the image on one enlarger then have the negative in another enlarger, you know, close the door over here, open the door over there, go to the next enlarger, print. So that sort of thing. And, um—and in actual—it's odd that you would ask me because I just found them—not just found them, but when I went back home a couple of months ago in September, October, all that work I thought was lost, 'cause I hadn't seen it in—since 1993, or '[9]4 or '[9]5. 

[00:57:45.18] And then Robert Sanchez—my good friend, Robert Sanchez, found it. It was in the painting studio at Mesa College. Somehow it got moved over there and he found the box. And so he gave it back to me. And I'm like—

[00:57:59.76] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Wow. 

[00:58:01.08] RICHARD LOU:  And that was the—that was the only work that I was interested in. 'Cause when I graduated from Fullerton, I brought all my portfolios home, et cetera. And then after maybe a week or two from being home, I threw them all in the trash, except for—like all my 2D design work, 3D design work, you know, all this stuff. And it's like, yeah—but I did keep my final portfolio in photography, because that was important to me. But everything else, I just threw in the trash. And I'll never forget, I threw it all in the trash, I walked back into the house, and I'm in the kitchen, I look out the window, and my mom and dad are pulling everything out of the trash. [They laugh.] 

[00:58:49.43] I'm like, Okay. But yeah, so I was making like this narrative work that was, you know, concept based. So yeah, so that's the kind of work I was doing. 

[END OF TRACK aaa_lou24_2of6_digvid_m.]

[00:00:02.35] LAURA AUGUSTA:  All right. So welcome back. We took a little bit of a hiatus. Um. It is now already the end of February, February 26, 2024, and we're coming back into our conversation about your time as an undergraduate and really the decision—the point at which you felt comfortable becoming an artist, stepping into being an artist. 

[00:00:23.74] Uh. We've been talking a lot about important teachers and important moments from that time, and I think, um, maybe we should just continue right there. And, um—

[00:00:34.09] RICHARD LOU:  Sure. 

[00:00:34.80] LAURA AUGUSTA:  There were some people that you mentioned. Maybe we start there. 

[00:00:38.38] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah, so I think—I think I might have talked a little bit about my being torn between pursuing creative writing and the visual arts, and my decision to go into the visual arts because of the—the visual arts appear to have endless possibilities that was really appealing to me versus text on a page, which was pretty much how writing was mostly approached. And, um—but in the visual arts, it could be text on the page, too. So, um—so that really cemented, you know, and—my desire to pursue the visual arts, and this is at my junior, senior year at Cal State Fullerton where I was still kind of flirting with going into the creative writing program at the graduate—at the graduate level, taking poetry from—advanced poetry classes from Dr. Schwartz and American literature classes from Dr. Cummings, who was my mentor. 

[00:01:52.25] But the—but the other faculty members that were fundamental in—in not only an inspiration but giving me a grounding and how to approach my work conceptually were on the photo side, Darryl Curran and Eileen Cowin. And then on the sculptural side, because I was trained as a photographer, but, you know, I think I'm mostly known as an installation artist and performance artist, and that—and Jim Jenkins, my sculpture teacher was certainly influential—and my father—was certainly influential in me interested in working in the round, and working in time and space—and working in time and space. 

[00:02:43.63] But Eileen Cowin was really—she and I—the kind of work that I was interested, which was narrative—she was—she was the perfect mentor for that because her work, the docudramas that she was doing in the late—in the '70s and '80s were really inspiring to me in regards to, um, marrying a narrative form with the visual form. And then she—I remember her showing me Fred Lonidier's work out of San Diego, and that was really inspiring as well. And then the way that she would critique work and be so thoughtful about it and—and also bringing in references from film and literature, et cetera, and, um—and politics somewhat into the visual arts arena was really incredibly refreshing. 

[00:03:42.09] And, um—and with Darryl Curran, I'll never—he was my also my photo teacher, but I'll never forget the way he approached it—well, this one particular critique was really eye opening for me and where he—'cause we were in a class where he conducted the class with seniors and graduate students in photography, and one of the graduate students was showing his work, these really beautiful portraits of homeless or—and—in Los Angeles and shot with a four by five and sort of in the Richard Avedon style. 

[00:04:24.04] And Darryl Curran said to him, And? You know, we've seen this sort of social documentary and it could feel sort of exploitative and et cetera, and the student was like taken aback. And Darryl said, What's their stories? And he—and the student says, Well, you know, um, I didn't really talk to them much. Just asked them if I could take their photograph. And Darryl said, Well, why didn't you talk to them and have, like—have a relationship, you know, and to see how that can move the needle on your photographs. 

[00:05:10.25] And then the guy said—you know, once you're kind of cornered, [laughs] you sort of just answer any old way. He said, Well, I guess I could write down their stories, but I'd have to go back and find them blah, blah. And then Darryl Curran said, Just make it up. It's all a construction anyways. 

[00:05:30.94] For me, I was like, what? It's all—it's all a construction. And that just opened up a whole door for me in regards to relating to my work and the trajectory that it could have in regards of making work that's—that's —that kind of aligns itself with seeking the truth, whatever that may be, but through really storytelling. And because storytelling is—is many of the times much more powerful than actual just providing facts to people, which is what photography used to be able to do, you know, with it's amazing claim to reality, not so much the case now. But, um—but how you can tell stories and move people because of the emotional and psychological connection that we all desire to have with each other, and how those stories can facilitate those sorts of connections, right? 

[00:06:39.92] And so, you know, Darryl—it was a revelation to me when Darryl said that. I don't know if I ever told him that, and hopefully he's still alive where I can maybe send him an email of how impactful 'cause he just said it—[laughs] I don't want to say glib, but in an offhand way, you know, just make it up. It's all—everything's a construction. [Laughs.] You know. 

[00:07:06.33] But, um—and as I said, that was, um—his epiphany that I—well, it may not have been an epiphany on Darryl's case, but it certainly was one that I embraced, you know, and so—wholeheartedly. And I repeat that to my students. It's a construction. So—so they were incredibly—those faculty members were incredibly important to—to the formation of how I was to, like, carry on really for the rest—for the rest of my life. 

[00:07:44.64] And so, um—then I—and I remember, um—and then also being part of a really large art school, which was—Cal State Fullerton was, I think, 36,000 students at that time, and maybe the art department was around 1,000 or something like that I think. But it was a really large school of art. And—I think it was a department then I think. It might be a school of right now. I don't know. 

[00:08:15.03] And then I decided—and I didn't know there was such a thing—that there was such a thing as graduate school. And so I decided to, yeah, this is something that I would like to pursue, which was—I had no idea, until I was, you know, an undergraduate student that I could keep going. Now I've heard of doctors before, you know, but that—I couldn't see that path, in regards to pursuing a graduate degree in the fine arts. There was no path, no path—there was no path in my mind until someone said, Yeah, you can do this. 

[00:08:59.61] And it wasn't—it was just happenstance that some of my colleagues in—at Cal State Fullerton, number one, were in graduate school so that was became apparent to me. But then some of the people that I was graduating with were interested in going to graduate school and were applying—were starting to apply, and that became—and then that became, like—because my classmates were doing it, it became a concrete possibility. Rather than seeing graduate students already in a program, was like seeing my classmates matriculating into—possibly into a program. And I'm like, Oh, you know I can—I can do—I can do this as well. 

[00:09:41.24] And so I did. And I looked for—you know, back then, there was no internet for people like us, just military folks and science folks. So you had to go to the library and get a book on all the graduate programs in the country, and I wrote to a whole slew of graduate schools with photography as their concentration. And, um—and I received a handwritten note from Sam Wang at Clemson University, and I threw out my entire rational scientific approach by comparing programs, you know, 'cause everyone else sent me a form letter saying this is how you apply, this is what our program is. But he didn't. He wrote—it was a little yellow piece of paper almost like the size of a medium-sized Post-It, and a handwritten note that said, Come to Clemson. You know, to study—to study photography. Sam, Sam Wang. So I'm like that's it. I'll go there. [Laughs.] 

[00:10:52.02] And I'm glad I did, you know. And, um—and here was my reasoning, Laura, is that I was thinking Clemson is the perfect place because here I am, this city kid, grew up in a huge—I mean, this megalopolis, if—if there wasn't Camp Pendleton between Los Angeles and San Diego, it would be one city by—it would have been one city already 30 years ago. And then Tijuana—Tijuana, San Diego, and Los Angeles, I mean, you know—it's—it's like this huge—the density is mind boggling. 

[00:11:34.50] And so I thought, well, it'll be—I'll be going to the part of the country I've never seen before. I've never been east of Yuma, Arizona. And then I'll be going to a state in population that was smaller than the county I lived in, San Diego County and by a lake. And I'm a desert person, and I'm like—

[00:12:02.19] And the—and the—the other thing that I thought of is, like, if I can go and—and, you know, people make art wherever, but this was my, you know, young person's limited view of the world—I was thinking that if I can go from Los Angeles or San Diego where there's—where it's like a—a mega center for culture making—to a very small with a place with a limited access to major centers of culture making—you know, Atlanta, which was two hours away was the closest major center, and if I could sustain an art practice and—and keep—and keep a passion for art making and keep a passion for—and maintaining my curiosity about art making in its potential, if I could do that at Clemson, then I could—I could do that anywhere. 

[00:13:09.94] And I don't say it as, like, well, here's this place bereft of things, but it's certainly not Los Angeles. And it's certainly not San Diego. And where I would have to really look inward for—and be creatively sustainable. And so, um—so that's—I felt that was the challenge. It's like okay. Is this—is this a passion that's sustainable for the rest of my life, which I guess it's been since I'm 65. [They laugh.] 

[00:13:49.57] And, um—and, you know, what is it going to be like in this whole new strange place? And so my sister—my oldest sister Linda and I drove out. The time has—time has come, and it was time for me to travel and stay in Clemson, South Carolina. And by that time, I had already been interested in my future wife Maricela, who was—who I was to have four children with. And, um—and so Linda and I leave for Clemson, South Carolina. 

[00:14:26.87] And she's never been—you know, she's never been east of Yuma. We're both city—kind of city people, never grew up in a rural area, and, um—and desert people. And so off we go. And, of course, the first three days is super familiar with us—to us because we're driving across Arizona and New Mexico and Western Texas, and [laughs] it all looks kind of the same except New Mexico is actually much prettier than Arizona—southern Arizona and west Texas. 

[00:15:06.02] But, um—but then when we get to eastern Texas, that's like, what? Trees and it's—and we're like, What is this? You know, we've seen forests before. We have to go up to the mountains of San Diego, but, like, forest in the flat area? [Laughs.] That was mind blowing. 

[00:15:25.85] And then we crossed into Louisiana, into Shreveport and had dinner there at this shrimp place. And we were, like, scratching our heads because we kept smelling something that we had never smelled before, and we—I didn't realize it until I—until much later that it was the humidity in the air that we were smelling. And, uh—and that was—you know, Linda and I just kept going, What's that smell? [Laughs.] What? What is—we don't know. What is that smell? We don't know what that smell is. 

[00:16:04.15] And so—you know, and then I've never been far from my family. You know, and I love my family dearly. And so we get to Clemson, South Carolina, and it's like lush and beautiful and a mind blower. And, um—and then the first cultural difference appeared before us when Linda—the next morning, we wake up and have to take Linda to the Atlanta airport that—in the early evening. So we get up for breakfast, and we go to the Del Taco in Clemson, South Carolina. And my sister Linda says, I'll have the huevos rancheros. [Laughs] Like that. And the poor woman that was at the counter didn't know what she meant. And the huevos rancheros was on the menu. And she couldn't understand my sister, and my sister couldn't understand her. 

[00:17:01.19] And so until I—until I pretended to say it how I thought a Southerner would say huevos rancheros, and then we were square. My sister after being irritated for 15 minutes got her meal that she wanted, and then but for me that was like, oh, I'm in a whole other world. 

[00:17:23.34] And so the other part, too, that was surprising about the South to me is how similar it is to me in regards to how I grew up in Mexico. People are, like, generous and friendly, and there's a sense of community, and there's a sense of—there's a sense of family, and also a formality. So, you know, I was growing up in Mexico there's like a formal way how we speak to people and, et cetera, and in the South generally, it—it—it was familiar. It was familiar to me in that sense. Of course, you know, history—obviously history is completely different, et cetera, but I felt really comfortable living in the South. 

[00:18:15.29] And, um—and so anyways so there were like all these new things that—new experiences for me like seeing fireflies for the first time. And I was walking across Clemson campus and school was about to start in another week and I'm like rubbing my eyes 'cause I think there's something wrong with me, because I see lights floating around and that sort of thing. And, um, I realized that they were fireflies, and the only the only reference that I had was "Pirates of the Caribbean" at Disneyland. 

[00:18:55.51] And I'm like—and that was—the reference I'm like these are fireflies because they look just like the fireflies of the "Pirates Caribbean." So I go to—go from real life to a simulacra and then back again in order for this new world to make sense to me. So that was bizarre. But, you know, first time I've ever seen snowfall, and sweet tea [laughs] was a revelation to me. So. 

[00:19:26.77] But anyways—so that was my introduction to—to the South and living in the South and having a real deep relationship with—with—with dear friends that took me in, fed me, made sure—made sure I, you know, didn't starve to death because I could only afford a one meal a day plan while I was at the—was—while I was at Clemson and no weekends, no weekend meals. [Laughs.] So, you know, I had a little bit of money but—from my assistantship but not enough to feed myself. And for those of that have been to graduate school know what I—know what I'm talking about. 

[00:20:13.31] So a lot of my f—colleagues that were in graduate school would make sure I would be fed somehow. Like, in particular Jo Carroll Mitchell-Rogers and her mom and her sister would take me in, and her mom who was a single parent and Anne Mitchell—Anne Josey now—would—because I was handy, she would hire me to do stuff and then every Sunday would feed me and would include me in family dinners. And so, you know, that's like—when people take you in and take care of you, it's like you never forget 'em. 

[00:20:54.23] You know, and my dear friend, Robert Spencer, who would, you know, eat with me every weekend and—and he would make sure he wouldn't finish his food [laughs] so I could eat half of his food. And Phyllis Barnard, when her husband would come up and they would take me out to eat and—yeah. So there—so no one does anything on their own, Laura, right. Everyone—we depend on each other so much. 

[00:21:26.66] And, um—you know, so anyways, so I get this—so here's this California kid in the Department of Art at Clemson, South Carolina, and there was a major adjustment for me, because I came from a super-conceptual school at Cal State Fullerton, you know, with Eileen Cowin, making these docudramas and et cetera, and then I come into a much more modernist-focused faculty. 

[00:22:04.47] And so at first, it was a struggle, 'cause I remember my first periodic review. And I worked really hard, you know, and I showed them my notebook [laughs] that I've been writing, you know, for the first two months of my stay. I'd just been furiously writing day and night, day and night, developing this concept. And when I showed my notebook to my faculty, they were like, What the fuck? You know, I could see the disappointment and some and head scratching in many others. And there were a couple that were like, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I wasn't getting that signal as much as the "What the hell?" signal. And so there was—it became kind of a struggle at first, and I even thought about leaving Clemson until I realized, no, this is the best place for me because I'm going to have to really fight. 

[00:23:07.03] And I could have gone back to Fullerton, where they—you know, I would have been very comfortable in that conceptual playground, but I did—I wouldn't have learned how to defend myself and to look at history for precedence, and—and take a deep dive into art history in regards to other photographers that were working in the narrative form to—so I could show that I have a really long lineage—well, not all that long back then [laughs]—but that I had a lineage. You know. A photographic lineage where this type of work was not only accepted but was powerful. You know, whether it was Duane Michals or Fred Lonidier, or Eileen Cowin. 

[00:24:06.68] And then later on—well, just—and László Moholy-Nagy, all those people that were kind of on the margins but accepted at the same time. Um. Oscar Rejlander, all those folks that were part of the large battle of trying to figure out the direction of photography. And Henry Emerson—Peter Henry Emerson, those folks. So I had to, like, become really familiar with that so I could lay the groundwork for the acceptability of what I was doing. And—and project, right, that not only what I was doing had a history to it but was legitimate. 

[00:24:58.93] And so I'm like, no, I'm going to stay, and it was scary, you know, and—'cause I'm far from home, too, and then having these philosophical battles. But at the same time though I saw the value in those philosophical battles. And, um, you know—well, [laughs] we'll see. 

[00:25:26.62] But I think that—but the other part that I learned as well is—is to understand where those physical battles are coming from at an emotional level and a psychological level. And as my father said to me—I remember because I was complaining to him, I guess. I know I was complaining to him. It's so Chinese of him to reply this way. He's like, Richard, in China, every third person is a teacher, so you can learn from everyone. And so—so then I took it further and just said—I mean not further, but I just applied it in a different kind of way and said, everyone's a teacher, I'm going to learn from everyone, you know. And of course, my mom was saying, Kick their ass [laughs], right. But my dad was like, No, that's—well, he didn't say don't listen to your mom. He just said, Be respectful, and—and learn from everyone. 

[00:26:31.64] And so, you know—so I blended the two, which is my mom saying "kick their ass," which is be prepared. Or be steeped in knowledge, right, to defend yourself. And then my father in regards to being—not allowing for any kind of emotional or psychological barriers and be able to penetrate them to get the knowledge you need, and to be able to appreciate the work that everyone was doing. Because the faculty that I studied with, Sam Wang and John Acorn and Ireland Regnier and Mike Vatalaro and Syd Cross, were all amazing—Tom Dimond. They were all amazing at their craft. You know, especially Sam Wang, who was so far ahead. 

[00:27:30.79] I remember him—my first semester, he invites me over to his house to show me his computer. 1984. I've never seen a computer other than on TV or in the movies. And he has a computer in his home, and I think it was a Commodore 64. And he's—and he's making digital images. 1984, making digital images. 

[00:27:56.97] And I didn't have the head space to understand what he was doing. He was so far ahead. You know. And I'm coming from Southern California, you know, and no one was photographing digitally in my department. Everyone was still using the wet process. And, um—and here he is, and I come into his house. And I hear this rattling, you know, and he's like, Hey, come here, Richard, come here, let me show you. And we're looking at this yellow or green screen. It looked like hell. And I'm like—and I'm thinking to—back of my head, I'm like, Oh my gosh. What am I doing here? This looks like hell, you know. And then he—then the rattling stops. He tears off this piece of paper. I didn't know then it was a dot matrix printer, and he shows me the landscape that he just printed from a digital file, 1984. And I'm like, what is he doing? 

[00:29:02.66] I didn't—I didn't understand what he was doing, and he was—like I keep saying, he was so far ahead of—of certainly me, and any other experience that I've had with a teacher in regards to this incredible embrace of technology, you know, that was really—at the same time, I couldn't understand it even though photography is so technologically-based. But that was so new to me and so foreign to me. It—it wasn't until after I left, like several years, that I started to understand what he was doing. And then I went actually went back and studied with him when I was on sabbatical from Mesa College. 

[00:29:55.09] And so I go—I studied at Clemson, and I was doing performance pieces and installation pieces and ceramic pieces and, of course, my photographic work. And, you know these—I was working on these narratives where I would photograph myself as other people. And what I was doing was actually—they were called Inner City Portraits/Self Portraits, and what I was—I realized what I was doing it was—was that I missed home, and I was recreating the inner city in Clemson, South Carolina, you know. 

[00:30:33.02] And I guess it has an inner city. It might be one alley where the—the kids get drunk and eat pizza and, you know, maybe not in that order. But that was me projecting my lived self into this foreign space so I could feel at home in a sense. And so I did that—I did that series, and that was my thesis work along with a bunch of cyanotypes and gum bichromates that I would write on and tell other stories. 

[00:31:10.80] And so before I left Clemson, South Carolina—and then now with my wife, Maricela, 'cause she joined me for my second semester there. And, uh—and the poor thing, how she endured. Because she didn't speak English, and I'll never forget, Laura, on our way back to Clemson—or me back to Clemson, her for the second time, 'cause she flew in and then drove back out with me—and then we got married. 

[00:31:44.44] And we're driving out—we're not even out of San Diego County, and she says, Well, I don't speak a lot of—I don't speak any English. But at least we brought a TV, and I can watch Mexican TV stations. And, yeah. And I'm like, Oh, what do I say to her? 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  No. 

[00:32:08.02] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. And I said, Honey, there's no Mexican TV stations. "There's not?" I'm like, No, I'm sorry. She goes, It's okay, at least I can listen to Mexican radio. So I said, No, there's not that either, and she didn't talk until we got to Arizona. [Laughs.] 'Cause she just sat there thinking, Uh-oh. But we had a great time nonetheless. 

And, um—but anyways, on my—so I made a promise to myself that before I left Clemson, that I was going to this gallery in Atlanta. Now I'm going to forget what it was called. But it later on became the contemporary art gallery, and, um, then I was going to show my—I wanted to show my work to the curator there. So literally on our drive out—you know, we're loaded up. My truck is loaded up with all of our stuff, and I pull into the parking lot of the gallery. And it used to be a middle school. And actually, Arts Papers out of the—out of Atlanta came out of that gallery space. And so they had all sorts of—I mean, it was this really amazing—place—space. 

[00:33:37.73] And so I went over there, and I said, I'd like to talk to the curator. And they said, Oh, do you have an appointment. I'm like, No. I'd like to show this person my work. "Oh, you don't have an appointment?" I'm like, No. "Can you come back tomorrow?" I'm like, No, I'm leaving for California. "Oh, well, before you leave—" I'm like, No, my truck is parked in your parking lot, and I'm on my way to California. "Oh, oh." 

[00:34:05.82] And they were kind enough—and that's what—the South is awesome like that, you know. And they were kind—in California, they would say, just send us your slides. [Laughs.] And they were kind enough to say, Oh, just wait a moment. She's in a meeting right, and—and she'll be out in 10 minutes. Can you wait? I'm like, yeah, I can wait 10 minutes. 

[00:34:32.24] And so I'm waiting there. She comes out, and she's like—you know, we introduce ourselves. I tell her my story. And she's like, Well, you're a photographer? She goes, Well, let's see your work. And she says, Unfortunately, though, today was the deadline for the—what was it called—the Atlanta Photo Salon, or something like that. And—and she's like, So we really can't accept your work, but let's take a look at it. 

[00:35:01.24] And so she looked at—she looked at it, and she said, We'll accept your work. [They laugh.] And so it was in the Photo Salon, and it was written—my work was written in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Arts Papers and et cetera, and I'm like, holy smokes. You know. 

[00:35:21.30] And I guess it was the sort of—it was like a dream come true because I loved that space, and—and what its mission was, you know, to provide a space for local and—local artists and national artists. But that was my first sort of exposure to working with a real gallery, and, um—and that was really motivating, you know. It really gave me a sort of confidence. Not that I ever lacked for confidence, I think. But I always kind of like, well, you know [laughs], little old me, sort of thing. 

[00:36:18.23] But anyways, so I get back home, and the first order of business is really, get a job because my then-wife, Maricela—she took care of her family. And so I'm like, I'm going to set aside my—my art career, get a job, and start supporting—helping support everybody, which I did for—I don't know—maybe a decade or so. 

[00:36:49.57] And, um—and so, you know. we had children before we had children. Which was her—let's see, Benjamin, Ricardo, Fernando, and Sonia. So there were, like, six of them that we were supporting. And, um, then Maricela got a job too, and so we were all supporting them. And then we were—Maricela was pregnant with Gloria, and then she didn't work. 

[00:37:21.92] And so then I became the sole support for a number of years, and, you know—but then little by little I'm like, Okay, I have a routine. I'm working at a junior high as a teacher's aide in special education and working with Ms. Boatwright, and—who was a marvelous special education teacher—and then she later became Ms. Simon—and so that—and Ms. Tadrissi. 

[00:38:01.34] And so here I am, this teacher's aide, but making art on the side, et cetera. And so then I remember reading this article on Art in America about the most exciting galleries in, you know—around the country. And so I looked in San Diego, and there was the Centro Cultural de la Raza, cited as one of the most exciting, dynamic cultural—not just cultural centers but contemporary art galleries in Southern California. 

[00:38:34.64] And I—and I never knew it existed because I grew up in Tijuana, you know, then Southern San Diego, and—and, you know, and it—I was younger than that whole generation that fomented and established that—that center. And so I didn't know anything about it. The only thing I knew about it is that when my dad and mom would take us to Balboa Park and we would drive by. And I remember seeing the Centro, but I didn't know what it—I didn't know what it was. I thought it was a carousel, because of all the murals around that round building, this former water tank. And so we would just drive by. And I'm like, oh, there's another carousel. How come we don't go there? [Laughs.] 

[00:39:28.27] And—but—so I'd say about—maybe a couple of years, no, two years, yeah. Two years after—no, a year after we come back from Clemson, I go to the Centro, myself, Maricela, and Gloria. And she's in a stroller, and I have my slides with me and my resume [laughs]. And I said—and then I met my best friend that I didn't know was going to be my best friend, Marco Anguiano, who not only was my best friend but became a mentor to me. I loved him dearly. 

[00:40:14.47] And so—and so I met him. He was at the front. He's was like, How can I help you, and blah, blah. And I said, Oh I'd like to meet the curator—and the whole thing. "Oh, do you have an appointment?" [Laughs.] And I'm like, No, I just—I said, I'd like to talk to him about my work. And he said, Well, you know, the Centro's gallery schedule is set up for the next two years.

[00:40:39.38] I'm like, Oh, okay, well, whatever. Do you mind giving my slides and my resume and my contact information—and give it to him in a manila envelope. And we walked around the Centro, and we were like, Whoa, this is amazing. This is an amazing space. And three days later, I get a phone call from David Avalos and saying, You want a solo show? [Laughs.] And I'm like, Yeah, I'd like a solo show. 

[00:41:10.63] And so then, I think—let's see—about four months later I had a solo show at the Centro, and then I remember, you know, while he and I are putting the work up I get to meet James Luna, who then—we became close friends, and then Robert Sanchez, and we became close friends. 

[00:41:30.98] And actually, James Luna, bless his heart, you know, as we say in the South—I loved him so much. And, um, when David and I were—we were going to go into the gallery and start installing my work, and he was talking to Victor Ochoa, another artist that I met. And James says, Richard, what are you and David up to? I'm like, We're going to install my work now. "Oh, okay, you're going to go to work?" "Yeah." 

[00:42:01.19] He goes, Okay, let me—let me sing you a work song. I'm like, Okay. So I had no idea, Laura, that a work song would last 30 minutes, right, and there—and there we there we stood. And I'm not a Christian, but I felt completely blessed that James Luna sang a work song for me and David, you know. And it was just sort of—I just felt buoyed, you know, and went into the space and got to work. 

[00:42:40.64] Um. So he and I—you know, James and I became good friends, and we did work together. And I'm looking at it right now in my office, the half-Mexican, half-Indian piece that I shot for him. And—and then I remember he and I driving up to San Francisco together, and we had a—one of the funniest people you'll ever—well, he's passed now but one of the funniest people ever, James Luna. So anyways, I got to meet all these people and—uh, at the Centro, and then it became my—my birthplace, my ideological birthplace, right. 

[00:43:25.49] So all of these things that I've had trouble with in regards to confronting racism and classism all my life, you know, and trying to like put a place for that, as Maya Angelou would say, you know, place your burden, find a place to put your burdens. You know, at the Centro, they provided a structure, a ideological structure for me to understand these conflicts and the history of these conflicts. 

[00:44:07.02] They weren't just sort of—I mean, I knew there was a history, but they weren't happenstance. And so—and so that helped finish the formulation of my worldview, is my affiliation with the Centro Cultural and having shows there and then becoming—after David Avalos left, I became the interim curator, holding the seat warm, you know—keeping the seat warm for Patricio Chavez. Who then—he and I became very, very close friends and remained close friends to this day—and then watched him develop the Centro into this—David and Veronica Enrique, who was the director of the Centro, this amazing person, was inspirational to me as well. And then I got to meet, you know, Josie Talamantez and just all these amazing, amazing people, you know. And then I became part of the—the Border Art Workshop, and I worked with Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and Emily Hicks, and Berta Jottar-Palenzuela, and Michael Schnorr, and Victor Ochoa and all these all these people. 

[00:45:31.01] And that was like, for me, my postgraduate studies [laughs] was working as a member of the Border Art Workshop. Talk about—that's where my work—I always had a strong work ethic, but—and then at graduate school, I worked my—I worked my ass off, you know, and found great joy in that arduous work and working long hours. 

[00:45:58.87] But then working with the Border Art Workshop—that was like a whole other level of commitment and dedication to what you do, and who you are, and how you respond to other people. And that was the sort of training that is—I don't know. It's, like, unique. 

[00:46:26.47] And so, um—so that was like an amazing journey for me. And, um, so they invited me to—before I became a member, they invited me to create a piece for their Border Realities, the Casa de Cambio show. And, um—and so that's when I proposed to them the Border Door, which—you know, I'll tell you, Laura, even this Smithsonian thing is like, you know, when you're a child, how do you even think about these things, especially since my family never went to a museum before, let alone an art museum, you know. 

[00:47:09.13] I think the first art museum I went to was when I was in undergraduate school at Cal State Fullerton. When we went to go see—we went to the Newport Harbor Art Museum. Yeah, and, um, anyways, that was my first exposure other than being in art classes and at college. And, um. But anyways, so being—making the Border Door and it being fundamentally tied to my experience as a border person and, um, you know, whether it was a way of articulating the anguish that my grandparents endured and my parents endured or my wife, Maricela, endured at that time, and her family. And it was a way, like I was mentioning Maya Angelou saying, placing your burdens, into the art world, to paraphrase. 

[00:48:15.04] And, um—and it became like a—um, you know, it's not that—it wasn't the first time I've done a site-specific piece, but it was the first time I made a site-specific piece that was relevant to my life, right. You know, 'cause I was making site-specific works at school, which is relevant to my life but not to my life, the life of my loved ones, the life of my ancestors. And, um—and in doing so—and then also taking a risk, 'cause here I am doing—it's not like I asked for permission. It's not like I was going to ask for permission. [Laughs.] 

And, um—and making this piece and not only just making the piece but—but installing it, gave me a sense of true elation, and, um, then driving—because not only was the performance installing the piece on the border near the Rodriguez Airport. But it was also just as equally important but doesn't get talked about as much is driving to the neighborhood where I grew up, in la Colonia Roma, and then starting at the house, the house that I grew up in la Colonia Roma, where my aunt lived at that time, my aunt Kika, and then starting at the front door—at their front door and then walking towards—from la Colonia Roma to la Colonia Altamira, where there's this orphanage, la Casa de los Pobres. And so walking from one neighborhood to the other neighborhood, where I would walk around as a child, you know, exploring, learning how to throw rocks and that sort of stuff, and playing in the dirty water, and, um—las aguas negras, aguas sucias, which—we didn't know. 

[00:50:36.39] But anyways, um. And walking and handing out keys, explaining to people, you know, encouraging them to take the keys and where the border door was located and that it was there—was their door, it was there for the offering, you know, to use it with dignity and that they were welcome. And, um—and then going on to the next person and the next person. And to see to see the different sorts of reactions, you know, and to be open to hearing the different sorts of reactions is really—it was really a revelation, you know, how people experience these sorts of interactions with others, especially with others that may be doing something that might be out of the ordinary, right. 

[00:51:37.81] And so then ending up—you know, and then kind of having a script but not really, having it become very open, and then ending at the Casa de los Pobres, explaining to the children that I encountered at the Casa de los Pobres—there are about seven or so of them, and when I explained to them what it was I was doing, they said—well, basically, they said, We'll take over from here. Let us distribute the rest of the keys. 

[00:52:05.82] So I said, Here. And off they went, you know, giving keys out, you know, to whoever they encountered. And so this particular piece, I mean, was—was physically born just from stuff that I found in my parents' backyard, you know. They had a door. Leftover—some leftover door, and they had some nails and—because my dad was always building stuff or he and I were always building stuff. 

[00:52:43.63] And so then I went to the local locksmith and said, Do you have any leftover keys, especially blanks or anything? And he says, Yeah. So I brought all these keys home and built a frame 'cause I know how to build those sorts of things. And it was—you know, it was sturdy. I mean, it worked. It was a working door—standing—a working door, until I came back two days later to the site where James—Jim Elliott, my dear friend, Jim Elliott, who I went to college with—and we're still dear friends, and, um—and you know, I'm godfather to his daughter, Kira. And I asked him—and he's the one that photographed the Border Door, so the photo credit is his. 

[00:53:40.23] But anyways, when we left the door there intact, and I came back two days later to check on it—I'm not sure if Jim came with me or not. I'll have to ask him. I don't think so. But anyways, I drove by, and I couldn't see it. And I had to turn around. And then saw the border marker and then pulled over and walked out. And I saw it down on the US side, completely destroyed. And, you know, the way I made it was not to withstand a nuclear blast or anything like that. But I made it to be, like—you would have to deliberately and with great intent dismantle it. You would have to have power tools. 

[00:54:35.69] But you could see that it wasn't done with power tools. It was—it was just broken—broken into small pieces and ripped asunder. And you can see the anger in it. And you know I was thinking, okay, if some ranchero, you know, with his little ranchito somewhere in northern Tijuana is like, Oh, there's a door, the easiest thing would have been load the entire thing in the truck, right, and take it to his ranchito. But no, this was, like, in splinters, and you can see the screw—the naked screws just sticking out of the base. And, um—and so, obviously, someone was bothered—bothered by this act that I performed. 

[00:55:38.52] And so—and you know, when you do these things, you already know that there is a large likelihood that something's going to happen like that. When you leave some kind of piece in a public space—well, in this case, a quasi-public space. And you take that chance because the gesture is too important, right, to ignore, to leave it in your quiver. And, um—and it's just—it's just wood anyways when you boil it all down, but the gesture is—is the critical thing. 

[00:56:27.86] So I got to do the Border Door, and then from there, I had decided to—'cause I did the Border Door May—May 28, 1988, and then the show—the Casa de Cambio show was, I think, in June, June or July. I think it's Border Realities III, Casa de Cambio or Border Realities IV. I can't remember. There's so many. 

[00:57:04.52] And, um—and so then I wanted to make documentation of that piece through—'cause the Casa de Cambio show was—the Border Art Workshop was known for these elaborate installations. And so I built a tunnel, the Border Tunnel. And so the Border Tunnel was a 30-foot-long tunnel made out of wood. And it was 30 foot long, 36 inch tall, and about 30 inches wide. 

[00:57:42.46] And I made a mechanic's creeper. And so—and the mechanic's creeper was tied to a pulley system. So you would—and then on the mechanic's creeper, above your head, attached to the mechanic's creeper, was a battery-powered light that would—you would lay on your back on this mechanic's creeper. You know this piece, Laura, at all? Okay, so you would lay [laughs]—

[00:58:10.04] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Excuse me. Yeah. 

[00:58:11.63] RICHARD LOU:  Shifra Goldman went through—[laughs] went through it. Poor Shifra. She got stuck during the—I think it was during the reception. And she's yelling, Richard, get me out of here! [Laughs.] So any—well, that's another story, but anyways, I love—Shifra Goldman was such a dear heart. 

[00:58:35.95] And, uh, anyways. So—okay, so it's a 30-foot-long tunnel, three feet tall, 30 inches wide, but it was also a ramp. So you could either choose to walk on top while people are crawling underneath. So it's arriving at the same place but in two completely different modalities, right. One "legitimate," the other one "illegitimate," right. And one hidden, the other one, um, in plain sight. 

[00:59:16.42] And so—so it was on a pulley system. So you would get on, and you would go through—and there was, like, a whole sheet of instructions [laughs]. And so you would get on and then kick your way through the entire tunnel, and there would be an exit. And you would get out, and then the next person would pull the rope to retrieve the cart. And then they would get on and repeat the process. 

[00:59:45.42] But in this tunnel, when you were on your back looking above were three doors, and the first door was covered in sarape, and I had glued gold keys on top, and then text. There was text written on the sarape, not written but in vinyl letters that described the Border Door experience. And so—you know, and then you're reading it from the bottom up while you're traveling through the tunnel. 

[01:00:20.25] And then the next door was covered in, um, immigration papers, and, um—and then there were seven little doors on the door, that when you opened them, there was the photographic documentation of the border door performance. So you're, like, on your back looking at this artwork, right. And then the last door was a door covered in doorknobs, from edge to edge, corner to corner, covered in doorknobs. And so that was the Border Tunnel. 

[01:00:59.21] And, you know—and here's something that I learned—it took me a while to learn—that, number one, I was really poor at documenting my work. I never photographed it. But I found photographs of it on the internet [they laugh], and so I have, like, one or two pictures of this piece that I worked on it—I don't know how long it took me to design it, but it took me, like, two weeks to build. 

[01:01:31.85] And, um—but—and I think someone else took video of it, but I don't know. I never reached out to them. But anyways, um, so—so those experiences became landmarks for me, but I had no idea, uh, what its impact would be, you know. How do you—how do you know? [Laughs.] You're just making—you're just making these gestures that are important to you, that somehow speak to your life. 

[01:02:14.19] And, um, then, of course—then they're challenging as an image maker, and you—and there's a satisfying engagement that you have with the—with the making and then, of course, the executing of the piece that you —that there's no other kind of experience to describe that matches something like that. And so, I guess, you know, that's one of the driving factors. 

[01:02:48.52] As you know, Laura, you know, the human brain is made to do one thing. It's to solve problems. Now, some of our friends—they use it to create problems, but mostly it's about solving problems. But, uh—and so those challenges, those creative challenges, are what all of us find invigorating, whether you, as a art historian and writer and—you know, interested in the arts or anybody else. 

[01:03:21.70] So those were—so those pieces were the ones that, I guess, um, convinced the members of the Border Art Workshop to vote me in. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm, mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[01:03:34.72] RICHARD LOU:  And so then I became a member of the Border Art Workshop. And, um—and as I mentioned before, it was really exhilarating and, at times, kind of traumatic [laughs], because we're talking about a group of people that—that really didn't take shit from people, you know. And it was like some hard elbows being thrown. And you had to learn how to like make your point, and be persuasive to—to a group of people that are like, you know, none that you've ever met before, intellectually. And, um—and so that was a really wonderful challenge. And—and I think we made a lot of interesting, you know—a lot of interesting work. 

[01:04:31.40] I think the work that we did when you couldn't tell who did what, was the work that I enjoyed the best, you know, because then it became like a real collaborative. And then sometimes you knew who it was, and that was good work too. But I don't think within the spirit of the collaborative, right, as much. 

[01:04:53.70] But I mean, got to—I got to learn how to design a book, you know. And got lots of practice of writing—help write grants or writing grants or writing proposals and managing money and directing projects, you know, big projects, like the Border Sutures project or going to Venice, Italy, you know, and that sort of thing. So. 

[01:05:27.23] And there was a period in my life that I was—I was on the road more, I think—or on the road as much as I was at home. And that was in 1990, yeah, because that was—I was easily—well, no, no, I was at home more, but I was easily probably almost four months away from home during that year. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Wow. 

[01:05:54.17] RICHARD LOU:  So—and that—just doing gigs, traveling around the country or abroad, and, um, you know, that was kind of—as I think back now—and I don't really think about it much. [Laughs.] You know. I think about, when am I going to have lunch today? And boy, did I enjoy that Philly sandwich. It was so good. Oh, Laura's going to talk to me in a few minutes. Let me finish this sandwich off with my root beer, you know. And I find great—I find just as great pleasure in that [laughs] as some of these other things. [Laura Augusta laughs.] 

[01:06:36.76] But, um—yeah, so working at the Border Art Workshop—and I think I was telling you about, you know—and there were other projects that we participated—that we participated as individual artists as well as collective, but the—but working in the collective took most of my time because it was intense work. It was intense because of the hours that we kept because our meetings would start at seven at night, after everyone was off of work, and they'd go to three or four in the morning. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[01:07:14.73] RICHARD LOU:  And this was at least once a week for I don't know how many years, and then during production time, when we were gearing up, that was it. You were—you were in the studio working, you know, after hours, and not getting home until three or four—two or three or four in the morning, um, was not uncommon. 

[01:07:38.04] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Were you working as a teacher assistant while you were doing the Border Arts Workshop? Did that overlap? Okay. 

[01:07:44.34] RICHARD LOU:  Uh. Wait a minute. Yeah, it did. It overlapped. Yeah. 

[01:07:50.28] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Okay. And I—I want to ask a question—I want to go back for a second and ask you a question about your first show at the Centro. What did you show there? What was the work that you showed? 

[01:08:01.05] RICHARD LOU:  It was my graduate work. It was my graduate work and—what it called—it's actually it's owned by the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego now. And it's called Inner City Portraits/Self Portraits and then some of the gum bichromate work. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[01:08:19.51] RICHARD LOU:  So that was the first show. And the other thing, too—here's the other thing that—there's a couple more things that I learned at the Centro, that I always talk about to my students. It's like, if an opportunity arises, say yes. I'll never forget, you know, when we were—I think we were installing—no. David and I—we were talking about, you know, when the show is going to be up blah, blah, blah, and then he just says, Hey, do you also do installations? 

[01:08:49.20] And I've done, like, two or three, and he—the way he said it was like, are you an installation artist? And when you do two or three, and, you know, one in undergraduate and two in graduate school, I don't know if you should be calling yourself an installation artist. But I just said yes. [Laughs.] 

[01:09:13.46] He goes, Well, we're having a show of installation work, so let's put you in there. And I'm like, there we go. And the thing, Laura, is like, for me, as a person that is interested in making these things, it's like, I'm looking for opportunities to have these spaces to make a thing, make this thing. You know. And that's like—I find great joy in sitting down and thinking it through and then—and then—and then making it. And then taking a look back and see what I can learn from it so I can make something else, or I can make it better or I can—et cetera. And it's just like this sort of self-perpetuating, and ever-perpetuating machine, you know. 

[01:10:05.08] And then there's this other thing, too, that I remember Robert Sanchez teaching me, and number one—Robert Sanchez—he's, like, an incredible networker. And so I met him at the Centro, at one of the openings, and then he just comes up to me. He goes, Hi, I'm Robert Sanchez. Here's my phone number. [Laughs.] What's yours? And I'm like, whoa, Hey, Richard Lou. Here's my phone number. And he goes, Okay, I'll see you later. That was my introduction to my future best friend, Robert Sanchez. 

[01:10:38.76] And so then after, like, two or three of, like—and seeing each other at the—then we would start talking more. And then one day, we were, like, somewhere together, like having lunch or something, and he scolds me. He says, Richard, why are you leaving—why are you leaving so soon when you go to the receptions? You show your work, and then you're there for 10 minutes. And then you leave. 

[01:11:05.18] And I'm like, receptions—what—you know, I'm tired. Number one, I'm tired. Number two, it's just a bunch of people talking. I just want to do the work. And he goes, Exactly. He says, That's where you get more shows. You want to have more shows? I'm like, Yes, I want to have more shows. He goes, Then you have to stick around and network with people. Let them get to know you, and then see what they're doing so they can see what you're doing and make—he didn't say, make the transaction, but—and then he says, That's how it works. You have to be there. 

[01:11:42.11] So I'm like, Oh, damn it. [Laughs.] So then that was like an amazing, valuable lesson. Because, Laura, you know how it works. It's like, you got to be there, you know. If you're not there and they're looking—someone's like, oh, I like that work and some curator or—I'm putting a show together. Typically, they'll follow through and find you, but why do they—why make them work harder? [Laughs.] Be there, and they don't have to work as hard to find you. Or you can be there to convince them that you should be in their next show. [Laura Augusta laughs.] So—

[01:12:18.18] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Good advice. 

RICHARD LOU:  Huh? 

[01:12:20.28] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Good advice. 

[01:12:21.27] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. So, I mean, it was amazing advice, and so, I, you know—I—I followed that advice for a long time. So yeah. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  [Inaudible.] [Recording stops, restarts.] 

[01:12:37.59] RICHARD LOU:  —a group. I guess—I guess like any kind of group, the Border Art Workshop had its, you know—had it's trials, and when you have a whole bunch of, um, confident, you know, highly opinionated, creative folks working together and almost, like, living together because of how frequent we would be gathering to fulfill projects, um, you know, it would get really intense. And, um, so screaming and yelling was not [laughs]—not uncommon. 

[01:13:31.49] But—and at the same time, I'm thinking—at the time, I was thinking, well, it's 'cause people are really passionate about what they're doing and who they are and what needs to be done and—and—and holding everyone—holding people accountable, right. 

[01:13:51.03] And so there was—so I saw that as kind of a healthy environment, but at the same time, it can be—if you're not—if you are kind of sensitive, it could be pretty damaging too. But the people in the Border Art Workshop were pretty sensitive folks anyways, by and large, so they wouldn't intentionally be harmful to anybody. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative], mm. 

[01:14:23.68] RICHARD LOU:  But anyways, so, uh, you know, there was a time where it was just a few of us—I think this was—I think this was 1989—and, um, doing a series of performances on the border in—in la Colonia Libertad, which is like the oldest—one of the oldest neighborhoods in Tijuana, right on the border. In this place called the Cañon Zapata—el Cañon Zapata. And also later called "the soccer field" 'cause they used to play soccer on the US side of the border. Until the border patrol dug it up and made all these furrows, which made it impossible to play soccer. They're just playing soccer, you know. 

[01:15:17.99] So anyways, those series of performances were—was the content for us to create a show, and we were invited to have a show again at the Galería de La Raza. That was really—in 1984, that was where the Border Art Workshop had its first show if I remember correctly. I wasn't part of it yet because I was still—I was in Clemson. 

[01:15:42.48] But we were invited to have a show at the—La Galería de La Raza, and Michael Schnorr and I went up and installed the work. And this work was based on, as I mentioned, these series of performances that we were doing on the US-Mexican border. So what we would do is we would, you know, create this sort of outline of a performance, and then we would come in—you know, some of us—some of our members lived in Tijuana, so they would drive up. Some of us lived in the United States, so we would be driving south. 

[01:16:20.84] And we would all meet in the neighborhood, and then we would go into the—what was called "the soccer field," which was on the US side of the border. And that's where a lot of, uh, uh, migrants were waiting to cross—well, they were already in the United States but to cross into wherever they were going to go. 

[01:16:46.36] And so there were people selling food and shoes and clothing and all sorts of stuff, so it was like a small flea market sort of situation or swap meet, which is something that I'm very familiar [laughs] with. And so we would go—and so, say, for example, Berta Jottar and I—because we were the ones that were bilingual, we would go in and talk to everybody. And first thing we would do is ask permission to be in their space. And then we would describe the project, what we were going to do. And then we would invite them to participate. And so, um—and then we would start doing whatever we were doing, the performance that we were doing, and then, you know, typically, quite a few people would participate with us and follow our lead. Or we would follow their lead and—and do these performances. 

[01:17:49.85] And I think the thing that struck me, anyways, is that—you know, 'cause the border patrol would always show up. [Laughs.] Because they would see all this activity, and they would show up. And by and large, the border patrol person would step out of their car and walk up to other people that were there, other—some group of undocumented migrants, and go up there and say, What's going on? [Laughs.] 

[01:18:21.06] And so we thought that for—at least in our own humble opinion, for a brief moment, their roles had changed from being antagonist and protagonist and became spectators, or participants in these—in these creative gestures. And so that always would give us a little bit of hope that there could be some kind of shift, right. And, um—that a shift was possible. 

[01:18:59.68] And so that, you know—that really motivated us to do more performances so we could see more of those results and interact with our community, and even though some of the community members were permanent and some of them were transient, you know, they were still our community. And so we did about four performances during the winter of—I think it was '88 or—no, it was '89. And then that—then we had this invitation by the Galería de La Raza, and so then we—Michael Schnorr and I went up to install the piece, which was, like—which was the forerunner to the piece that we did in Venice, Italy. And I'll never forget. It was when I met—it was when I met Amalia Mesa-Bains for the first time. 

[01:19:56.25] And Amalia—I was working on the installation, building whatever I was building—you know, 'cause I was one of the few members of the Border Art Workshop at that time that had construction skills. I knew how to build stuff. And we would do these elaborate installations and so—and practically would build a house, you know, four walls, et cetera, you know, ramps that people could walk on, et cetera. 

[01:20:26.87] Anyways, so we're working on this, and then Amalia comes in. I didn't know it was Amalia. And she starts—she sees Michael Schnorr, and she says, Michael, what's this I hear that there's no Chicanos in the Border Art Workshop? Just like that. And I'm like, Hi. [Laughs.] And Michael points to me, Richard's—Richard's—Richard Lou is here. "Oh, okay. Okay then." And that was my first introduction to my—my dear friend, Amalia Mesa-Bains, who is a lion, you know. And a fighter and an intellectual and a gigantic heart, and that I had the extreme pleasure of traveling with her to Istanbul later on, for the Istanbul Biennial. And that's another story [laughs]. 

[01:21:25.55] And so—so when we were in San Francisco, we learned two things—I learned two things. One was that we got a letter from—I think it was Linda Schearer  who was the curator for the Venice Biennale saying we're in the Venice Biennale. And so that was like, what? You know. And—a shock. And then also, I learned that my mom just had brain surgery [laughs], and my parents didn't tell me because they thought I was too busy. 

[01:22:03.28] So I flew back to San Diego immediately to—to see my mom, and she was fine. But it—it's always been odd because they always—my family thought that my time was more important than their time or something, I don't—I never understood it. And so they didn't want to bother me, even though my mom and I were always incredibly close, as you know, Laura. And my father and I were very close too, but. 

[01:22:35.48] But anyways, so I was kind of shocked that my mom was having—and so when I got to the hospital, it looked like she was in a car accident. Her face was so swollen. That, you know—that was—when you see your one of your parents in that way, that's—that's—that's Earth-shattering. And it really gives us another sense of our own mortality, or the mortality of our loved ones and gives us an understanding of how transient life is and et cetera. So it was a shock. 

[01:23:16.74] So then I saw my mom, and then a couple days later, I flew back to finish the install for the—and we also did a billboard because the Galería de La Raza has a billboard out there, and so they wanted us to do a billboard of—of our piece. So we did. And that was a lot of fun working on the billboard. And it was all photographs. And then we would paint over parts of the photographs. 

[01:23:48.75] And, uh, anyways, so that piece—and then we had projections on the sidewalk, which was really a lot of fun to do, you know. And so the piece was a couple of walls. One—one wall was a 24-foot-long, eight-foot-tall photo mural that—that I shot using a four by five of Cañon Zapata. And, um—and so then—and the photomural was tacked onto a two by four frame and—and lit from behind. 

[01:24:30.44] So you walk—so I built this ramp that you walked in, and that ramp was symbolizing the bow of Columbus's ship landing on the shore of the Americas, you know. And, um—and then you walked into the bowels of the ship in a sense and see to your left this huge photo mural and to your right this huge charcoal mural of the border of—of Kmart prominently displayed, because growing up on the border, back then the first thing you would see is the Kmart sign [laughs], and all its symbolism of the United States. 

[01:25:18.79] And so you would—so the chalk—the—the charcoal drawing was this, you know, desert landscape and then this huge Kmart sign. But in that mural were four small holes that we poked out TV monitors that would play four different videos of the performance documentation at the Cañon Zapata, that Carlos Toth edited and had edited beautifully. And so—and who later became a member of the Border Art Workshop after I left. 

[01:25:59.61] And, um, anyways. So we learned that we were going to do this thing, and in the interim, I lose my part-time job at Southwestern College because when we were printing those—when we were printing those large-scale murals, um, they found beer bottles in—in the classroom the following Monday. And I was called—and I was teaching part time there, and I was called into the dean's office. And they're like, Richard, we found beer bottles. What's going on? Were you there working? I'm like, Yes. "Are those your beer bottles?" And as you know, Laura, I don't drink. I'm like, No, they're not my beer bottles. And so she said, You will no longer teach photography for us. And, um—but if you want to work for us, you can work at the prison. 

[01:26:58.84] And so I took it. And it was the first time I ever taught at a prison. And it was awesome. And I had such a wonderful time, and—teaching. And it was like one of the best classes—I'm not going to say the best class I ever taught. It was the best class I ever was a part of, because of the students. And it was—it was incredibly memorable, and gave me a great deal of hope in regards to what teaching can do. And also gave me a glimpse into other parts of our humanity that—that some things can't change. 

[01:27:43.26] And so anyways—so after that, then we—while I was working there, we were preparing to go to Italy and purchasing material and shipping material and all this—all this prep work. And building ship—building boxes. We shipped two by fours from Home Depot to Italy. [Laura Augusta laughs.] All my—my tools—we shipped my tools. We had to buy transformers from going 220 to 115 or 110. And, um—and I also carried my tools on the plane as well, and rolled up our photographic murals, rolled up our charcoal murals, and screws and everything, you know, plastic, sheets of plywood, everything because we knew that Venice, Italy does not have a Home Depot. [Laura Augusta laughs.] And so we were—we were completely self contained. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[01:28:48.48] RICHARD LOU:  But our money was pretty much gone 'cause I was going to be gone for a month, about—yeah, close to a month, and so I had to pay all my bills ahead of time. And then, you know, our airfare, et cetera. So even though we were in Venice for three weeks building this huge installation, this super-complicated installation with video and, you know, these murals, photo mural and a charcoal mural, both 24 feet long, eight feet tall—and then there's—so that enclosure is tented with black plastic. And then the front had all these beautiful red paper carnations that Robert Sanchez made, and so imagine this black surface with red carnations all in a row and then this entrance and a little video monitor and a big photo mural on top of Michael Schnorr as Columbus. 

[01:29:57.66] And, um, you know—and so, you know, it was a very elaborate installation, and that took us about two and half weeks to build. It really took—it took us a week to build, but we waited almost a week for all of our material to arrive because [Laura Augusta laughs] that's just the way it is. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[01:30:21.31] RICHARD LOU:  And it was kind of nerve-wracking, but, you know, we made friends with the security guards there. And then we made really good friends with the canal workers, 'cause after a while, they just saw us with sad faces at the dock, and they're like, Come on, let's go to the customs and see if your work is there. So we would ride on the boats. 

[01:30:43.18] The canal workers—that was awesome because I love boats, number one, but then, like, to see the inner workings of Venice, right, the working side, was really awesome. And the reason I said that we spent all this money for, like, shipping our stuff is because we didn't have—we had enough money to stay—I think it was, like, four nights at a pensione in Venice, Italy, and the rest of the time we slept in the gallery. 

[01:31:14.59] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Wow. 

[01:31:15.46] RICHARD LOU:  So what we did is—is we made friends—you know, the first couple of days, we made friends with the—the main—the security guard that would be the night security guard. [Laura Augusta laughs.] 

[01:31:30.74] And so what would happen is, like, all the artists would show up at, like, say, eight or nine in the morning. They would open the doors. And so we would come from all over the place, and so actually, Lorna Simpson was in the show, and Annette Lemieux, and Jeff Koons. [Laughs.] That was—okay, I'll tell you later. [Laura Augusta laughs.] 

[01:31:54.16] And so, um Jeff Koons and—who else? I love his work. Ashley Bickerton, beautiful work. And anyways, so we made friends with the—with security guard, and said, Hey, listen—you know, Michael Schnorr spoke Italian very well, and I picked it up really fast because I'm fluent in Spanish. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[01:32:25.76] And, um—and so we said, We don't have money. Is it okay if we sleep in the gallery? And he's like, Yeah, yeah. [Laughs.] Don't worry. He says, But leave when everyone leaves, and then hang around. And, like, 20 minutes later, come back, knock on the door, and I'll let you in. [Laura Augusta laughs.] 

[01:32:48.66] So we would leave, eat dinner really fast, and then come around, knock on the door. And we—I would—I don't know where Michael—I don't remember where Michael would sleep, but he would sleep in the gallery, in our space somewhere. But I would sleep inside a crate. [Laughs.] 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm [affirmative].

[01:33:05.40] RICHARD LOU:  And then we hurried building—once we got everything there, we hurried building it so we could sleep behind—behind the piece and no one would bother us. But it was really fortuitous that we—that we were sleeping in the gallery because we got to see what was happening with Gran Fury, because the director of the Biennale was trying to censor Gran Fury's work. 

[01:33:36.75] And so we would wake up in the morning to people—really super-early morning, like 6:30, seven in the morning. And so we would see the director walking in with, like, what we assumed were judges and trying to find the right judge to sit to declare this work offensive to the Italian people, or whatever. Because the director of the Biennale had a close relationship with the pope, and he was going to protect the Italian people. 

[01:34:09.74] And so we saw this, like, three times, where people—we'd see the director walking with people, and they would be at—they would be at Gran Fury's space. And he would be—Look, et cetera, blah, blah, blah, and talk, and then they would leave. 

[01:34:27.38] And so when Gran Fury—we told Gran—the members of Gran Fury what was going on, 'cause at first—you know, before the director showed up—before their work showed up, Gran Fury was like, where is our work, where is our work? And they were freaking out, and so we were like, Well, we haven't seen your work arrive yet. We made friends with them. "And we haven't seen your work arrive." And then, when their work arrived and they were like trying to figure out where to hang it et cetera and then the director started showing up with these officials, other officials, we were telling them what was going on. And of course, they became upset, and they started having press conferences, which was really awesome. 

[01:35:15.55] And actually—and also, Katie Nolan, who was one of the artists as well there—she and I got together, and we put a petition together and—and—to get signatures from the artists, the participating artists. We were in the—we weren't in the pavilion. Jenny Holzer was in the pavilion. We were in the Aperto section for young experimental artists under the age of 35. That was the guidelines back then. I don't know what it is now. 

[01:35:46.40] So there were close to 100 artists in the Aperto section, which was in the Corderie, which is where they made rope back in the day when Venice was a naval power. So it's a long, skinny building. [Laughs.] And so—so she and I made these—you know, we had them—went to the photocopy place and made copies. We had clipboards. And our pieces were done, and so she and I—like, Okay, Richard, you start at that end, I'll start at this end. And we just met in the middle, gathering signatures, explaining to artists that if Gran Fury's work is censored, we will close our exhibits. And fortunately—and unfortunately—only 30 percent [laughs] of these artists that were, like, in the Venice Biennale. You know, so they're like—

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Yeah. 

[01:36:47.18] RICHARD LOU:  They've arrived. But they were so afraid of it being a flashpoint and being a detriment to their career that they didn't want to take a chance, so 70 percent were like, Nope, we're not doing anything. But 30 percent, I guess, is the fortunate part, said, Yeah, I'll shut down my show. 

[01:37:13.48] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Wow. 

[01:37:13.72] RICHARD LOU:  So yeah, and then we would get yelled at by the officials because we'd be walking around, gathering signatures, and so there were a couple of arguments that way, but, you know, hey. I didn't know Gran Fury before then. But, you know, they—they were our colleagues, and we couldn't just sit on our hands. 

[01:37:35.88] So—so we did that, and so they didn't—weren't censored. And one of the things that we overheard was, I remember telling them—one of the members of the Gran Fury—I can't remember his name right now, but we overheard that they thought that the posters were, um, the pope holding a penis—an erect penis. And when I told them that, they said, Why didn't we think of that? [They laugh.] 

[01:38:16.13] It was—we were cracking up because it was—their posters were nothing like that. There was an erect penis, but it was, like, not even with the pope, et cetera. And it was very beautiful posters, very direct in their messaging, which Gran Fury was famous for. And so anyways. So that was a part of a thing that I'm like—when I look—as I'm talking to you, I'm like, man, that was awesome times, you know, even though it was tense. 

[01:38:48.30] And then two days of—two days of press reception. Just press, first two days. And people from all over the world are interviewing you, Radio Holland and people from Japan. But here's the other thing, too, that I'll always remember. So we became friends with Complesso Plastico, which was a Japanese collaborative. They did brilliant work, and Chie Matsui, who is a Japanese installation artist who—her piece—her installation was sumptuous, you know. Beautiful. And they invite us—[laughs] they invite us to their reception. And so we go—a bunch of us go. And there they are, Chie and the other Japanese—Chie and the guys from Complesso Plastico, are in a reception line with their ambassador, right, and the general consulate, all standing in line, shaking your hands as you come in, and then this amazing—which we were just equally as interested—this spread of amazing food, right. And so we're just eating away. 

[01:40:07.94] So then we went to the American reception, [laughs] which was, like, I think, punch and cookies. And no one—just, here it is. And I'm like—and it was—it wasn't a revelation, but it was just another example of how other cultures treat their culture-makers, right. And so—but it was—but it was a lot of fun, and getting to go see parts of Italy I really enjoyed. 

[01:40:45.80] But there were other parts that reminded me of, like—you know, that the racism doesn't really ever leave. [Laughs.] I remember getting into in Florence—when we were in Florence. I'm climbing up the bus, and this man, this older man, looks at me and grabs his wallet [laughs], as I board the bus. I'm like, ah, it's just like being in the United States. [They laugh.] 

[01:41:16.84] Yeah. And, so. So, you know. But other than that—and then there was another incident at the airport that I'll spare you, but other than that, we had a really wonderful time and, you know, enjoyed the camaraderie, you know, with the other artists in the Aperto section and just stuff that you'll never—you'll never forget. Although I do forget [laughs], until someone asks me. Then I'm like, Oh, yeah, I did that thing. [Laughs.] Yeah. 

[01:41:50.65] LAURA AUGUSTA:  How do you make decisions as a collective? I'm really curious about how collaboration works in decision-making with that group in particular. 

[01:42:01.31] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. So we would come up with, like, a central idea, and then people would pitch ideas. It's almost like an ad firm, [laughs] you know. And the ideas would go into a metaphysical hopper. [They laugh.] And we would vote. And we would vote, and then people would be assigned tasks. It's like, Okay, Richard, you're write—because there was genuinely an interest in leadership development and that everyone would have the same skill sets. 

[01:42:36.23] It's like, Okay, Richard, it's your time to write the artist statement for the show at Artists Space in New York. You know? Okay. And then I would present it, and they would be like, Yeah, change this or change that, or, Okay, boom, boom, boom. You know, and—or this is what—this is what I propose, and how can we—how can we make sure that there's no disruption from one piece to another? How does it segue from one to the other, where we can—where the messaging, right, which is what's the most important thing to us, can be sustained, right, and not interrupted by discontinuity. 

[01:43:18.94] And so it was lots and lots and lots of voting, lots and lots and lots of discussion. And you had to, you know, literally, as we say now, bring your A-game, you know, to—and they were—and everyone was super-supportive too, so it wasn't—it was not—it wasn't even close to being cutthroat. It was like a very nurturing but super intensive—super intensive, nurturing group of folks, you know. But, at the same time, highly competitive. And, um, so—but voting, lots and lots and lots of voting. And we kept it as democratic as possible, you know, so there was—we did not want any kind of—we didn't want any cowboys, you know, and—just doing their own thing. As my wonderful friend, Marco Anguiano, would say, organizational discipline was incredibly important so we could stay on message. And then someone would be chosen to be the spokesperson whenever the media showed up, and, you know, that's—and then we all knew, right. 

[01:44:39.11] And everyone had an assigned role, but also, at the same time, I'll never forget what Guillermo said to us one time or maybe several times. He's like, because, you know, a lot of the shows—a lot of the shows started becoming more labor-intensive in regards to building things, right, and so—and I don't know who said what or what. And then Guillermo said to us, writing a paragraph is just as laborious as hammering nails into two by fours, you know. So—and we're like, Yeah. 

[01:45:21.00] So every role was equally as important, cleaning up after ourselves and organizing, learning how to settle disputes, learning how to elicit ideas, you know, keep a conversation going. All of those were really valuable skills that, if I didn't have them, you know, I hoped to attain them and was expected from all of us, you know. 

[01:45:52.25] So—so it was an amazingly high-functioning group, but as I said before, sometimes there would be outbursts of anger or whatever. [Laughs.] And sometimes they became more frequent, and sometimes they would just sort of disappear. [Laughs.] Until it was resolved. There were times where I got the brunt of stuff, but typically, I didn't. 

[01:46:21.70] But you knew deep down that—that they didn't—that they were just angry and they didn't mean it, 'cause there was a genuine, like, that love for each other and respect, and so, you know. [Laughs.] After a while, people get tired and grumpy. [They laugh.] 

[01:46:46.79] LAURA AUGUSTA:  And are you—at this time, are you making your own work separate from the group as well? I assume you are, but I don't know when—in what time. [Laughs.] 

[01:46:54.89] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I would have individual shows, too, and then also, Robert and I—Robert Sanchez and I started gravitating towards each other because we had similar backgrounds. We were both—we both had children, you know, and—and had sort of a different kind of life, rather than some of them were more—like Guillermo, who I consider a good friend, even though I haven't talked to him in a long time—he had a more Bohemian—you know, classic Bohemian lifestyle. And we were, like, nine to fivers, you know. [Laughs.] 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[01:47:38.18] RICHARD LOU:  Um. But, you know, Robert and I started—and then we had—Robert and I started to work with each other 'cause we had similar kind of personalities in a sense, you know. We loved joking around and that sort of thing. And we saw that our sensibilities complemented each other. And, um—and so then we started working—we would do projects and Border Art Work projects until when we left. 

[01:48:13.23] And then we worked for a long time together, you know, close to 20 years. Until I—even after I left San Diego to go to Georgia College, we were still working together until it just became, you know, too difficult. But we still remain friends, and we reminisce with great fondness of us working together because we did some—I think we did some really fun stuff. 

[01:48:42.88] But anyways, so, yeah—so Guillermo was doing projects on his own, you know. And Robert was still painting, you know. And so yeah, we all kept our own individual practice and, at the same time, participating in the larger—in the larger collective. And so—so anyways, when we got back from the Venice Biennale, then—then—then I was off to show that work ‘cause—what's his name? He used to write for Art in America, David, um—I can't remember his name right now, but he invited—he was—they asked him to curate a show at, of all places, Lancaster, Ohio. 

[01:49:43.19] And they had a major arts festival—arts and music festival—and they had a huge gallery upstairs above a haberdashery, of all places. And the people that own the haberdashery sponsored that, and they were—she was super nice. And I will tell you, Laura, the best—the best treatment I ever got as an artist: Lancaster, Ohio. 

[01:50:10.70] LAURA AUGUSTA:  That's amazing. 

[01:50:11.27] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah, they flew me and Maricela, Gloria, and Maricelita, and we stayed in this apartment above this carriage house. And I think it was next to where Ulysses S. Grant was born, you know, so it was a historic home. And they would pick me up, and you know how I am about food. So they would feed us breakfast, feed us lunch, feed us dinner. And then while I was working, they would take Maricela and the kids to the library, to the pool, to the park, and we were there for, like, 10—yeah, about 10 days, you know, building this—so I basically rebuilt the piece from the Venice Biennale. And, um—and, you know, then the other members of the Border Art Workshop were doing other stuff, so it'd be almost like—we were almost franchising in a sense, [they laugh] you know, which was kind of weird. 

[01:51:10.25] But people were offering money, and we wanted to do the work. And so—and this gallery space was so well recognized. Jenny Holzer had the show previous to us, and then we had the show. So, um, then from there, I come home, and we start preparing for the Border Sutures project. And so it was like just bam, bam, bam. 

[01:51:42.71] And so we start, you know, having meetings at Yareli Arizmendi's house. But Yareli couldn't go, but she was critical in—in, you know, intellectualizing the work and bringing it to its foreground. And Guillermo had already left the Border Art Workshop, but he had left his stamp on the Border Sutures project as well, his intellectual contributions. 

[01:52:09.17] And so we just kind of kept moving the ball forward, and, you know, we got a major grant from the NEA. And it was one of the last grants where you didn't have to sign off on—

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[01:52:22.55] RICHARD LOU:  —like, not, you know, creating an insurrection or whatever. Showing fealty to the flag or whatever they do now. And so we got a major grant and, um, rented a motor home and purchased all our material and paid ourselves a living wage. [Laughs.] And off—we fabricated the steel staples, wrote down all the performances, worked on the performances, and—and then off we went, like as I mentioned before, myself, Victor Ochoa, his wife at the time, Eva Sandoval, and their newborn child, a little Victor. And we drove the motor home from San Diego to Brownsville and Matamoros, waiting for the rest of the artists to fly into Harlingen Airport. 

[01:53:27.00] We pick 'em up, and then we start. And we start with the first staple, which was, like, amazing. Now, that was another magical experience. So imagine, you know, it's the first few days of July, and we're on the Gulf of Mexico, searching for the mouth of the Río Bravo, which is the border, right. And we're walking along the beach, and we're carrying a five-foot-long steel staple, quarter-inch steel, a sledgehammer, you know, sheets of paper with our—the words for our border baptism, and then water from the Pacific Ocean, water from our home. And—and walking along. And then there's the river, and you wade across or swim across. 

[01:54:24.44] And then there's this sand—sand spit of an island in the middle of our two countries, in the middle of the river, in the middle of the water, and, you know, we're, like, ankle deep in water. And we poured water from the Pacific Ocean and said our—said the scripted words, you know, giving it its secular blessing, telling the staple it's found its new home, telling the staple that it's part of a ritual and for it to do its work in healing our two countries, you know, and thinking about Gloria Anzaldúa's work, and thinking about the la herida abierta, right, the open wound, and how do we use these creative gestures as acts of healing. 

[01:55:26.47] And then we all take turns, and, you know, we pour water on ourselves. And then we all take turns in a collective manner, you know, although some people may think it's violent, but to hammer the staple—you know, it's a violent act of healing, I guess. And so we all take turns until the staple disappears under the water and then under the sand, and then we leave it, and then go on our next—next trip to find another spot. 

[01:56:06.17] So there are places where we pull down the barbed wire, and the staple would pull down the barbed wire. And then we would, you know, collectively hammer in the staple by pulling down the barbed wire. And there were other places where—here's the thing about [laughs] being desert people from Southern California. I mean, I'll speak for myself only. Even though we are aware of the map, but we forget that half the border is water. [Laughs.] And so we brought all these staples. We're like, whoops, you know. 

[01:56:43.59] And so we start building little boats, building floating boxes. We built one floating box and—a beautiful box that we all worked on, and then we used rope to secure it to these inner tubes that we—tire inner tubes that we found. And then we went and floated it out to the river, and then these little kids again, similar to the border door—they said, We'll take it. 

[01:57:17.74] And then these youthful emissaries, you know, swim down the river with this box with the staple that we—that members of the community had written letters, well wishes, had written inside the box, had left packs of cigarette, packs of bubble gum, you know, and other bendiciones, right, and wishing the staple well on its journey to find others where they could read the letters, smoke the cigarettes, chew the bubblegum, read the inscriptions in the box, look at the mini-murals of the box. And, um—and then we moved on. 

[01:58:11.59] But prior to that, Berta and I were on the radio in Nuevo Laredo and asking people to come and meet us and participate in this community gesture and community event of the Border Sutures, and so there were a number of people that showed up and participated, like I said, bring—bringing letters and putting that in—putting it in the box. 

[01:58:41.91] And so then when we were in South Bend, in the South Bend National Park, so then we fashioned staples out of reeds and floated them down the rivers, thinking about Ana Mendieta. And, you know, so—so we just adapted our projected strategy, depending on what the border circumstances were, you know, whether they were aquatic or terrestrial. 

[01:59:17.06] There was this one which I thought—I just loved this one. It was like—I think it was in Piedras Negras, I think, and—and it was an island in the middle of the river. So we swam across with our two staples. We stapled the front end of the island. We stapled the back end of the island. 

[01:59:40.71] Most of these—most of these gestures were done in private, right. And then sometimes if local people were there, they would join us, like at Piedras Negras, there were, like, four or five boys, young boys, maybe in their teens. And they swam with us. And then also, the other thing that we would do is we would stamp people's names into the steel staples, so we would stamp their names. Or they would take over and stamp other people's names, and then they would—they swam over to us, and then they participated in hammering these steel staples into the forefront—the bow and the stern of the islands—of the island. 

[02:00:27.00] And that was—to me, that was one of my—the first one in the mouth of the Río Bravo, and then the island in the Piedras Negras, to me, were my favorite spots. Oh, and then this other one where we—where we—Berta and I and Carmela and Robert—we transplanted plants from Mexico to the United States and from the United States to Mexico. We made rings out of rocks and pulled down the barbed wire and then made rings around that and then stapled the—the wire down. 

[02:01:11.53] So that was—I think that was a really beautiful piece too. And we were there alone, you know, and it's kind of fun to just—sometimes we didn't even talk to each other. Just we knew, and working together for so long, you know, it's like, Yeah, okay, you're doing that, I'll do this, I'll do this, you do that sort of thing. And so, you know, now that I think about it, it's like, not too many words were exchanged. We're just like, Yeah, let's do this, okay. It was like a natural conclusion that we were arriving at, a simultaneous conclusion, a collective conclusion, right. And then going, yeah, this fits for us and then leaving. 

[02:02:00.54] So Robert and I would—because we brought my motorcycle. You know how we love motorcycles. [Laughs.] So I had a XR—Honda XR 350, and we would use it or I would use it. And sometimes Robert—most of the time, Robert would come with me, and we would go on scouting trips across the desert. And, um—and that was—that was hauntingly beautiful because you would see tarantulas just marching along. And seeing a tarantula from a motorcycle, you know they're big. [They laugh.] When you're going, like, 40 miles an hour in the dirt, we were like, whoa, those are big tarantulas. 

[02:02:41.35] Yeah, so—so there was that, and then there was another time when we did a impromptu mural class 'cause we would bring in large sheets of butcher paper, and—and Victor and Carmela and others would participate in giving the workshops and—the drawing workshops to kids that would just show up, you know. And then the other—then we did the border tug of war performance at—in El Paso. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative], [laughs]. 

[02:03:19.31] RICHARD LOU:  And it was—you know, this is 1990, so the AIDS pandemic was real. You know, so, when we went to kind of scout out the river, the canal, in El Paso, um, one of our—one of our compañeros that was accompanying us from El Paso stepped on a needle. And so, of course, we were like, we can't be just bringing people willy-nilly following us. We have to be much more responsible, you know, in regards to people's safety. 

[02:04:02.28] And so that kind of made us think about it in a different kind of way, so we did the border tug of war in the park, rather than on the border. And I can't remember which park, you know, but it was a park downtown. Not a very big park. And, um, so we did—we dressed up with our masks on that we had made in Tijuana where one side is, you know, the Mexican flag, the other side is the American flag, bisecting our skulls. And then we made these migra masks [laughs], that—made out of cardboard. And so then we would—we would, you know, have this border tug of war, the Border Art Workshop against the migra.

[02:04:51.01] [Laura Augusta laughs.] And then I would be, you know, reciting texts from—texts that we had written through a bullhorn while people are like tugging and running around and that sort of stuff. So those sorts of things were really, really fun to engage and to be engaged in. But then later on, we went back to the canal, and if I remember correctly, we did—we did put a staple in the middle of the canal because as you know, there's sand—sand—sand pits all over—all over the place, so. 

[02:05:33.56] So—and then unfortunately, there was, like, a major conflict amongst us, and it had been brewing for a while. And we decided to call the Border Art—we decided to end the Border Art Workshop on that trip. And, you know—and when I think back about it, it's like, well, we were all pretty young, and we were all pretty tired. We were on the trip for a month. I was on the trip for a month. And I would say 40 percent of us were on the trip for a month. And it was hot, July, cutting across the Southern United States. And, um—and there was a major conflict, and we decided to, as I mentioned before, just end the Border Art Workshop. But when we told everyone—and we thought we were all in agreement—one member, Michael Schnorr, who agreed at first, then disagreed later on, unbeknownst to the rest of us. And then he started the Border Art Workshop again. 

[02:06:49.96] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Oh, wow.

[02:06:50.98] RICHARD LOU:  So even though I was tasked in conveying the message to him that we had ended the Border Art Workshop and he agreed, and then something else happened. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  [Inaudible.] Yeah. 

[02:07:08.48] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. So, you know—so there were incredibly valuable lessons to come out of that that I didn't realize were lessons until, ashamedly saying, you know, 15, 20 years later, because there were some people I would not speak to, you know. And then somehow we got in contact with each other by accident. Then we started speaking to each other, and then it was like, we were angry at the wrong people. But, you know—and I'll only take responsibility for the stupid things I said. And, um—and I wasn't mature enough at that point to manage the information in any other way. 

[02:08:05.75] So. But now we're super close again [laughs]. Which I am incredibly grateful for, you know. And then that—that opened up the possibility to—because nothing—I think there was an article written about it in Art in America when we first ventured off, and who knows where else, but after this—after we did the project, we just sat on the material and walked away, you know. And, you know, we did the NEA report, final report, you know, but we never had a show, we never published the work, nothing, until now. So that's 1990. 

[02:09:02.42] LAURA AUGUSTA:  What are some of the lessons that have been most important for you individually from that time? 

[02:09:23.86] RICHARD LOU:  Probably a lack of humility. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Hm. Mm. 

[02:09:29.63] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. And, um, even though I think I'm a patient person, but sometimes extraordinary circumstances requires extraordinary patience, not just normal amount of patience. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[02:09:51.40] RICHARD LOU:  And so, yeah, patience. And really, that the love I have for people should be more unconditional, right. And—because we're all working towards the same—towards the same goal, more or less. And, um, yeah, yeah, I think those are it, you know, humility, unconditional love for my compañeros, and exercising extraordinary patience during extraordinary times. 

[02:10:44.76] LAURA AUGUSTA:  I think—as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking so much about how, in later moments in your career, you've been an administrator who organizes often unruly groups of people [laughs], right, in very compassionate ways in my experience. But I'm interested also in how this group functioned, how it collaborated, and then how that also informs your later work in other types of institutions. 

[02:11:14.66] RICHARD LOU:  A direct link. A direct link. And I will tell you that, you know, Guillermo, who's—I think is just a brilliant human being, amongst others—and, um, I remember him saying, you know, to paraphrase, we don't have the luxury of making work in our studios. We have to become citizen-diplomats, or artist-citizen-diplomats. 

[02:11:50.38] And I remember him saying that, and I'm like, oh. And thinking, even though it may sound odd—and it's like, well, my capacity as being an arts administrator could function in that way. And so I always saw myself as an artist-citizen-diplomat as an arts administrator, and try to open as many doors as possible. And, you know, my attitude was always, especially because I only worked for public institutions, never worked for private ones, that this institution belongs to everybody. And so that's always—and that's a super BAW/TAF-ian [Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo] thing, and it's not a new thing. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[02:12:40.30] RICHARD LOU:  But working in collaborative—in a collaborative mode and giving everyone credit and respecting everyone's role, from—everything that people contribute to the effort is just as valuable as me being up there on the podium saying something, you know, versus me, you know, making sure that all the trash is put away or everyone gets paid equitably, um, everyone is treated with respect. 

[02:13:17.71] So those are—those are not just BAW/TAF-ian things, but in its application towards the arts world and—and, you know, almost what's outside the art world—but there was no delineation between what we did as artists versus what we did as—as spouses or companions or teachers or, you know, cultural workers or whatever. It was like one in the same. It wasn't—we were trying to be integrated people, you know, not compartmentalized people. 

[02:14:00.47] And so that lesson remained with me, you know. And how successful I was with it I don't know. [Laughs.] But I'll leave it up to others to—to decide, but yeah. So Guillermo is the one that sparked my interest in arts leadership. And so yeah. So that's on him. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[02:14:33.67] RICHARD LOU:  And then, of course, working with the Border Art Workshop, him included and others, like Emily Hicks and all the others that I mentioned, um, I could see living examples of how to be a collaborative person, and what it means, and the power within working within a collective. And especially sharing resources. That's like the number one. Not the number one, but—well, yeah, the number one, the sharing resources. And I'm not saying material resources but int—brainpower resources, ideas, which is, like, the most important resource. And then, of course, couple that with compassion, sense of humanity, and that's a resource, gratitude, you know, and love, et cetera, all those sorts of—all those are resources that we would openly share, you know. 

[02:15:34.34] And that was a valuable lesson how that not only functions in your home life—or should, you know, as we all aspire to be the kind of people we hope to be—but everywhere else, right. Everywhere else you just treat people the same kind of way. 

[END OF TRACK aaa_lou24_3of6_digvid_m.]

[00:00:00.95] LAURA AUGUSTA:  All right. There you go. Sorry. All right [laughs]. Welcome back. 

RICHARD LOU:  Okay. 

[00:00:05.28] LAURA AUGUSTA:  We're going to start with the Istanbul Biennial. Um, yeah. 

[00:00:08.82] RICHARD LOU:  So the Istanbul Biennial—so Patricio Chávez was the curator of that. And he was curator at the Centro. Then, I believe, became director for a while. So anyways, he was an important figure in—at the Centro in San Diego and, you know, organized and curated a lot of super important exhibitions. 

[00:00:37.59] And so—you know, and of course, this was all on the head and shoulders of others that came before him, like David Avalos, and, um, putting together an amazing roster of shows. And, um—but Patricio also put together an amazing roster of shows that really—with the history that—the history of exhibitions that David had curated, and his own work, had put the Centro at the sort of—edging into becoming an international—a national or international player. 

[00:01:20.73] And so, you know—so he was selected to create the Istanbul Biennial for the US contingent. And the reason I bring it up is because of the—is because it's sort of emblematic of our relationship as Chicanos, Latinx marginalized people in general, of our kind of tenuous relationship with the United States. Not just its history, but its—but its, you know, domestic and foreign policies. And whether or not we're—that we have contributed to the history of nation building or just being citizens. 

[00:02:11.26] But anyways, the roster that Patricio put together was Amalia Mesa-Bains, and she had just won the MacArthur award. Deservedly so. And so we were really excited about that. And, uh—and then David Avalos and Deborah Small, Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, and Robert Sanchez and myself were the contingent from the United States. 

[00:02:41.86] And so the reason I bring it up is, as I mentioned, it—it—our participation with the United States as representing the United States reflected our uneasy relationship, um—and that's to put it mildly—with the United States. And, um—and so we were in the process of putting a catalog, a small catalog, together for—for this exhibition. 

[00:03:15.36] And Patricio's essay became—came under scrutiny of the USIA who was funding the—I think they're defunct now. And they be—and his essay, and our essays, as well, became under scrutiny of the USIA. And so Patricio got a letter from them. And, um, so he assembled all of us that were around. And I think the others were like on the phone or something. 

[00:03:50.41] And, um, the USIA—I can't remember the name of it the director then—kindly asked Patricio to remove like four or five paragraphs from maybe like a seven or eight-paragraph essay or something like that. And so Patricio, you know, got us all together and he's like, What do you guys think? All of us unanimously said, No, don't change anything. And what Patricio had written and what the rest of us had written to accompany our exhibition was the brutal historical tactics and strategies employed against our community, whether it was, you know, being part of an Indigenous community, like Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie directly, or all of us as Chicanos, or, um, et—et cetera. And so we said no. And so Patricio, you know, of course agreed. And we supported his essay and his work. 

[00:05:05.27] And so he wrote back. So then they write back a letter saying, more or less to the effect:  It would be a shame if these artists that deserved to have international attention, that the funding would be removed [laughs]. And so Patricio got us all together again and we said, No. We support you Patricio and your essay. 

[00:05:36.77] And then he wrote back kind—you know, nicely. And so then the US government removed the funding. And so we had already spent about half, I think. Well, I mean, I don't know about the rest. I remember Robert and I spent half of what we got on equipment, et cetera. But now he didn't have any way to get there. 

[00:06:03.79] And so Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, when he was part of the, uh—the Rockefeller Foundation, and then I guess he found out about it. And then he somehow arranged for expenses to be paid. And, um—and so we went as the official unofficial [laughs] US contingent to the Istanbul Biennial. 

[00:06:38.56] And so in a way, I guess it was fitting. But at the same time, it was another, you know, rechazo, right? Another—another illustration of, you know, here we are being—by our peers saying that the work that we're doing is significant and important. And then the country that we belong—we belong to, more or less, says that the work that you're doing is dangerous. 

[00:07:14.41] Because what they said—what they wrote back is that—more or less to paraphrase, that the relationship the United States has with Turkey is a good one. And that our work would potentially jeopardize that relationship or—or the United States' projection of power or whatever—whatever that meant at that time. So, um, we went. [Laughs.] And put up—and put up our shows and had a—had a really wonderful time. But at the same time, you know, we were in this sort of, you know, funny place, this liminal space of being out and in at the same time. 

[00:08:10.50] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Did you show in the official pavilion space or did you have to get a separate space? 

[00:08:14.90] RICHARD LOU:  Oh, no. We showed in the—they were building their contemporary art museum, which was a former fez factory, is my understanding. And so they were building it while all of us were installing the work. So they were, I think, 50 countries, you know, mostly from the Western world. And so—so, no, we were in the show because the curator, the Istanbul curator, the main curator, is like, no—accepted this wholeheartedly and completely understood this—the—the—the—the situation. So I think—

[00:09:05.69] LAURA AUGUSTA:  What work did you end up—sorry to interrupt. What work did you end up showing then? Did it affect what you showed in any way? 

[00:09:11.18] RICHARD LOU:  No. No. It didn't affect what we showed. We just kept going. And the work that Robert and I showed was the Entrance Is Not Acceptance piece [laughs]. So—and—so I'll have to look at—I can't remember the other piece—the names of the other pieces. 

[00:09:34.18] But, um—but Amalia did a beautiful—one of her beautiful altars. And Hulleah did this beautiful installation, the text on the walls and photographs. And then—but David and Deborah did this beautiful installation that they've done together before about the caste system in the colonial times, and, you know, projecting to the present. 

[00:10:00.01] And so—yeah. So—so the—the Turkish art establishment certainly embraced us, right. And—but, you know, not so much from the United States side. [Laughs.] 

[00:10:24.74] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Can you describe that work for someone who hasn't seen it before, Entrance Is Not Acceptance, and what—

[00:10:29.18] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. Entrance Is Not Acceptance, we had—it was first shown at the Newport Harbor Art Museum, and, um—as the—I think it was the California Biennial. I think the third California Biennial or the first California Biennial, one of those. I think it was 1990. 

[00:10:51.03] And so it was first shown there. And it was a smaller version of that, but it was a series of doors, and—or images of doors, in the case of the Istanbul, but it was a darkened room with video projections and drawings of doors, and also newspaper clippings that we would blacken out all the—all the stories except for stories about immigration and civil rights. And then so when we would assemble all that—all those newspapers, they would create this sort of very graphic block pattern and—black block pattern and then the text about immigration and civil rights articles, you know, coming to the forefront. 

[00:11:54.55] LAURA AUGUSTA:  And was that the first time you had traveled with Amalia Mesa-Bains? Did you know her previously? 

[00:11:59.56] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah, I knew her previously. Yeah. I met her when—when I was installing—helping install the installation that went actually to the Venice Biennale as the Border Art Workshop. So my first time meeting her was there at the Galería de La Raza. And I was installing—you know, Michael Schnorr and I were installing the piece—the piece. And she walked in and introduced herself. And right then and there, I knew Amalia was on a whole other different kind of human level, and, um—and had respected her from afar because I never had met her, but knew of her work. And meeting her just solidified my—my—my sort of fawning over her, so [laughs]. 

[00:13:02.49] And we became good friends on the trip. Her and her—and her husband, Richard Bains, accompanied her. And we had—I mean, when we were able to, not—when we weren't in the middle of installing, we had just a wonderful time having dinner. And then after the show was installed, doing a little bit of tourist stuff like going to the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque and—and the Grand Bazaar, and that sort of thing. 

[00:13:38.76] So we had—we, you know—we bonded over that trip. And not only just because of the tourist stuff, but because we were embroiled in this controversy. And, uh—and, you know, we had to participate in the press conference. And so there were meetings in the hotel rooms—I think it was in Amalia's hotel room—and would have, you know, really dynamic discussions on how to best to articulate our position along with Patricio, who, of course, was there. 

[00:14:14.59] And, um—and so we had very passionate discussions about how to present our case, and how to best illustrate, again, another example of being on the outside of the—of the so-called American dream. So, um—so not only were we like enjoying—trying to enjoy the beautiful country of Turkey, and especially Istanbul, and its culture and everything that it had to offer, but al—we were also in the midst of installing our show and in the midst of brainstorming how best to represent who we are to an international audience, and the circumstances that we found ourselves in once again. 

[00:15:20.21] LAURA AUGUSTA:  The—I feel like—so that was in 1991, is that right? '91, '92? 

[00:15:24.63] RICHARD LOU:  I think so. Yeah. I think so. 1991. 

[00:15:27.48] LAURA AUGUSTA:  And I—maybe this is incorrect—I would love your perspective on this—but I feel like the conversation around American history and the place of Mexican Americans and Chicanos and other people of color who've been excluded from various histories, it was—the discourse around that was at a different point than it is now. And they're—right? 

[00:15:47.97] And for better and for worse, like, I think in lots of different ways. But I wonder if you could give me some context for that kind of debate in Istanbul, because I think it's—it's a very specific historical moment. And I'd love to understand how you remember the discourse of that time, like the early '90s discourse. 

[00:16:06.33] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. The early '90s discourse, it was—I mean, I think we felt comfortable pushing back, right? And because, number one, the scholarship was certainly there. And our collective memory was certainly there. And so we were asserting our reality, you know. And, uh—and for someone to—to deny your reality is like a—it's like a spiritual negation, intellectual negation. It's like a form of death, you know. You don't exist because your history is not—is manufactured or whatever. 

[00:17:01.16] And so—but at that time, there was a critical mass of scholars and people that were like, No, this is—and there has been a history of a movement that had some level of success in asserting that there were other ways to approach the history of the United States, that was more accurate and less about nation building, and less about, um, sort of propaganda, right? And there's nothing—I mean—and sure, the history of United States is incredibly complicated. It's not—it's not like this John Wayne, Hollywood version that we were fighting against. 

[00:17:53.45] And it's a much more complicated and, um—history. And we felt it was our role to complicate the conversation. And to give it—give that conversation more space. And, um—and for those of us in the arts, we found the space of galleries and museums a very useful and ut—actually a utilitarian space where we could make these sorts of assertions and ask the sorts of questions that we felt needed to be asked in regards to our relationship to the history of the United States and the history of a larger group of people that have been marginalized, silenced, threatened, killed, et cetera. 

[00:18:48.85] And so, uh, you know, it wasn't just us. We felt—there were lots of people doing this. But at the same time, we felt a responsibility to not just our community, but to what we would consider the truth. Now compared to what's occurring now, it's—it's—it's like George Orwell's 1984 coming true. It's like—it's not a fictitious novel of a dystopian future. It's a dystopian present. 

[00:19:26.78] And, um—and it's—as I mentioned, it's frightful and it's mind-bending because of what we know to be true. There are larger forces at play that have a lot of resources that are saying what we think—that our history is false. And that's—that's tough. And I think Texas just passed a law, right, about, um—so that the history of Cesar Chavez, the history of Martin Luther King, will not be taught at the high school level. 

[00:20:14.39] And so—then I was reading an article about that, that there's like great dispute. Like, oh, no, we can—oh, no, we can't. But that's like—that's perfect for those that are trying to obscure the truth, is to create confusion. And so when you create confusion like that, where people are—especially teachers and administrators that are in the teaching field, when you create that kind of confusion, then you create a chilling effect. 

[00:20:49.45] So people were like, well, maybe we shouldn't, because there was no clarity in regards to the law. And I'm making, you know, $40,000 a year and I don't want to end up in court, being sued by some student or parents that are saying that I'm teaching the "I Have a Dream" legacy in the United States, by Martin Luther King, Jr. 

[00:21:17.94] So it's a—it's a frightening—it's an incredibly frightening place. I mean, there's a part of me that thinks that Atwood should sue Governor Abbott for copyright infringement, for stealing her plot, you know, or her plots. It's—it's—it's frightening in regards to how we targeted women, and have made them absolute—not, you know—absolute second class citizens, you know. Not just in behavior, but now by law. 

[00:21:55.83] And so that's not—that's not what it was like in the '90s, certainly where there was—yes, there was problems, but there was a sense of hope that we were headed in the right direction. 

[00:22:17.17] LAURA AUGUSTA:  What did you take away from that experience at Istanbul? What do you—you came back and what happened next? But also, what did you take from that experience of being there with your people, your friends and colleagues? 

[00:22:31.05] RICHARD LOU:  I think that the—I think that the experience—I think the experience that I take away is that—is that—how the—how the world is sort of fickle and, um—and you could be flavor of the month [laughs], or the year. And then with the art world, it's kind of—it's kind of like a vampire, it's always seeking its new victim to suck out as much culture as possible. 

[00:23:11.94] And I'll—I'll never forget, I remember I was doing this project called The Headlines in 1992. And in 1991, I was talking to my good friend, James Luna, who passed away. And I said, Hey, James, I'm doing this thing for 1992 for the quincentenary. I'm going to invite artists of color to draw on my head and I'd become like this—this movable billboard, you know, this movable mural. And I said, Would you like to do something with me? 

[00:23:47.93] And he said, No. I mean, James was like—James was like so wise, right. And he said, No. He didn't say like no to—like, no, I don't want to work with you. He said, No, I'm not going to—I'm not going to do anything in 1992 because I'm more interested in what they're going to ask us to do in 1993 and beyond. 

[00:24:11.10] And so that was a revelation in regards to how—I mean, from James, how the art world operated, you know, by and large. Not in all cases, of course, 'cause there's good people or well-intentioned people. But then we know that well-intentioned people do. But, um—but in regards to like, who's going to—who's going to continue doing the work on both sides? Not just on the production side, but on the scholarship side and the exhibiting side, the promotion side, and those sorts of things. 

[00:24:53.18] And then that's what he was pointing to. And so, you know, coming back from the Istanbul Biennial, that—it kind of—it showed me how you have to strike when the—when you, you know, have—when you have some attention aimed at you. That you have to be ready to state your—state your case, state your work, state—you know, to be just ready and to always kind of be ready because that flashlight of—in the dark—of the art world is constantly moving and you never know which direction it's going to go. 

[00:25:39.65] So if you have—if you want to use the, you know—the sort of aesthetic gifts and conceptual gifts that you have, you just have to be—have to be always be ready when—when you're given the opportunity. Unless you're making your own opportunities of course, which is what we mostly do. 

[00:26:11.09] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Tell me more about Headlines. Who else did you invite and what were the images on your head? I remember that piece so vividly so I'm excited to hear you describe it. 

[00:26:20.93] RICHARD LOU:  Well, my—my—well, Robert Sanchez, of course. I invited a whole bunch of people, but I didn't complete it. I didn't complete the piece because, um, during that time when I was working on it, um, the LA police beat the hell out of Rodney King. 

[00:26:45.82] And so then my focus—and then my focus became on—was on that, in regards to providing—or working with youth. And—'cause I was at San Diego Mesa College at that time. I was teaching full time now. And I know a lot of my students—and myself—I remember, I'll never forget my mom, she was so angry. She wanted to go to LA, you know, and be part of the protest. 

[00:27:19.38] And um—but I know that—and myself included. We were so—I don't know if forlorn would be a good way to describe it. But we were besides ourselves in regards to being just so angry. And when—when the—when the Simi Valley Four were let go, right, and it was just another case of understanding that justice is not really—is not a fixed point in the United States. And we can see it right now with Donald Trump, you know, where—I, mean he's doing all these things and he's still—there still hasn't been any—any justice carried out. 

[00:28:15.92] I remember—I think it was about six months ago, this young man, um, you know, he's like a YouTuber or a TikToker or something like that. And this is in New York City. He invited all these people—he invited all these people to come to Times Square 'cause he was giving away Playstation 5s. So all these people showed up. And of course, he didn't have the infrastructure to have security, et cetera. And so a small riot ensued, you know. 

[00:28:55.38] People got angry because—et cetera. And he was arrested immediately, for inciting a riot. Arrested immediately. And so—and here we have someone else, because he's white and he's rich and incited insurrection and directed it and still is out there campaigning and is the front runner for the Republican party. I mean, you can't—you can't draw a starker contrast in regards to how justice is—how justice prevails or doesn't in the United States.

[00:29:44.65] So those are the sorts of things, I mean, you know—that coming back from Istanbul and knowing that we just, you know—we had a really high-profile platform. And knowing that because of the work that we did, it was very fleeting and tenuous. It was not like a career builder, where we're like, Okay, so we've just had the Istanbul Biennial, so now my work is worth this much. So now my gallerist will be able to move my, you know—will find more collectors, or will be able to move my show to be at the MoMA or the Met or, you know, et cetera. 

[00:30:33.12] It's doesn't happen like that to people that are interested in social justice work. And, you know, not that I'm like—long for it [laughs], you know, but it's a different kind of trajectory. And it just sort of like reinforced that if there is an important moment, you have to be ready, you know, 'cause that spotlight will just move away to something else. 

[00:31:08.07] LAURA AUGUSTA:  When the Rodney King attack happened, had you ever had an experience like that, of watching something like that, watching that unfold. I imagine that's the most kind of widely disseminated visual evidence of that. But is it something that you had already experienced and seen? 

[00:31:30.14] RICHARD LOU:  That's a good—that's a good question because I, you know—I had participated in a series of demonstrations as well, and helped organize some with the—against the Light Up The Border, you know, Las Comadres did a lot of the organization, but also the Border Art Workshop helped some. And, uh—and so being part of those counter-demonstrations, so it was—I had that kind of experience, but that was—even though it was a national issue, it became more of a, uh, um, regional spectacle. And actually, it became a national spectacle, too, but for different kinds of reasons. 

[00:32:23.08] But the Rodney King thing, now in regards to like the larger imaginary of not just the United States, but, you know, on a global scale, seeing so starkly the brutality of what happens to people of color in the United States and the—and the history of that, which is like a straight line. It's not a wandering line. Um. It—it—it weighed heavy on everyone, you know. 

[00:33:04.04] Especially—I'm not going say especially, but I know those of us in education and then those of us that kind of bridged education, social justice, community work, it was a constant battle on, what's the best steps? What are the best constructive steps to take in the face of naked brutality, you know, and—and the acts of dehumanizing the other. And then broadcast. I mean, we all felt diminished by it and—and our own sense of humanity, you know, became even more raw, right? And I remember, during that time, I mean—and even previous to that time when I would—when I would get up to go to work and I'd go off—go to the bathroom, brush my teeth. And I would look in the mirror and I would steel myself by asking myself, Who am I going to fight with today? 

[00:34:35.97] Imagine waking up every morning to that question. Who am I going to have to fight with today? And it's—it's—racism and sexism and homophobia in the United States is such a distorting and warping experience. And, um—and, you know, I don't know how else to explain, you know, that you constantly have to be vigilant to—it's sometimes in a crazy way, to like—no, I have value. I'm worth something. And that sort of thing. 

[00:35:30.58] I'll never forget, you know, my—on my Mexican family side, my uncles and my aunts on my mom's side, whenever they would like see me, they would come across the border or we would go to Tijuana or Culiacan to visit my aunts and uncles and my grandmother, my cousins. And they would find out I was in college. And they would always say—I mean, without—without interruption, they would say, Que bueno. Para defenderte. That's what they would say to me. So going to—getting—being a university-trained human being was not about advancing knowledge, [laughs] you know. It was not about, oh, getting a good job and supporting yourself and your loved ones. It—it wasn't about that. It was learn so you know how to protect yourself from those that have power. 

[00:36:41.69] That was how my family saw—would see education, to protect yourself from those that have power. And, um—and so that was—that was how I always, you know, as a young person, saw my path in education. And so—and I mean, so then when you think about it, it's like, oh, no wonder. Richard has made the kind of work that he's made for, you know, 40 years or so. And so it's just an echo of—of my family's understanding of how you confront power. 

[00:37:33.30] LAURA AUGUSTA:  When did you start at Mesa College? And what were your students like there? 

[00:37:38.16] RICHARD LOU:  Well, they were awesome. [Laura Augusta laughs.] I love—I love my students. Number one, I love my students, period, Laura. [They laugh.] And—and so, yeah, they were just wonderful. And I started in 1990, in August of 1990. And my father died in September of 1990. So he got to—yeah, we—you know, when I got the job, I remember driving him and my mom around the campus perimeter and showing, hey, I'm going to be working here. And they were like so happy. 

[00:38:15.92] And, um—but yeah, it was—so by the start of my academic career at Mesa College—although I was teaching part time here and there. And then also I was a teacher's aide in special education for about five or six years after graduate school. And that was my bread and butter job, you know, making like $5.63 an hour and—but with full health insurance, amazing. 

[00:38:46.68] So, um. But I remember the rent was $300. And I would bring home like $5[00] or $600 or something like that, you know, supporting six people. So. But you do what you need to do. But anyways, the—yeah, it was amazing. Number one, economically, I mean, I went from making I think 10 or $11,000 a year to $31,000 a year like from one semester to the next [laughs]. 

[00:39:23.33] But we had a huge hospital bill because my wife then sister, who lived with us, um, had burst her appendix. And she was, I think, 12 or 13. And she was in a hospital for like 10 days or something. And so we get this hospital bill. Yeah. So this is 1988. 

[00:39:50.72] So we get this hospital bill that was like—what happened was the—the financial counselor for the hospital came to us and said, You need to pay. How can you pay? And I saw the bill, I'm like, Oh my God. There's no way I can pay. And she said, Well, the county will—the state will pay but she will have to be deported. And I'm like, No, she's not being deported. And so then we paid as much as we could. And this was 1988. And then by the time I got the job was 1990. So by that time, we were in this financial, uh, downward spiral, that even when I was making three times as much, it didn't matter. So we had to file for bankruptcy like 1992 or something like that. 

[00:40:58.23] So it was tough. It was tough. So—so, you know, getting this brand new job is awesome, but at the same time, one month later, my father dies, who I revered, right. Who I always felt his stories were so much larger than I could ever overcome, you know. His life was like so much bigger than could ever fit into. 

[00:41:31.33] Uh, that—and not that I—I just like, whoa. This guy was like—I mean, even though now that I think about it, you know, him being in World War II was no favor [laughs]. But back then, when you're a kid—and then how we see—especially now since how we see World War II as this war of a noble cause. But I remember my father telling—I remember asking my father, What did you do after you got out of the war? And he said—I remember I was like 18 or 19 when he told me this. He says, Oh, I checked into a motel and slept for a month. And I'm like, What? You know. I didn't understand it until I was much older. He was like so depressed, right. He was in he was in the Battle of Guadalcanal and he was in the Battle of Tarawa. And then he was part of the occupational force in China because he spoke Chinese, Japanese—Mandarin and Cantonese, Chinese—Mandarin and Cantonese, Japanese, English—and English. So he was a valuable asset. And so he was in—he was in service for an additional year. So he didn't get out until '46 instead of '45. 

[00:42:50.65] But anyway, so he had died. And then when he died, Laura, it was the first time as a human being I ever felt alone. That my life could be quite untethered, right. And we were close. We were very close. And, um—and I felt sort of leaderless, you know. 

[00:43:17.32] And so it was a shock to all of us, not just me, of course, because we all loved our father. And then coupled that with, you know, the financial difficulties that I had. So—and life has all sorts of—delivers all sorts of things. The great news is I had an amazing job with an office now, and access to stuff, so I can make stuff. And then students who were like asking me questions and I had—that I had to think about. 

[00:43:51.25] And then at the same time, I could share whatever—you know, whatever my two brain cells could rub together, you know. And so it was a wonderful time of learning. And then to be able to stay in my hometown for a number of years and make connections with all these amazing people, like Marco Anguiano, Robert Sanchez, and, you know, Berta Jottar, Veronica Enrique, and Josie Talamantez and David Avalos, all these—like James Luna. All—just like all these luminaries, right, in my—in my universe in regards to having some kind of a functional ideology. I mean, being able to be a part—I know that I talked a little bit about the Centro—being able to be a part of the Centro helped me put together a lot of the puzzle pieces in regards to my relationship to the United States, you know. When I was growing up as a child, constantly being told to go back to Mexico, you know, that sort of thing. 

[00:45:09.48] Or I remember [laughs] when I was at Cal State Fullerton, [laughs] that we were in Mr. Johnson's—the history of photography class. And Mr. Johnson, he was really cool. Professor Johnson. And he—right before he turns off the lights to start showing the slides, this kid in front of me turns around—he was in front and to the side, two chairs away. I could see him turning around right now. Turns around to me and looks at me and he says, Mexicans make the best car thieves. [Laughs.] 

[00:45:49.92] And then Professor Johnson starts lecturing. And I'm like—I don't remember a word Professor Johnson said. I was so enraged, that you think you're in a safe space, school [laughs], and you're at the college level, the university level. And someone says that, completely unprovoked, you know. 

[00:46:21.02] So anyways—and then, you know, at Cal State Fullerton, it was largely white students. And I think there were like—what I remember in the art department, there were three—there were three Mexican kids. Me, Art Sauceda, who he and I became good friends, and then this other kid named Art who was like really amazing. His name was Arturo, too. 

[00:46:48.15] He was really amazing. And I remember—and we were in printmaking together. And this was really confusing to me, Laura. We were in printmaking together. So he was in printmaking not during class, like off-hours. And I came in to start working on my work. And I see him and I go, Arturo, órale. He stands up, he looks at me, he goes, I don't do that Mexican thing. And I'm like, What? What does—what does that mean, you know? 'Cause that was the—I think that's one of the first time I encountered this sort of—and I don't know what it was. But to me, it was like the sort of internalized racism, you know. This—this desire to assimilate so much that you lose a sense of who you are. And maybe even despise it. I don't want to speak on his behalf. 

[00:47:49.15] But it was a shock to me, you know. It was a shock to me. And I didn't realize how much I missed being home until Cinco de Mayo. And I'm on campus and actually the only people that looked like me were in—on campus were the two Arts, one was my good friend, Art Sauceda—who worked for Disney, by the way—and then the janitors. 

[00:48:21.51] But then on Cinco de Mayo, the mariachi—they brought in mariachi, I guess the student union or whoever. And they were—they were, um—they were playing near the library. I could hear them from a distance. And I almost ran over there and stood at the top of the hill looking at them crying. In the middle of campus, just crying like a baby. 

[00:48:47.81] And so—and I'm in Los Angeles, which is like—that's like the second largest Mexican city in the world [laughs.] Mexico City, Los Angeles. But still, I was alone, you know, in this academic enclave, right. But the practice has been gatekeeping for 100 years. 

[00:49:14.16] And so, you know—so those were the sorts of things that—that kind of strikes me when I think about going back to the Istanbul Biennial, you know. We were let in for a little bit, you know. And—but we were—but we knew. And then we would be back to being derided as Mexicans or whatever. So, well, we knew the door would not be open for very long. And so we had no illusions about that. 

[00:49:57.54] But you keep making the work, right? Because the work is important, it's paramount to your—to your being, to your ability to be able to like say, This is who I am as a human being. To assert—as I mentioned before, to asserting your reality because to not be able to do so is—is a complete negation, as I mentioned before. 

[00:50:20.01] And it's a way of being able to find your path, right? As you do the work, you ask the questions and you do the research to support the work and you get more answers, which those answers also provoke more questions, and on and on and on. And so then you come back home knowing that the struggle—the struggle is still there and—and it needs even more energy. 

[00:50:52.43] But now, it's a—it's a whole—it's a whole other experience that I'm still unsure how to best articulate, other than we're headed towards some kind of weird American form of apartheid. 

[00:51:15.06] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Were your students at Mesa College more diverse? Or was it also a fairly white university? 

[00:51:21.57] RICHARD LOU:  Oh, no. It was very—very diverse. 

[00:51:23.40] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Okay. 

[00:51:23.88] RICHARD LOU:  Very diverse. Yeah. And so there was like—there was a this p—what we called the Puente Project that a couple of my friends were working together on. I think it was Bea Zamora—yeah, Bea Zamora—and I'm going to forget his name. And he and I were very good friends. But Dee was a counselor. So they would put a counselor together—an academic counselor together, with an English teacher. 

[00:51:51.36] Joel was his name—hopefully I'll remember his last name. Joel Perez. Yeah. He was an English teacher, super nice, good friend of mine. So they started the Puente Project. And they might have—I think it might have been already a state run, and they just, you know, started a charter or a chapter at Mesa College. 

[00:52:12.81] And so they asked me to be a mentor to a student, Vincente. And so there was lots of—you know, there was MECha, there was a Chicano studies with César González, who was, as far as I'm concerned, as close to a saint as anyone I've ever seen other than my aunt Gloria, who was as close to a saint I've ever seen. And Gloria—my aunt Gloria, that's who my daughter is named after. 

[00:52:45.91] And, uh—uh, Rita Sanchez was in the Chicano studies program. And—oh, I'm going to forget his first name—Mike—and Mike Ornelas. Mike Ornelas, and he was—all of them were awesome. César was very diplomatic and with a mind that most of us mortals were incapable of [laughs] understanding. And Mike Ornelas was—had an amazing grasp of history and sharp and—and would take no quarter. And Rita, same as César González, an amazing, amazing intellect. And I would hang around with them, you know. I was almost like—I wasn't part of Chicano studies, but I was there meeting with them, you know, and—all the time and became part of—I was the faculty advisor for MEChA for a few years. 

[00:54:05.10] And so there, you know—yeah, there was a great deal of—it was—the population at Mesa College was incredibly diverse. And unlike when I went to Clemson or Cal State Fullerton, for sure. Now when I went to Southwestern College, it was very diverse. You know, that was in southern—in Chula Vista. But at Cal State Fullerton, no. No, no, you know. 

[00:54:35.80] But we had—it was a really wonderful time at Mesa College. And there was a lot of good work that was being done. I wrote a proposal to—for 1992 to—myself and Mike Ornelas and César and Rita and Starla Lewis, who was the head of Black studies. And I wrote a proposal to—to commemorate the quincentenary. 

[00:55:10.15] And so we had all sorts of panel discussions. And then we also—also part of it was coordinating a powwow on—on Mesa College, on the campus itself. So myself and Pierre Romero, who passed away, who was a good friend of mine. He was a counselor. And he—the both of us co-coordinated two powwows at Mesa College. 

[00:55:39.03] So imagine—because, you know, some of them are Plains Indians—these 20, 30-foot-tall teepees in the middle of your campus. You know. 15, 20. So students show up in the morning and they walk into this—into this amazing village with storytellers and crafts people and food. And then in front of their cafeteria is the dance arena where people are dancing from nine o'clock in the morning all the way till five o'clock in the afternoon, for two days. 

[00:56:23.63] So those are the sorts of like dreams that we had about the transformative power, right, of using a campus as a laboratory, right. And the campus at large is a classroom laboratory where we could, um, have these sort of collisions between, uh, you know, what the Western ideal of education—you know, the Western canon, and rubbing up against, you know, a history that's been marginalized for centuries. And—and—any by bringing in real people that have those sorts of experiences. 

[00:57:17.39] And so those were really amazing times that—and hopeful times, that there was a supportive campus for these sorts of activities to occur. And so, I had a—so my time at Mesa—and then I became—and then that's where I became a department chair, you know. And I think I mentioned heeding and thinking about what Guillermo said about the citizen diplomat. Artists no longer have the luxury of working in their studio alone, making their art. We all need to become something else in conjunction, and along with using our creative sensibilities to look at the world around us in the functional way, and not just the creative way. And so that inspired me to, in my own little funny way, to like use that understanding of how to approach the world to hopefully have a larger impact, and especially on curriculum, policy, mission statements, and of course directly to students. 

[00:58:43.20] LAURA AUGUSTA:  I'm so interested in your work also as an administrator. I mean, I—we've talked about this in the past, because I think there's so much power to that kind of placement. But it also has such an effect upon your production as an artist and how your days look and when you can get to a studio and what kinds of things you shape. And so I—I want to talk—I want to keep thinking about that and talking about that with you. How long were you at Mesa College before you left?

[00:59:09.84] RICHARD LOU:  10 years. 

[00:59:11.71] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Okay. And you rewrote mission statements as well? Can you tell me about like how you were thinking about missions as part of this work? 

[00:59:20.95] RICHARD LOU:  I think we wrote—we rewrote the mission statement at Mesa College. I'm not sure. But I know we did at Georgia College. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Uh-huh [affirmative]. Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[00:59:29.54] RICHARD LOU:  Now I didn't get to tinker too much with the curriculum at Mesa College. I think we might have rewrote the mission while I was there. But for sure at Georgia College. So I saw—or I see my experiences as an administrator—you know, here's the difference, too, Laura. Like at Mesa College, I'm like elected to be the department chair. And by and large, it's like with a lot of older faculty members, I was the youngest. And so, you know, there was—I was able to move certain things forward, like, for instance, we didn't know how many majors we had until like we're like, we're going to find out [laughs] how many majors we have. 

[01:00:19.10] And so there were that sort of—or we—we—while I became chair, all of a sudden, California instituted performance-based funding. [Laughs.] And so I had to learn like this mathematical formula to—to ensure that my department would not lose ground, right. Because there was like an efficiency—a target, an efficiency target that we had to, you know—if you fail to reach it, you had to have a good reason why, a pedagogical reason [laughs]. 

[01:01:01.72] And if you made it, then everything was good. And if you exceeded it, of course, supposedly you would benefit from exceeding. And as a department, we exceeded it. And so now the quality of instruction suffered because we went to large lecture halls. So it wasn't like this smaller classrooms.

[01:01:25.37] But in us being able to do that, we were able to sustain smaller faculty-to-student ratios—or sustain the small faculty-to-student ratios in our studio, in our art history program, because we were able to like increase the faculty-to-student ratio in our art appreciation classes. So that became my bread and butter. 

[01:01:50.66] Anyway, so I learned how to like do that sort of stuff. And then when I went to Georgia College, it was a college that just—had just adopted a new mission, you know, became—it was the—Georgia's public liberal arts university, I think maybe three or four years prior to my arrival. 

[01:02:13.01] And so when Dottie retired and they were interviewing, they said they wanted someone to come and—they wanted someone to come to the department and to—and that the department would articulate the new mission of the university. That's exactly what they said. And I'm like, Yeah, I think I can do that [laughs]. 

[01:02:36.57] And so there was like an audience—there was an expectation by administration. And then there was a faculty that was ready to work hard, and were hungry and, um—and were—were interested. And so when I arrived at Georgia College, the first semester, we rewrote the mission. And we rewrote the entire curriculum the first semester. 

[01:03:14.01] And I remember Beth—after the second semester, Beth said, No more—no more curriculum writing, Rich. You're done. You know. She's like, Slow down. And so—and then instituted new behaviors, et cetera. So the—so the things that I learned from my time as a student at Clemson, my time as a student at Cal State Fullerton, my time as an administrator at Mesa College, I was able to apply at Georgia College fully, you know. Well, as much as possible—right—humanly possible. 

[01:03:53.45] And when I arrived at Georgia College, we had 57 majors. And by the time I left, we—in six years—we had 160. So we tripled, all of us together. We tripled it. And, um, you know—and every day was like a party. [Laughs.] 

[01:04:17.45] LAURA AUGUSTA:  [Laughs.] You already had lived in the South, so the region wasn't new to you. But why did you—what was the thinking behind moving to Georgia at that particular moment in your career? 

[01:04:29.52] RICHARD LOU:  Okay, well, yeah. And I think I mentioned this before. I had an affinity for the South because its—it's sort of formality. And formality was familiar to me, you know, growing up being Mexican in Tijuana. And—and also family-oriented was very familiar to me. Community-oriented, that was very familiar, people like waving at you [laughs]. That's like—people looking out for each other. Even though Tijuana is like probably bigger than all of South Carolina. 

[01:05:13.70] And, um—but that sense of porch—front porch community, that's—that's what I was accustomed to growing up in Tijuana. And, um, you know, I remember my mom—I remember this—we would—I mean, I didn't know any better but we would call them borrachitos. People that would have alcohol addiction would like live around our neighborhoods. And—and I'll never forget my mom—someone would knock on the door like on a Tuesday—I don't know if I ever told you this—but like on a Tuesday and my mom would look through the window, and she goes Oh, okay. She would get a handkerchief and put three or four or five eggs, get a couple of dollars, and then open the door and say, Here you go. And would give this homeless person eggs and money. And, uh—and this would happen every week. 

[01:06:20.99] And so I asked my mom, you know, when I was a little bit older—not much older. I think I was around five or six or something like that. And she told me that everyone takes care of him. He goes—Tuesdays, he comes to us. Wednesdays, he goes to some—so that sense of like, you know, trying to do whatever you could. And I would see that in the kind of the bonds of my colleagues at Clemson would have with their families and members of the community. Like with Robert Spencer, you know. And him growing up in his community in Clemson, South Carolina. 

[01:07:04.20] And I would drive around with him and he would be like waving at all his cousins and his aunts and his grandmother, et cetera. And I'm like, Oh, who's that? "Oh, that's my cousin." So, I mean, that was like, you know, driving around in Tijuana, you'd be like, Hey, Lupe! Or whoever. And so that was like—like I said, that was very familiar. 

[01:07:27.73] So that, and then coupled with the real estate cost in Southern California, even though I had a good job at Mesa College and making pretty good money by then, by the time I left. And then also I think probably more—most importantly is a feeling of safety. Because my kids—or our kids were in school already and within, I think, a year and a half, like our neighbor in front of us—I mean we lived in a pretty congested suburb of Imperial Beach, which I mean sounds—sounds like, how could that be congested anyways? Southern California is like—you know, people live behind you, you know, and et cetera. Everything's really close quarters. The neighbor to our north, I mean—I mean, they were like super racist and I remember her husband being tackled in her front lawn, taken away by the police, quite relieved. Then the neighbor in front and to the side, DEA showed up and took him away to prison. Then the bank that we would—you know, our bank, which was a block and a half away, was robbed by a bomb. 

[01:08:57.69] And then across the street from the bank, there was like this—this chase—police chase that some guy kidnapped his son, was holding him by knifepoint. That became national news. And then we were getting letters from the school that was right behind us, our elementary school, Start walking your kids to school because some man in a van was driving around trying to kidnap kids. So after that one, we were like, It's time to go. 

[01:09:30.26] And so, you know, Clemson being kind of still fresh in our minds and how idyllic that was, and so when the job at Georgia College presented itself, when I looked it up on the map and I'm like, Oh, small town in Georgia, phish, awesome. And so applied there and was offered the job before I even left the interview, by Beth Rushing and Bernie. I can't remember Bernie's last name, but I liked him a lot. But Beth Rushing was awesome dean. 

[01:10:10.02] And so, you know, I remember our first week there, everyone's like saying hello, welcoming us. Welcome to Georgia, welcome. I mean, people at the Huddle House, welcome to Georgia. And I remember people would say, why are you—Where are you from? California? What? San Diego? Why are you moving to Milledgeville? I said, well—you know, well, one of the reasons is the crime. Well, we have crime in Milledgeville. I said, not like LA or San Diego. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no. No, we don't." 

[01:10:41.07] One of my favorite—Laura, I don't know if I ever told you—one of my favorite things to do in the morning—of course, you know how much I love Ainsley Eubanks—still love her. And I would go to Ainsley's office in the morning. She would always have the newspaper there. We would open up the newspaper and I said, Look, Ainsley, someone stole some DVDs from a car in Walmart. Isn't that wonderful? [They laugh.] 

[01:11:07.24] And that was like the most—the craziest thing that happened in Milledgeville. Coming from LA and San Diego, where car shootings—I remember a drive-by shootings was front page news when it first started. And then after that, it was like buried in the local section. First it was on the front page 'cause it just became—that frequency of violence became ubiquitous to us. 

[01:11:36.78] But here in Milledgeville, it's like, Look, Ainsley, someone was—someone was parked illegally. That was the high crime [laughs]. I mean. In regards to whatever was reported in Milledgeville at the time. 

[01:11:53.54] So, you know, it was—so Milledgeville, to me, considering where I came from, from, you know, Tijuana, San Diego, and LA, became like this sort of odd—I was, you know, embraced by the community, I think, especially the college community. And my family was embraced. And—and, you know, we were given lots of resources and lots of leeway. And I think the most important thing that we were given was the freedom to teach our students the way we thought best. 

[01:12:40.83] And, um—you know, and then holding each other responsible and constantly tinkering with our behaviors and our curriculum. You know, I'm not saying we didn't have problems, but I think the general attitude was one of being proactive and positive and nurturing to our students. And who wouldn't want to be in an environment like that? 

[01:13:13.53] LAURA AUGUSTA:  What kind of—

[01:13:16.41] RICHARD LOU:  As a teacher and as administrator. 

[01:13:20.71] LAURA AUGUSTA:  What kinds of curriculum changes did you make? What did that look like in terms of courses or in terms of what the—what the students were getting? 

[01:13:29.38] RICHARD LOU:  Well, we instituted, um, exits—I mean, for one, I mean, you know, not to like cast—to be critical of the past, right, but the only—the only curriculum that was well developed was printmaking. And that's because that particular printmaker was interested in—you know. 

[01:13:57.02] And so we're like, Okay. All of our courses are going to have—all of our disciplines are going to have entering skills, exiting skills. They're going to have teaching goals, learning outcomes. You know. First of all, we rewrote the entire mission. And, uh—and so we created that senior class that was a year. And the seniors had to create a body of work, not just show the greatest hits from freshmen to seniors, which, you know, my—the first year we instituted that, I got a couple of really angry seniors [laughs]. You know. 

[01:14:39.54] But to their credit, they said, Richard, I can't show all this stuff? And they would say, Why didn't you arrive a year before? I mean, I arrived when I arrived. But this is the new—this is the new thing. This is to benefit you. Create a body of work. 

[01:14:57.47] Because our goal was send kids to graduate school. That was our goal. Prepare them for graduate school, rather than this was just to get a degree. And so then that whole feedback system, right. And then also leveling between art history and studio were—you know, we expected the art historians to participate in the critiques of studio students. And then the art historians expected studio people to critique art history majors. 

[01:15:32.91] And we then created museum studies. Then we, you know, hired a director to actually have a gallery director and have a solid gallery program where we started bringing in, you know, nationally well-known artists. And instituted a—back then, we called it the sort of multicultural requirement. And so all those sorts of things, you know, we were able to institute. 

[01:16:06.44] And I think that the most important thing is a sense of camaraderie, and a sense of like unity of purpose, especially in the faculty, you know. And then, you know, got Ainsley an office instead of being out in the lobby. That was important to me. [Laughs.] And so I think those—I think those were the major things that we were able to do curricularly. 

[01:16:49.87] LAURA AUGUSTA:  What kind of work were you making during that time? 

[01:16:54.08] RICHARD LOU:  Oh. Well, um, I did that—yeah. I remember we—oh, this was something that else that we did as a faculty, that was a lot of fun, is that, I would rent a van and we would have our meetings, our department meetings—our startup meetings and our last meeting of the year, we would drive to Atlanta, have lunch, go see a show, and drive back. And then Ainsley and I would conduct the department meeting while I was driving. 

[01:17:31.02] And so sometimes Ainsley would have a megaphone and I would say something and she would repeat it back. And people would ask questions, et cetera. It was so much fun. That's why we were like—I remember when Valerie bought her house. There were like five or six of us that got into a car and to go look at her house. 

[01:17:53.83] When Fadhili, you know, bought his car, I went with him. When Sang-Wook bought his house, there were a bunch of us that would went in and looked at it—looked at his house. That we were always at each other's houses or, you know, having parties and get-togethers. And—and I think it just made—it just kept everyone focused, I think, you know. That they were a part of a loving—a loving community based on a discipline that we all were passionate about. 

[01:18:30.69] And I think the other thing, too—I mean, not to like—it was I think a level of seriousness as well, attached to art-making. 'Cause we all took it very, very seriously. And so I think it might—it might not have been as serious then. I'm not sure [laughs]. You know. But, um—but this was like a real thing, you know. 

[01:19:08.38] So. And it was hard leaving. Like when I made the announcement, I just fell apart and cried in front of everybody. It was hard, very hard, leaving, yeah, Georgia College. 

[01:19:23.53] LAURA AUGUSTA:  You built a much more diverse faculty as well. I mean, in terms of your hiring practices, you also changed the demographics of what that department looked like in really significant ways. 

[01:19:33.01] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. So when I was hired, I was the first person of color to be—as a tenure track, [laughs] right. And when I left, I think it was 56 percent of the faculty were people of color. Yeah. So we went from 100 percent one thing to 56 percent people of color. 

[01:20:01.16] And the—and hiring practice, I mean, it all—it was all through the, you know—the mission. It's like, what's the mission? And I think that's a really important thing, is that the way that we wrote the job announcement, and—and it—it signaled that what you were interested was what we were interested in, and that your value system was—would be respected. And what you brought to the table was important. 

[01:20:37.10] And so—yeah. And so I think more people would apply. And so the—what other department chairs would like say, like, It's hard recruiting people from underrepresented groups to Milledgeville, Georgia. Who would want to come to Milledgeville, Georgia? It's like—and then people would point to our department and go, well, something's happening over there [laughs]. 

[01:21:09.19] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Do you remember language you used to signal in those job descriptions how you were building a different thing? 

[01:21:16.60] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. I think—I think that part of it was that we were—well, in the language of the mission and that we would also put in our, you know, public announcements for jobs is that we were interested in people having, you know, primary, secondary, or tertiary understanding of these issues, you know:  feminism, uh, issues of community, working with underrepresented groups, that sort of thing. That would clearly state, you know—and the knowledge base that we were interested in. Not so much what you look like, but the knowledge base. 

[01:22:14.92] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Remind me what year you got to Milledgeville. Was it 2000? 

[01:22:20.12] RICHARD LOU:  2001. 2001. 

[01:22:21.21] LAURA AUGUSTA:  2001. Okay. So you started in the fall of 2001? 

[01:22:25.68] RICHARD LOU:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[01:22:28.18] LAURA AUGUSTA:  I have a distinct memory of September 11 and the kind of resulting unfolding politics. So you arrived right before that event. And then you kind of unfolding politics, both nationally and locally, and of your kind of organizing of different protests around peace and around our involvement as a nation in the Middle East. And I wonder—I didn't realize it was so soon after you arrived. 

[01:22:57.16] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah, the next month—two months later. I arrived in July. Yeah. July 7 or something like that. And then, yeah, September 11. Yeah. It was—Yeah. 

[01:23:07.69] I remember I was teaching in the classroom. I was in the photo lab. Yeah, yeah. I think Ainsley came—opened the door and told me what was going on. I was just thunderstruck. And of course, we had to tell everyone to go home. And, um, yeah. Yeah, everything else is kind of—[laughs] kind of a blur after that. So. Yeah. 

[01:23:34.47] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Do you remember organizing a march downtown? 

[01:23:38.06] RICHARD LOU:  I did? 

[01:23:39.50] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Yes. [Laughs.] 

[01:23:40.52] RICHARD LOU:  Okay. Wow. Okay. 

[01:23:45.10] LAURA AUGUSTA:  You don't remember? 

[01:23:46.60] RICHARD LOU:  Not right now. I'm sure if I think about it, I'll probably remember. But I mean, I think the thing is that when you—yeah—you just keep—I guess you just keep moving forward and addressing the things that you feel needs to be addressed and you don't really think about how it's going to be read later on, you know, or memorialized later on, if it even requires memorializing. 

[01:24:13.74] I do remember being on—that some students asked me to be on a panel discussion about it. And that—from the—and some of the faculty members were like, What is an art person doing on this panel discussion with—I think Mike Digby was actually [laughs]—who—he and I later on became very good friends. And even though politically, we were on opposite [laughs] sides, but he openly questioned why—What does the art professor has to do? 

[01:24:50.34] And that's—and I think goes back to like Guillermo—what Guillermo was saying, right. And it's probably all these people that have been excluded in the conversation is the reason we keep getting into trouble. All these—all these folks that are on the margins, right, and that the patriarchy fears. So. But, yeah, the march, I'm trying to remember. I don't—like—yeah—I guess. [They laugh.] 

[01:25:28.73] LAURA AUGUSTA:  What's your recollection of politics in Milledgeville during that time? 

[01:25:34.12] RICHARD LOU:  Well, here's the—here's the thing, is that even though—I think people—people would approach me as that—I think—as that nice guy that does art stuff. And then they would—then they would see what I would do and they would like be shocked, some of them. And because I was a human being to them, it was—it was acceptable. It was—and so I'll never forget this one—this guy from facilities plant, he was like really angry. And he comes into my office and then he saw a photograph of my father—we didn't know each other very well. He saw a photograph of my father in his Marine Corps uniform. And he looks at me and he goes, Your father was in the Marine Corps? I said, Yeah, during World War II. 

[01:26:28.25] And then after that, I became a human being to him, you know, with aspirations and fear and hope, just like everybody else. But I think because—I think—of course, this may be a myth of my own making, because I think I'm a—generally, a nice person, and I think generally polite and courteous, that I think people, when they see the work, especially in a small town like Milledgeville, they go, Oh. That nice guy did that? Well, maybe, I have to think about it a little bit more. 

[01:27:09.54] You know, versus if I was some—you know, like when Guillermo showed up [laughs], and he was vilified, right. Not that—I mean, Guillermo—not that he cared 'cause, you know, he's going to do what he's going to do and we're going to bring him because he does what he does, right. But that sparked a great deal of conversation when—when we invited Guillermo to do the Mexotica.

[01:27:34.53] And so I don't think you were there. I think you were gone already. Yeah. And so that was—so, you know, after his performance, the next—the next week, we—as a department, we had teach-ins, no classes. We just all sat on the floor in the gallery with all of our students and talked it through. 

[01:28:02.48] You know. And some of our students were like super proud of what we did. And there were a few that were like disgusted, completely disgusted, you know. But they all had their—they all had their say. And all of us as faculty were there to respond, you know, to the best of our ability. And it was a really—it was a really wonderful moment, you know. 

[01:28:26.74] And I'm sure that, um, you know, there were a lot of our students that participated in Mexotica. And I'm sure afterwards, they were probably like, Uh-oh, what did I do? But then I think they were reinvigorated, right, by the support that we showed. And, um, yeah. So I'm not kidding, like 600 people showed up for Mex—the performance. [Laughs.] Yeah. 

[01:28:59.89] And then of course some of the people were trying to say they were all like—Well, all these Californians showed up. I'm like, No, they were all Georgians [laughs], waiting for something like this to happen. So no. They're your neighbors, the people you go to church with. Those are the folks that were there. [Break in recording.] 

[01:29:24.67] LAURA AUGUSTA:  All right. We took a little break. Uh. But I want to go back to Guillermo Gómez-Peña in Milledgeville. I think that's such an interesting moment in terms of your work as an artist and administrator and teacher. And so could you say a bit more about how that came to be, and what the performance looked like in Milledgeville—in the Milledgeville version? 

[01:29:45.04] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah, well, I'll never forget, you know, when I first came to—to—to Georgia College and I'm talking to Tina Yarborough and—and Roxanne, that they knew all the people that I was like friends with. They knew of them. And, you know, coming from Mesa College, the art historians didn't—didn't know any of them. Here, I'm going to Milledgeville. And I'll never forget walking into Roxanne's classroom, and—and on the board, she had the name James Luna and a bunch of other of my friends. And I'm like, Holy smokes. This is a whole other world. 

[01:30:38.08] And so what was happening was we were—I had proposed that we just do like an arts festival, which was like horribly attended, by the way, except for Mexotica. I mean, we had—we had invited like the local wrestlers to do like a wrestling demonstration, 'cause we were like trying to like—this is all culture, right. This is all—and I always think about leveling, right. And this is how—people were all interested in this. There's certain spectacle aspects of, you know, professional or semi-professional wrestling and what Guillermo does, you know. And it's very performative. 

[01:31:33.92] But we had musical acts, we were having—you know that downtown multilevel garage? We were having like little small concerts there, which was like really cool. But for some reason, I don't know what happened. But Milledgeville wasn't really interested in all this sort of free cultural programming. Maybe they just thought it was too oddball or, I don't know what. 

[01:32:02.16] But we had geared up for this whole thing. And I had pitched to the departments, like, hey, let's do this thing. And they're like, Whoa. And I said, What do you guys think about Guillermo? [Laughs.] And they were like, Yeah. And so we brought him. 

[01:32:21.53] And—and oh my gosh—and having—having Guillermo—and he read poetry the day before in front of maybe—maybe 100 people in that conference room next to the—next to the cafeteria, you know, they use like a banquet—as a banquet room. He read—he read—and everyone was like flipping out. Lots of the faculty members—lots of faculty members were there and some students, but mostly faculty. 

[01:32:59.57] So a lot of turnout from faculty—and because they were just curious, I'm sure. And, um—and so then the next day he does his performance. And he—we brought in some of his collaborators, and Emiko Lewis and—for one. And then a couple more people, I can't remember their names right now. And they staged this—this anthropological set—series of dioramas where—he had already started doing performance workshops with our students. And so he probably had about 12 of our—12 to 20 of our students working with him. So that was like an amazing bonus. 

[01:33:52.40] And he was giving it—I don't know, two or three days series of workshops, getting them prepared, blah, blah. And so they all dressed up as their—as their fantasy hybrid. [Laughs.] And it was about—these dioramas about human hybrid cyber—the stuff that he does, right, smashing the past and the present, and the feminine and the masculine and all—just all sorts of—all sorts of things of like really kind of smashing the liminal space to create like other possibilities. Completely collapsing it and—or rupturing of where people just walk in. 

[01:34:43.79] And so on the stage—so there's all these dioramas, right, of people in all these—you know, he brought all these costumes and encouraged people to create costumes. And so there's people like in various modes of dress and undress. And, um—and some of the audience members that showed up from all over Georgia were like participating in it as well. And it got—it—on this stage. 

[01:35:17.27] And so at any given moment, there were a couple of hundred people on the stage [laughs], and then, you know, a couple of hundred people watching in the audience that just got off the stage and then sat and watched. So it—so that was interesting to like—blurring the line—or again, collapsing the line, or erasing the line between audience and participant, you know. Creator and consumer. 

[01:35:51.14] And, um—and so I guess other people just saw it and, you know—because some people were like fully nude, some members of the Milledgeville community, and beyond [laughs,] took great umbrage. And our campus—our campus became like embroiled internally with a—in a very polemical way of, you know, liberal and conservative. I don't even know if there was a discussion, but a back and forth for sure. [Laughs.] 

[01:36:34.61] And, you know, the newspaper wrote about it and Macon TV showed up about it. And I got a letter from one of those Jerry Falwell spin-offs, you know. Which one was it? I don't know. But I mean, they're like super prominent with the Christian coalition, silent majority folks out of—based out of Atlanta, Georgia, uh, proposing—actually, challenging me to a debate about art. 

[01:37:12.98] Yeah, I think it was—yeah I think it's a Ralph Reed organization. One of the—one of Parents for something or other. And so it became—and I think Dorothy Leland was president then. And Dorothy Leland was—she's amazing, anyways. And she—and I remember her making the statement saying, you may not agree with this, but this is what we do. This is the—this is the function of a liberal arts university, is to—is to challenge—make challenging work as well as other things. And that this isn't—what happened was another way of pursuing scholarship. 

[01:38:01.28] And so—so those of us—and every university—most—by and large, every university town creates like a progressive bubble. For us, per her statement from the very top, made that bubble thicker for us, you know. And I'm sure for those that were not happy with what we were doing, her statement, uh, was a challenge to them. 

[01:38:37.62] And so, you know, there were some elements of the Georgia College academic community that were ferocious in their attack. So. But it comes with the territory. And it's healthy, to a certain degree, right? Until name-calling starts to happen and—a little bit of that happened. That's okay, too, I guess. 

[01:39:07.35] LAURA AUGUSTA:  What kind of work were you making during your time at Georgia College? And were you showing at that time? What was—what was happening in that realm of your studio practice? 

[01:39:17.03] RICHARD LOU:  Oh, yeah. I was showing quite a bit. And I was still showing—for a while, I was still showing as part of Los Anthropolocos with Robert Sanchez. Bill and I collaborated on a piece called Colonial Towers. And I did that piece called—after a while, you make so much stuff you kind of forget what it's called. What is it called? Anyways, it's a border patrol uniform with a thousand nooses on the back. 

[01:39:54.29] Now that was inspired directly by moving to the South. When I saw the show—in our—in one of our trips to Atlanta, the faculty and I, we—and Ainsley—went to go see a show at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center. And the show was postcards of lynchings. And it was a really famous show. And the power—the power of that—I mean, number one, you know, I hate to like enter into aestheticizing, you know, brutality and terrorism and genocide, but the power of that exhibition, the quiet power—I mean, you walk in and the first thing you see and hear is "Strange Fruit" and—being sung, and an image of a tree. 

[01:41:02.29] And then you walk in and then there's these cases where you see the postcards, the photographs. And—and the photographs are just brutal, just brutal. But I think what it was equally brutal was that it was—that there were like handwritten notes saying, I was here. And, Wish you were here, or—and then it was transmitted through the US mail that people were sending them like Christmas cards, you know, or similar to Christmas cards. 

[01:41:38.90] And, um, the naked vulnerableness, right, already, you know. The victim is being dehumanized beyond belief. And then this added layer of—I mean, I don't even know if callousness is—could define it, you know. You know, those images being circulated by a sanctioned form of—by a sanctioned infrastructure of the US government, because that was just part of its business, you know, to deliver the mail. 

[01:42:31.97] And so, to d—so I was imagining like these missives traveling around the country landing wherever they did, with—without—without a moral kind of impact. But anyways, so that—seeing that, I was thinking about, um, the militarization of the border, the increased militarization of the border and the sudden increase of deaths on the border. And how—you know, I remember Noam Chomsky—reading Noam Chomsky, and he talks about how we're all responsible for the crimes of our government. 

[01:43:15.92] And so how we become complicit in these—in this institutional forms of death, you know, militarizing the border, creating these barriers where now people have to feel compelled to cross through the desert, die of dehydration, or die—die in the several incidents of being piled in an 18-wheeler truck and, you know, being left to die in those things. Or being—or freezing crossing the mountain, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and how deaths just spiked in the thousands after—after Clinton, you know, instituted his policies of militarizing the border. 

[01:44:09.59] So I equated the idea of the sort of another form of lynching in regards to like torture. And torture—needing for the public to be aware, right. Torture only works if the public participates. And its reading in—and seeing and reading it, right, because torture is supposed to teach, right, that this is what happens when you transgress. This is what happens to your body when you transgress. 

[01:44:44.24] And so that was a—to me, not to diminish or—what the lynchings that occurred in the South—but to me, that became another form of torture, a public torture of people crossing the border and purposefully being put in harm's way as—as—as a stated public foreign policy. So—so that informed—directly informed the—that particular piece of the border patrol uniform with the nooses, the thousand nooses on its back. 

[01:45:31.09] So those—those—because I was in Georgia College for what, six—six years. So those pieces—and I'm sure if I was to look at my resume, you could probably think of think of more. But those are the pieces—oh, the low mower that we made. [Laughs.] Yeah. 

[01:45:55.06] Ainsley, Roxanne, Tina, Sang-Wook, Bill—yeah. I think that's who worked on it. That was so much fun, you know, working with all my friends on this piece. And that got shown a few times and published, that sort of thing. So that piece as well. 

[01:46:20.10] And then the other thing, too, is that—you know that big barn that we had? You know, Patrick Holbrook would come there and make his work. So I remember him asking me, Hey, could I use your barn? I'm like, Yeah. And so I remember him working on a piece for a show in Atlanta. 

[01:46:38.79] And then later on, Sang-Wook asked to use the barn, too. So that was, you know—that kind of community, right, was frequent and ordinary. Which is, um—which is awesome, that that becomes so ordinary that you don't even really have to think about it. But—and so I was in a lot of exhibitions during my time, would fly out here and there while I was at Georgia College. 

[01:47:19.96] So the—the production didn't ever—the production didn't stop or the exhibition didn't—the exhibiting didn't stop as well. And then I wrote stuff as well. I remember writing about Mexotica for The Drama Review out of MIT. So there's a piece that I wrote about that. And, um—and that was—I wrote that when I was department chair at Georgia College. 

[01:47:47.06] So I think—but I think clearly, for me, the shiny part was what we were—what all of us were able to do as teachers there. And that's the—and then also all the artists that we were able to bring in as a community to kind of like amplify—create a—amplify for our students what is out there. 

[01:48:18.93] And the other thing, too, is that I remember clearly is how the art—the gallery became subservient to the art versus the other way around. 'Cause I'll never forget talking to a faculty member—and—because he wanted me to show my work when I first arrived at Georgia College, so as an introduction. And I said, Oh, yeah, sure. So I start—so I was there with one of these—one of the faculty members—Ty, actually—and I'm like placing all my work. And so that—and, you know, listening to him gave me the—a hint at the prevailing attitude. So I—I got a nail and started like to—he's like No, no, no, no, Richard. We don't nail into the wall this gallery. I'm like, You don't? why? "Oh, no, because we have to keep the walls clean." I'm like, Okay. [Mimes hammering.] Not anymore. The art is the important part, not the walls. 

[01:49:35.50] And then we kept—that's the added—I mean, the space was for the art, not the other way around [laughs]. You know, so. And that kind of gave me like a—like I said, a little insight to—and I think maybe some of it was sort of resource driven. It's like well, we don't have money to repair. It's like, no, we got money to repair now. Why? 'Cause it's a priority. So the whole kind of valuing system was questioned and then, you know, adjusted. Let's just say adjusted. 

[01:50:14.07] LAURA AUGUSTA:  And then Memphis called you. 

[01:50:16.86] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. Okay, this is what happened, Laura. 

[01:50:19.08] LAURA AUGUSTA:  [Laughs.] Yes. 

[01:50:21.42] RICHARD LOU:  Is that—is that I was happy at Milledgeville. I saw myself retiring there. And I know Tina didn't believe me at first, you know. And we loved her. I loved her so much. And we were very dear friends. And, um—and I was having such a great time. 

[01:50:39.69] But here's what happened is that my kids became unhappy, even though when they first arrived, they loved it. They loved Milledgeville because we used to go camping all the time. And when we moved, you know, we had 12 acres. They didn't ask about camping anymore because they were like—they lived in the woods. 

[01:51:00.35] And—but as they became teenagers—and you know how they used to call the mall "the small." And so that's—it became evident to me that they were not happy living in Milledgeville anymore. The most vocal ones, which was Gloria and Maricela. And they were the oldest ones. 

[01:51:21.93] And so they expressed to me how unhappy they were. And I'm like, Uh-oh. Well. And they wanted to move to a larger city. And I'm like, oh, oh, huh. And so then I was asked to apply at Athens. And so I applied and I didn't get the job. And to me, it was like, well, eh. But when I told them I didn't get the job at Athens, those two kids started crying. And it broke my heart. 

[01:51:53.98] So I'm like, Okay. I got—I have to be serious about trying to find another job in a bigger town—in a city. And so, you know, was offered the job—applied and was offered the job at the University of Memphis. And I left, and—I mean, we left. And, um, it was tough because when I arrived at the University of Memphis, the department was a giant mess. And I just left an idyllic situation [laughs], where everything ran smoothly. People were supported, people got along, et cetera, et cetera. 

[01:52:48.80] And Laura, my first month here, I was ready to get the hell out. And the only reason—I mean, and I'm not trying to like think I'm some kind of savior—the only reason I did not leave other than my kids being happy now being in a big city—biggish city—is the students here. I'm like, no, I can't leave them. So I stayed. 

[01:53:25.40] And—and, you know, I long—I mean, okay—when I left, when I accepted the job, the administration at Georgia College said, Don't leave, Richard. We will offer you dean salary and you can take the year off. Don't leave. And I said, you know, It's not the—it's not because of that. 

[01:53:52.31] And do—but there was something else that happened at Georgia College that I was kind of angry about, that kind of made it easier for me to leave, you know. But by and large, it was because, you know, my kids needed something else and—that Milledgeville couldn't provide. 

[01:54:15.43] And like I said, some of my happiest moments were riding around in that little green John Deere that we had, and then parking it up there at the top of our pasture and sitting in that in that—in that little mini tractor, that's—I felt the most relaxed ever, just looking at—looking at that land. And it was magical. It was absolutely magical. Something that I've never experienced in my life is that being in nature like that. And I'll never forget where there was like 25 turkeys were crossing the pasture and that was like one of the most magical things that I've ever seen in my entire life, you know. And I was going to leave that. [Laughs.] So, you know, off we went. And started implementing changes here and pushing stuff around. 

[01:55:23.99] And it was kind of like Mesa College, where I arrived at a—with a group of faculty that were much older, been here a long time. They wanted me here, but they didn't want me to change anything at first. But change is imminent. [Laughs.] 

[01:55:44.72] So, um, yeah. So after 15 years of—this—crazily enough, the place that I'm like—when I first arrived, I'm like, Oh, no. What am I doing here? Is the place that I stay—that I end up and will retire from. [Laughs.] And life is odd that way. 

[01:56:12.33] And—and so after 15 years, the thing that I—I, you know, decided to like step down from being department chair because the entire environment of academics has changed, where—and it's—it's all state legislatively driven, is state legislatures, especially in Republican-controlled states, don't care about education and do everything they can to destroy it, you know, by constantly underfunding when expenses keep going up. So that's a way of cutting, cutting, cutting. 

[01:56:56.26] And now by instituting these—these fascist laws about teaching, what we can and cannot teach, to ensure that there is a whitewashing of our history and a silencing of people from marginalized groups and denying people's existence, whether it's, you know, through this transphobia and—or denying women's rights. So it's like, little by little, I'm sure people will leave, or people will not come here. You know, so whether it's Texas or Tennessee or South Carolina or Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, all of the states have embraced a dystopian ideal. 

[01:57:50.24] So I feel bad for young faculty members like you, and my other colleagues, 'cause I finally—I finally got to the place in my department where lots of people have retired and I'm—who knows if they'll even watch this—but all these people have retired. And I'm like—some I wish I didn't, but most, I'm glad they have, quite frankly. And we've got a whole new group of folks that are like—love our students and all—and they just want to teach. And they're not jaded. 

[01:58:26.18] But they have—so it almost feels like Georgia College again, except now I'm the old person, leaving, stepping away, and other people are taking over, which is like awesome, 'cause I get back to do what I love the most, which is teach and be with my students. And I'm not distracted as much anymore, you know, because like I'll be teaching and then my phone rings and it's the dean. And I have to step out of the class, answer questions, you know, et cetera. Or something bad happens, I have to step out and take care of that, et cetera. 

[01:59:05.21] So that doesn't happen. Now it's just me and the kids in the classroom. And it's awesome. And I hope they think it's awesome. I don't know if they do, but I certainly do. [Laughs.] 

[01:59:15.71] LAURA AUGUSTA:  [Laughs.] Yeah. 

[01:59:17.90] RICHARD LOU:  So, you know, I'm having a great time back in the classroom. And I feel so rested, too. You know. And like since May—I think I might have told you this—I read like 12 or 15 books. It's like, all these books as department chair for like 29 years, I would buy and I'm like, Okay, I'll get to you in a little bit. I'll get to you in a little bit. 

[01:59:45.39] 29 years later, I'm like finally getting to all these books that I have and that I've been longing to engage with. And now I'm finally—I'm finally doing it again, and marveling, marveling at these worlds that I'm entering and think—getting to think about and sitting on my couch and not having to worry about writing some report justifying why education is important. 

[02:00:21.36] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm. And you're also working on a graphic novel yourself, right? 

[02:00:24.90] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. Yeah, I am, with Lisa Williamson. My good friend, Lisa, and a former student, Pam McDonnell. So she just joined us a little bit ago. And—and also Guisela Latorre is writing the introduction and having conversations with us. And, um—and I don't know if you know Frederick Aldama—

[02:00:49.02] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-mm [negative]. 

[02:00:50.39] RICHARD LOU:  Okay. So he's the one that's interested in publishing it. And he just actually sent me an email going—basically going, Come on, Richard. Let's get going. [Laura Augusta laughs.] 

[02:01:03.95] And so, you know, the—so, you know, the—actually, we're going to start doing some kind of fundraising because Lisa needs to be paid, you know, justifiably so. And Pam as well. And my daughter, Magda, is we're going to be using her as the lettering—for the lettering. So it's another little family affair. 

[02:01:29.73] And yeah, so working on that. And I, you know—so here was the thing—and I think I mentioned this before, is that when I wasn't—I started off as a writer, and then kind of was torn when I was at undergraduate school. I mean, oddly enough, my mentor was my American literature teacher who was a Mark Twain scholar. He was my mentor through col—the university. Not another art teacher, although I love my art teachers, but it was the American literature guy, Sherwood Cummings. 

[02:02:12.94] And so I always made a promise to myself that when I retired that I would go back to writing. I'm too old to like do installations and performance, [laughs] you know. It's like crawling around building stuff—although I have an installation coming up in—next month, you know. But—but I'm finding great joy in the writing. And it might not be any good, but sounds like people are interested in reading it. 

[02:02:42.77] And—but I have like, you know, 16, 20 pages worth of notes or more that I'm like, I can't wait to be done with this one, even though there's—I've left it alone enough where I can start re-editing it and approach it with fresh eyes without interrupting the drawing so they don't have to redraw stuff. 

[02:03:10.44] So, you know—so like I mentioned, I'm really—and since they are stories about my family, you know, about my mom and my dad and my grandparents, and my aunts and uncles, they're all gone except for my uncle Nacho, who his 75th birthday is coming up in July and we'll be going to celebrate his birthday in Culiacan. And so he's—there's drawings of him and his wife, Lucy, in there. 

[02:03:48.45] And—and so for me, because I miss my parents so much, but I get to visit them in my stories—in their stories, as they recounted them to me or as I observed them, right. And I think I sent I sent you some of the stories. And so I'll write and I'll cry and I'll write and I laugh. And I write and I feel their embrace, you know, and their guidance. 

[02:04:20.90] And, you know, 'cause I'm 65, it's not like—it's not like I'm in mid-career here [laughs], or at the beginning of my career. And I think of this often. I think about—especially like my grandchildren who you see in the back. And I keep measuring, Laura. I'm like, okay, my dad died when he was 74. I'm 65. If that's where I end up at 74, how old will Quetzalli be? And how old will Tupac be? And how much will—how much time will I get to spend with them, to see them flourish or see them happy or sad? And, um, yeah. 'Cause I don't want to go. So I think that's the—that's the reason why I want to—why I'm writing this. I want them to be able to hear me, you know, when I'm long gone, when I'm in the dark. And so they could—they could read the stories and maybe get a sense of who I am as they get older. And then also for my kids to remember me by through the stories that I—that I have carried around with me, my stories of my family that I tried to maintain as much as possible, and my brothers and my sisters and my nieces, you know, and nephews. 

[02:05:56.13] And so, you know, this work I do for them, and of course for myself 'cause I find great pleasure in it. But the other thing, too, is, you know—is it's like I don't want to lose my marbles. So I have to like keep thinking of challenges. Yeah. I have to keep thinking of challenges. 

[02:06:23.74] I was—I was—don't think I told you, Laura, but I was thinking like four years ago, I looked into, after I stepped down as department chair, going into the counseling program and getting my master's degree in social work. And so I went to an orientation and I went to—met with an advisor. And we—we kind of started like creating a track, et cetera. 

[02:06:57.66] And—and so then I was thinking, okay, I'll work in my community and maybe be a service to them, and then keep my mind occupied, right. And so—but then the pandemic hit. And with the pandemic, for all of us—and, you know, for me, and I'm sure for many others, it was a point of anger that because of the fumbling of it its handling, all this time we lost to be with our loved ones All these people that died. All these people that died and went—and died alone because of arrogance. 

[02:07:44.30] And so the idea of my time with like people that I love, it's like, well, if I do this other thing, it's going to take time away from that. And I just focus on—on, you know—on my writing and my artwork, which is the same thing to me, and, you know, spending time with my family. 

[02:08:09.87] And actually right before we started this conversation, I was in the woodshop making a bow for my granddaughter. [Laughs.] I've never made bows before, but—you know, 'cause they're Muslim. So one of the things that they teach Muslim kids is horseback riding, swimming, and archery. So I'm making her a bow so she can learn how to—so she can learn archery. So. Yeah, so that's what I was doing. And, you know—and, you know, trying to be present. 

[02:08:58.19] LAURA AUGUSTA:  It feels so full circle to think about the way we started this conversation, grounding your practice in your family, and family stories and the stories of your parents, and then coming to the point where you're thinking about grandchildren and thinking about your time with them. And it's such a beautiful framing of a career, right, because these—I think so much of what has defined your practice both as a teacher and as a visual artist is the personal. It is the kind of experience of people you love and care about, whether that be family or students. But the people you love and kind of thinking about ways to make the world better for those people that you care about. And so I'm just struck by the kind of arc of these hours that we've spent together being grounded by family, right. It's really beautiful. 

[02:09:56.91] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah, we're not alone. 

[02:09:59.00] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Yeah. I, um—I don't want to cut this off prematurely. I feel like there's other things we could talk about. But I want to touch base with you and kind of see how you're feeling and where you're at. We're still recording, but are there things that you've been thinking about over the course of this interview that you'd like to share that I haven't asked you about? 

[02:10:24.42] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. I was thinking—I was thinking about—I kept thinking about, What are the valuable lessons—I keep going back to my teachers. And maybe because I'm in the profession and, you know, the reason I'm in the profession is because I love this. I feel that it's a noble cause. 

[02:10:54.65] And—and, um, you know—and I remember I was talking to a fellow faculty member that we just hired and he has gone and taught somewhere else—teaching somewhere else. But he's a filmmaker and we were talking during the interview and he—and I asked him, What is it that you enjoy about teaching? And he said, It's a moral imperative. I'm like, Yeah. [Laughs.] You know. 

[02:11:24.71] And so those are the—those are the things that drive me. So I was like thinking about all the—all these teachers that not just were formative in my life, but God, hundreds and thousands and thousands of kids. And there was this one after school coach—I don't think I ever mentioned this before. But there was this—this was at Harborside Elementary School. And it was back in the time when there was money to have like some person after school hand out baseballs and footballs and checker boards and chess boards and Monopoly games and—to kids after school and then organize games, whether it was hopscotch or running relay races or playing football, which I did. And he was our football coach. And he would like drive us around to other schools in elementary—we were in elementary school and we had like a little T-shirt uniform and we would play flag football. And I loved it. 

[02:12:35.85] And then, you know, I would be there after school every day playing with my friends, et cetera. And so football season's over. And then basketball season is just about to start. And I'm out there playing basketball with my best friend, Sean Murphy again. And the coach says—he's watching us play. And after we were done playing we handed the ball back to him. And Coach says, Hey, Richard. I'm like, Yeah, Coach? "Hey, are you going to go out for basketball? Are you going to go out for the team?" And I'm like—I feel like swelled up, right, that he—that he picked me out to like encourage me to play. 

[02:13:24.72] And I'm like, Yeah, I'm thinking about it coach. And he says to me, Well, you're not very good. But Richard, you always show up. And at first, I felt bad. And then I'm like, yeah, I do show up. You know. And so that sense of commitment, right, to a collective effort, to an esprit de corps, which I talked about when I was talking about Georgia College, you know. Esprit de corps, camaraderie, sense of purpose. 

[02:14:06.76] I'm like, yeah. I do. That's important. I show up, you know. And so I didn't—that was like the highest compliment that he could give me. You know, so—and I remember telling my kids that story and instill a sense of, hopefully, responsibility. And once you say yes to someone or no to—you follow through, following through with your commitment and your obligations. 

[02:14:45.22] And—and so much like my father would tell us stories about his father, you know, struggling and that educated man using him as a piece of furniture to write a letter, I would use that—my story about, "Well, Richard, as at least you show up," which is a funny story. And it's not exactly, You're the star, [laughs] you know, of the show. 

[02:15:18.35] And—but—but the other lesson of life that—and I tell this to my students. It's like, I'm going to work with the—I'm going to work with—I'm interested in working with people that are nice, and that are smart and that show up, you know. If you're an art star—that doesn't mean that they're—that they go hand in hand. But if you're an art star and you don't show up or you make other people miserable, I don't care. I don't want to work with you because then it's no fun, you know. 

[02:15:53.19] And so I always encourage my students like, be nice, show up. Those are qualities that other people are looking for. Be nice and show up and work. That's it. And, um—and, you know, and that's—those sorts of ideas or ideals have sustained me. And so I was thinking about that. 

[02:16:20.21] And so I remember my high school PE teacher, who probably—my two years or one and half years that he was my PE teacher, probably said like 15 words to me until graduation day—or the day before graduation. And—and he was a Mexicano, too, Coach Vasquez, I think. And—and so it was the last day of school and he says—and he says, Hey, Richard. I want to talk to you. And I'm like, what? Okay, Coach. Because usually he would just say, Richard your number is 79. Go with a—stand at your number. Or, Take these volleyballs over there. Or, You're the team captain for this. Or go—you're on this team. That would be—so they were mostly commands [laughs]. 

[02:17:17.72] So now that he wanted to talk to me, and he said, Are you going to college, Richard? I'm like, Yeah. And he said, well—and I know you've probably heard this a million times. He says, Well, college is not a 40-yard dash. It's a marathon. 

[02:17:39.97] I'm like, Okay, Coach. [Laughs.] I'm like 18. What the hell do I know? You know. But that's 1977 and I still think about it. Not just college being a marathon, but what we do. And, uh—and so those are like—even though he just spent two minutes with me, a minute, maybe, it's like those are the sorts of things that teachers may or may not realize that we as students just like take with us. 

[02:18:24.46] And I don't know if I ever—I'm just going to reel into one story after another, Laura. So there was this—when I became—when I started teaching at Mesa College, I was teaching an art appreciation class. And there were like 110 students in each of these classes. I taught three art appreciation classes and two photo classes. And so—oh no, sorry, two art appreciation classes and three photo classes. So I taught 300 students a semester. And so—'cause each photo class was like 28 students. That was the capacity. And so I taught my art appreciation class, and it's an auditorium style. The lights go off and you just see the kids in the front row and maybe you remember their names, or whoever asks a lot lots of questions. But 99 percent of them is you don't even see their faces or you don't even remember them, unfortunately. 

[02:19:28.37] And so class is over. I walk back to my class—I walked back to my office. I'm in my office. And I must have been the department chair because that's what the image that I'm seeing. So I'm in the department chairs office when someone knocks on my door. 

[02:19:44.51] And so I open the door and there's this woman there about in her mid-forties. I said, Yes, can I help you? She goes, Mr. Lou, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm late. I'm sorry I'm late to your class. I go, Well, class is over. It's okay. Don't worry. You know me, oh, don't worry about it [laughs]. 

[02:20:08.36] And she's—she's—and it's like an hour and a half after class is over. And she says, No. And the way she said no, I'm like, Uh-oh. She goes, No. It's never going to happen again. I'm like, Okay. And she said, My husband locked me in my bedroom, took away the keys to my car, and locked me in the rest of the house. So I had to climb out the window from a second-story bedroom, jump on the roof to our first story, jump down onto the grass on our front lawn and run to the bus stop to come try to be to your class on time. It took me three buses to get here. It will never happen again. 

[02:21:04.78] And you know what that taught me, Laura? Is that, you know, we do—as teachers, we do all this stuff by rote. It's like, I say this and then this is the—this is the lesson that builds skills for this next lesson. And this next lesson builds skills for the following one. And this creates the context for them to understand this new idea, et cetera. So it's like formula that we tinker with, right, to try to like get it right and make it interesting. 

[02:21:44.08] And, uh—and so we see it as like this skill that we perform. But some of our students, that's their—that's their life. You know. It's not like it's Mr. Lou is going to say something important. No, this class is important to my life goal and my aspiration. And we have to be able to match that and respect that. That what our students go through just to get to our campus is unfathomable. Unfathomable. And so we have to respect that in the classroom. 

[02:22:38.83] So that was an amazing lesson that she provided for me, to respect what I do, respect what other teachers do because we certainly don't get paid enough. [Laughs.] I get paid well. So I'm not—but, you know—so what's going on in the heads of 110 students in that darkened room. As my mother would say, cada cabeza es un mundo. Right. Every head is its own world. 

[02:23:17.55] And we don't know what's going on in those heads until they tell us. And when someone like that tells us this profound story of struggle and triumph—because let me tell you, Laura—'cause I remembered that face. And she was in class every time afterwards. I don't know if she killed her husband or what. But she was there on time and just sitting there proud in that fucking classroom, you know. 

[02:23:51.10] And I was proud to be her teacher. And things like that drive me. And they haunt me, too, when I don't do a good enough job. 

[END OF TRACK aaa_lou24_4of6_digvid_m.]

[00:00:03.11] LAURA AUGUSTA:  All right. So we're back, and today is March 19, 2024. I'm here with Richard Lou for the Archives of American Art in what we think will be the last conversation we have in this interview. Many more conversations in the future, of course. 

[00:00:19.91] Um. And I wanted to start, as we're—as we're thinking about this whole conversation we've been having over a couple of months now, I wanted to start with some big, kind of umbrella questions so we could look back over what we've been talking about. 

[00:00:34.88] And as you—at this moment in your career, as you're looking back to the many projects you've been involved with, I'd like to go through what some of the most important ones have been for you. And you can define importance in whatever way you want, of course. I want to be really clear. That's a broad word, not a narrow one. So where should we begin? What projects would you like to focus on? 

[00:00:59.84] RICHARD LOU:  Actually, I was just thinking about that. Well, I think, the—my—actually, my writings would probably, now that I think about it more and we briefly chatted before you pressed the record button—and at first, I was going to say, I'll start with the Inner City Portraits/ Self-Portraits from my—from graduate school at Clemson University. 

[00:01:25.52] At first, I'm like, Oh, I'll talk—I'll start there, but then I'm like, wait, there's a whole thread that starts really when I started writing poetry when I was in elementary school, which is basically the narrative, right? And my great interest in narrative work. And so, was writing poetry and short stories, you know, as a child and through elementary school and junior high some, and a lot in high school. 

[00:02:01.95] And in high school, I thought I was going to—my dream was to, uh, become a writer and teach American literature in high school. That was my dream job. But then, you know, the fear—my fear, which is like not an uncommon fear amongst creative people, is like, oh—number one, how do you do that? And how do you make a living? And how do you have the stuff that, quote unquote, "normal people" have, like food [laughs], a place to live, et cetera. A family, which I've always wanted to have a family. 

[00:02:50.03] And so, I switched. So I became—I think I might have talked about this before. I became a psychology major. And, uh, and then—and I know I mentioned this before, but my sister got a camera, and I took photography. And then, boom, I went into photography as a way of tapping into my creative self. 

[00:03:18.12] But, you know, the more I think about it, the work that resparked my interest in the narrative form—because I was trained more as a modernist photographer, right, because that was—I kind of came up in the tail end of that era. But a really wonderful photo teacher, Bob Schneider at Southwestern College, and—who was incredibly inspirational to me and became my mentor there.

[00:03:50.48] And when I went on to Cal State Fullerton, and was—my teachers were Eileen Cowin and Darryl Curran, that work actually became the first narrative form using the photographic medium where I was creating diptychs. And I don't even know the title of that work anymore, but there's about 20 some pieces that recently resurfaced. After 20 some years [laughs], Robert Sanchez found them in the painting studio at Mesa College. 

[00:04:25.16] So, I have them in a box over there, that—and I hadn't seen them in over 20 some years. And so, anyways, but they were these diptychs where I would—they kind of were cinematic. And because there was like an establishing shot, and then there was a close-up. And the close-up was supposed to be some kind of psychological or intellectual insight. And so, it would—it would expose a detail that you couldn't see in the establishing shot. And—and it was—and so it was sort of like a, b, right? And so, it was my first real attempt at the narrative form using more than one—a single photograph to tell a story. And so that is like sort of the starting point in regards to using, you know, in a serious way, visual elements to tap into the narrative form that I was interested since childhood. 

[00:05:37.11] And these—and this narrative form really comes from, you know, listening to my parents tell stories. And listening to my grandparents and my aunts and uncles tell stories around the kitchen, the kitchen—the kitchen table. Or when they would be, you know, reading fotonovelas [laughs] under the elm tree in the corner of our—the corner of our lot in our house in Imperial Beach, where they would all gather in the dirt, sitting in folding chairs or in a hammock with my grandmother. 

[00:06:16.09] And my aunt Kika would—or my aunt Gloria would bring trash bags filled with these, you know,  fotonovelas. And some were kind of raunchy. But—and all five or six of them would all be sitting there underneath the elm tree reading away, and swapping these little books amongst themselves. 

[00:06:40.45] And, uh—and I guess their great interest in those sorts of—that sort of storytelling, and then their own stories in regards to family, yeah, just manifested itself in me. And so, yeah, that—so that is like the undergraduate work, I guess, the BA senior exhibition that I had at Cal State Fullerton, that would be like, the most—I guess, the most important piece in regards to being the first—my first understanding of how to assemble, right, image—more than one image together, and then move on from there. 

[00:07:28.39] And I remember being—you know, 'cause Eileen Cowin was doing her docudramas, and so she was a great inspiration. And then she showed work—she showed Fred Lonidier's work from UCSD, in San Diego, and said, Look, Richard, he writes. And he writes and puts photograph and text together. But I wasn't there yet. It wasn't until graduate school that—that I did the Inner-City Portraits/Self-Portraits. And I spent a lot of time—because I came—I was—the way I work was writing first. So I wrote this whole kind of script. And A. D. Coleman talked about artists like me being—or photographers like me being—under the directorial mode, is what he called it, from his beautiful essay back in 1979 I think, called it directorial mode. 

[00:08:35.11] And so, um, you know—so writing—writing about work—about making artwork—was my—the way I operated, was my modality, and hasn't really stopped. So I always write about what this work is about, or what the work I'm about to embark on is about. And I'll make, you know, some sketches, et cetera, and write notes all over the place, carry them in my back pocket, to—so they could ferment, and then, you know—then start making the work. 

[00:09:17.60] So that—that sort of thing has—has also roots in, like, working with my father because whenever he would build stuff, he would draw something out and he would show me and, you know, say, for example, if we were going to lay a pad of concrete for—to build a room addition—which we did—or we would—he would draw it all out and then he would carry it in his back pocket [laughs]. And would unfold it and look at it. And he would talk about it and put it back in his back pocket. And then at some point it would be built based on this very rudimentary drawing. But it was just a touchstone for him, much like my little drawings that I make for installations or performances or, you know, flat work or whatever. It's just a touchstone to remind me. They're sort of like little—they're signs to remind me that this is the direction that the work needs to go. 

[00:10:27.84] So—so I had written this—you know, filled up this notebook, filled with dialogue. And some of it is internal dialogue, in regards to the Inner-City Portraits piece, internal dialogues. And then on the facing page would be, you know, characteristics of this personage that I was going to portray and the why—why this person—what would this person say, what would this person look like, where—where could you find this person, what would they wear, how old would they be. 

[00:11:12.80] So. So—and that really comes from my mentor Sherwood Cummings, back at Cal State Fullerton, when I would share my writings with him. And I remember him asking me—'cause I had written this one story that—that took place in, say, like, one day, three hours in a bar, which is really funny 'cause I don't drink and never have—never been a denizen of the bar, but I guess I was romanticizing that moment. [Laughs.] And then he asked me—he goes, how long—I remember him asking me, Richard, so how long does this story take? I said, About three to four hours in one day. And he said, Okay, so what's the name of your character? And I told him. And he said, So what did he do the day before? And I'm like, I don't know [laughs]. "What is he going to do tomorrow?" And I'm like, I don't know. "What about next week, and a month from now, and five years from now?" I had no idea. 

[00:12:18.01] And so he taught me that to—to, you know, fully realize a narrative, and especially if they're, you know, populated with characters, that I really should know these characters as intimately as possible. So from that training, you know, it influenced how I would write about these characters that I created for the Inner-City Portrait/Self-Portrait series. Which was a series of photographs, where I would dress up as different people and—different characters or archetypes within the inner city and then—in Clemson, South Carolina, which really has no inner city [laughs], since it's not really a city. And I think I was projecting that I—that I missed being back home, right.

[00:13:18.68] And so coming from large cities—'cause the area that I grew up in was Tijuana, San Diego, and Los Angeles, which really the—I mean, the only thing that separates them—there's two things that separates those three cities from being a megalopolis, you know, is Camp Pendleton, which is a Marine Corps—one of the largest Marine Corps land bases in the world, and—and then the border itself. And so, otherwise, it would be just one giant city. 

[00:13:54.89] And I missed that, obviously. And so I projected it onto—onto the—the lonely streets of Clemson, South Carolina, where I would place myself. And then my wife then, Maricela, would photograph me. So I would put the camera on a tripod and set the camera all up, and—and, um—and I would stand somewhere—or I would have her stand where I was supposed to stand, frame, and then I would put a stick by her feet [laughs]. And then we would switch places. And then I would strike several poses by going, [speaks out of the corner of his mouth] Now, [they laugh] and then—and then she would—and Maricela would snap the shutter. 

[00:14:45.53] And, um—so, and that's—you know, so those photographs became these characters, right. But in these photographs, I would also—I would also print the text that I would write about them. And the writing was basically as if I was interviewing them. As the artist, I was interviewing them and I was writing down what they were saying to me about their lives. And so it looked sort of like a dossier, with, you know, their name, their date of birth, their marital status, et cetera, et cetera, the amount of education, occupation, and then their comments to me, which was to myself—commenting to myself I guess. 

[00:15:40.36] And so that became like a really rich, um, environment—sort of creative environment—for me because not only was I photographing and creating these characters, but I was also writing as well. And so that became a very rich moment. And also, you know, this work sprang about—and I think I mentioned to you before—during undergraduate school back at Cal State Fullerton, where professor Darryl Curran was critiquing a graduate student, I'm in the audience as an undergrad senior. And this graduate student was kind of floundering around. And Darryl just very—made quick work of him [laughs]. And every suggestion Darryl would say to him—that Professor Curran would say to him—the graduate student had some kind of excuse. 

[00:16:43.70] And then I think, in a moment of frustration, Professor Curran said, Just make it all up. It's all a construction anyways. And that certainly landed with a great ferocity in regards to how I viewed my own work. It may not have landed with the graduate student—or maybe it did—but it certainly—you know, I had a wide net to catch that tidbit that Darryl threw out there. And I've been running with it ever since. 

[00:17:22.89] So those—those are the sorts of things that—you know, back to another professor of mine at Cal State Fullerton, Victor Smith, who was a painter and who I adored, you know, from a distance, really. I found him to be this model of an artist. You know, he had studied Zen Buddhism in Japan, et cetera, and seemingly would walk, you know, upon air. But I remember him saying during a lecture—his emeritus lecture that I was amazingly fortunate to attend—that he said, It's better to pay attention than to seek attention. 

[00:18:13.87] And so I guess while I was paying attention to Darryl Curran, he says that. And it was a revelation to me in regards to what—in regards to the possibilities of art making increased 100-fold. And I couldn't—I couldn't—it was hard to contain my excitement while I sat there in the classroom just waiting to apply what he said to us, but to apply it to what I was—what I wanted to do. And so I did in that piece, Inner-City Portraits/Self-Portraits, where it is a complete construction, but at the same time using anecdotes or using narratives or fiction to try to—to try to glide by the truth as closely as possible. And, um—and so that was the premise of that work, was how to use fiction in order to arrive at some kind of truth, some kind of buried truth, or as bell hooks would say, subjugated truth. 

[00:19:39.15] And so—you know, so that piece became—and not only—not only was that piece important to me creatively, but it was important to me intellectually in regards to how I had to use my, uh, uh, training as a—as a budding academic because that work became a great concern to my graduate faculty because they weren't accustomed to seeing that kind of work in Clemson, South Carolina. And so it was challenged. And—and rightfully so. And, um—and the constant challenging forced me to, like, dig into art history to find my ancestors—my photographic ancestors—so I could point to them and say, I'm standing on the shoulders of these greats. This—this is—this work has a lineage, right, a photographic and art historical lineage and—and—and a theoretical lineage, and a theoretical premise, right. And so I had to learn all of that and prepare it within not only my thesis, but in my defense of the work. 

[00:21:20.78] And so that was great training. Um. Because certainly—not to—not to diminish what could have happened if I was to stay in California, but because California was such a hotbed for conceptual work, I think it would have been—my work would have been more readily accepted because it was part of the—it was part of the environment. And I don't think I would have had to defend it with the sort of rigor, right, that—that was expected when I was at Clemson. And so for that I'm, like—I'm eternally grateful. 

[00:22:11.76] And once that—once that was accomplished, then the work was accepted by the faculty, you know. They just wanted to hear it—hear the scholarship behind it, you know. Of course, some of the other students didn't have to do that [laughs], you know, because they were working within a modality that was accepted by the faculty—more readily accepted, where I was kind of coming from a different sort of spot. But that's okay, you know, because I got a great gift. And that gift was to—to do my research. So not only does the work have an aesthetic and conceptual rigor, but the—but the ac—but the scholarship also is bulletproof. And so that—that was a really great lesson for me in graduate school. 

[00:23:22.34] And so from there, you know, I think I might have mentioned I went to—to—actually it was called Nexus Art Center, in Atlanta, Georgia. And I think I talked about that before. So—and they showed it at Nexus Art Center, in Atlanta. They showed that particular piece. And, uh—and it got lots of media support, and, uh—which was really, really encouraging to me as well, while I was back in California. 

[00:24:03.14] And then I stopped for a while. I stopped making art for a couple of years because I had to focus on helping Maricela support her family. And she had, you know, six brothers and sisters that—their mother had died of cancer and Maricela was their sole support for a while. And their father had abandoned them years ago. And, um—and so when I came into the picture, then I became a provider as well. And then, for a while, I became the sole provider. And so I had to, you know, find a job and et cetera, until I made my way to the Centro, and then started meeting—the Centro Cultural de la Raza, in San Diego, which, as I mentioned before, became my—my birthplace, right. 

[00:25:02.72] So, uh—and I met all these amazing human beings, like Marco Anguiano and David Avalos and Veronica Enrique and Josie Talamantez, when she would come down, even though she was originally from San Diego, and all—and James Luna, and all these wonderful people that became my friends and heroes, really. And I became involved at the Centro. And, you know, then I did—when I was invited to be a part of—I had a solo show of the Inner-City Portrait/Self-Portraits with—David invited me to be—to have a solo show at the Centro. And then he wanted—he asked me if I knew how to do installation work. I'm like, Yeah, I'm an installation artist. 

[00:25:56.03] And then, after seeing that, I was in the milieu of all these artists in San Diego and Tijuana. And during one of the receptions that I was at, I see, you know—I see this all this commotion. And it's Guillermo Gómez-Peña finishing a performance pilgrimage from the US-Mexican border. And I—it was—I was thunderstruck, to say the least, by—by this—by this spectacle, right, that's like a multi-layered spectacle that he produced. And so then—and it was odd because I recognized him because I had seen him on the news, on television, with his Border Marriage, which completely blew me away. When Emily Hicks and Guillermo got married on the border, I was watching it on TV as a news piece, you know. And my—and I just started becoming familiar with the Centro. And saw—and that was a mind blower. It was so—what they did on that on that occasion made complete intellectual and emotional and psychological sense to me as a border person, right. You know, growing up on both sides of the border. And it was such a beautiful—just a beautiful ceremony and a beautiful thing to see. 

[00:27:55.57] And then when I saw him come in from that pilgrimage, I'm like, Oh, that's the guy. [Laughs.] And, you know, little did I know that, later on—Robert Sanchez was already a member of the Border Art Workshop, and Michael Schnorr and David Avalos at the time as well, et cetera. And they saw my work and then they invited me to be a part of a show, called Casa de Cambio, the Border Realities IV, I believe. And then they invited me to meet with them at Southwestern College, which is, oddly enough, where I went to school. And, um—and so we met at the—in the class—adjacent to the classroom where Dick Robinson was my teacher [laughs] in an art appreciation class. And, um—and I pitched them the Border Door. 

[00:28:54.52] They said, Richard, what would you like to do for the Casa de Cambio show? And I said, I'd like to do this piece. I'm calling it the Border Door. And they're like, What? And I said, Yes, I'm going to install a freestanding workable door, with keys, on the Mexican side, and then go to the colonia where I grew up—La Colonia Roma, and hand out keys from my house—or the house that I grew up in, all the way to Altamira, which is a neighboring neighborhood, and—and stop at the Casa de los Pobres. And I guess they loved it [laughs], 'cause they accepted it. And then, off I went, and started—not planning, but started executing and building the piece. 

[00:29:47.55] And, you know—and I think I might have talked about this earlier. You know. My dad had a door in his backyard. And I bought some lumber and—and as I mentioned before, my dad taught me how to, you know, build. Like, real construction, [laughs] not art construction. And, you know—and so I built this freestanding workable door. And then I painted it—here's the thing that is lost to a lot of people—well, I mean I should say—well, I mean mostly scholars—and, you know—and a lot of it is my fault—is that, because when Jim Elliott and I photographed it—or actually Jim Elliott photographed it—but in discussion with Jim Elliott, my dear friend, we were like, Oh, should it be in black and white or in color? And then, thinking about the terrain that—we both grew up in this area—in this area, in that area—and, um—and we're like, black and white, of course. We're both photographers, so we have that [laughs] instinct to think everything is better in black and white, rightly or wrongly. But we were like, Oh, in black and white. 

[00:31:08.33] But I had painted the door gold to signify the Chinese understanding of the United States, its—its legendary status as a gold mountain. So I had painted the door gold. And then I had painted the frame a slate blue to match the sky. So I wanted this golden door to almost float, right, and be suspended, be—without having to obey the laws of physics. 

[00:31:46.53] And, um—and so in my desire to make a stark, austere, dramatic black-and-white image, the—the intellectual content that I had created for this piece, of it being representative of my biracialness, is lost and so—and, you know—and is hardly ever talked about. And so—but the door was painted to represent both hemispheres of my being, and, um—you know—and to represent the more historical closure of access to Chinese people entering the United States, you know, through the Chinese Exclusion Act, et cetera, and just through, you know, racism, big and small, and also the Mexican side of my family. Which I saw that—the Chinese side—the Exclusion Act—was more of a historical abstraction to me, but I understood it. 

[00:33:13.61] And certainly the racism part is my Chineseness—or my family's Chineseness. And then my Mexican side, the experiences of being blocked from the border, I experienced it, you know, through watching and participating, whether it was my grandparents trying to get an extended visa every year, and the Border Patrol agents being disrespectful to them, or, you know, my future wife being turned back or being detained and returned because she was an undocumented migrant at that time. 

[00:34:05.95] And so—you know, so all of that fed into this response, right, this creative response, this political response. Or this political response in the guise of a creative act. [Laughs.] And so those pieces—or the Border Door, really reflected a much more profound, um, inner struggle, right. And then was—and then I was able to use my—my training as an artist, whether I was writing my first performance back in 1981 for—actually for Victor Smith's class, in his emeritus lecture class, which was the first time I wrote and did a performance piece, you know, or the installations that I did at Clemson, you know, by building structures, et cetera. I did a couple of performances there—which is really awesome that you can do that because—to experiment with work in a safe setting, which is a university or college, et cetera, but then, to venture out into the real world and do site-specific performances or installations, you know. I had something to refer back to, right. And have a basis aesthetically and theoretically, right, but coming from—coming from my soul and my heart and my experiences and the experiences of my family. 

[00:36:11.81] You know, so using the structure of art making as a vehicle for—as Maya Angelou would say, replacing my burdens in the art. And so that piece became, you know, incredibly important to me. And still remains important to me, although sometimes it becomes frustrating, quite honestly, Laura [laughs], when I get calls from curators, saying, Richard, we'd like to include you in our show. And I'm like, Oh—and I get all excited. And they say, Oh, we want the Border Door. Oh, that thing I did back in 1988? Awesome. I'm still alive and I'm still making work. [They laugh.] 

[00:37:00.48] So, you know, I'm grateful that—that people consider it to be an interesting piece or a compelling piece. But as an artist that is still alive and making work, it can become kind of bothersome. But the way I look at the Border Door now is that it doesn't belong to me solely, right. And that it, you know—people—somehow it resonates with lots of—lots og people. And, um—and so I guess I just—and I remember Robert Sanchez would say to me whenever we would be encountering other artists that were working in similar veins, he would just say, It's in the air. You know. It's needed. It's in—it's in the air. 

[00:37:56.15] And so whatever was happening to me, I guess it must have been in the air. And, um—and my paying attention was working. 

[00:38:12.80] So—so those pieces—those pieces—you know, the Inner-City Portraits that prompted the members of the Border Art Workshop to invite—to invite me to this show to show with them, along with other artists—other local artists in San Diego and Tijuana. And it was a really beautiful major show at the Centro and this sort of labyrinth of things. And so the Border Door turned into—as I mentioned before—into the Border Tunnel. And it was also a ramp so people could walk on top or go through the tunnel. 

[00:38:54.34] And then, about a month later—or less than a month later—then they asked me to become a member of the Border Art Workshop. And that became—and I know I mention—I talked a little bit about it before—but being a member of the Border Art Workshop was mind boggling, um, not because—not because of being a member, but participating in these meetings and learning how to operate within a collaborative, although I've worked in a collaborative before, but not one this intense. And [laughs]—and not one with—with, I believe, so much on the line. 

[00:39:43.64] There is something about making work for a gallery, you know, or a museum, but when the expectations are much greater—and sometimes when—I mean, not that we can speak on behalf of a community, but some communities think that we are—that—that kind of responsibility, of getting it right and not creating work that can become a detriment to our community, but could be more one of opening avenues for further discussion or further dialogue or for pushing back, it's a whole different—it's a whole different arena. 

[00:40:39.23] And so the sorts of discussions had the gravity, uh, that was required in order for us to arrive at solutions. You know, visual, aesthetic, and conceptual solutions, that, as I mentioned before, would not harm, certainly, or would not be a form of embarrassment, to our community, and would hopefully be one that could be used as a springboard for further discussion or to open up avenues for other types of relationships, right. And so those—those—the expectations, right, of the kind of work—work ethic and responsibility and accountability to each other, um, being clear in your communication and intent, and hermandad that—that was like paramount to functioning as a collective. 

[00:42:00.06] And, um—and it was, you know, something that never experienced in graduate school, for sure; undergraduate school, clearly. It was a different kind of—it was a training that, really, I've never—I never thought of it as training until I looked back. And I'm like, holy smokes. You know. But I was certainly—I was certainly trained to think in a specific kind of way after that, you know. Which I have—which I have applied to almost everything I've done ever since because of the Border Art Workshop, and my experience at the Centro. 

[00:42:44.82] And that's not a small statement, you know. Thinking about being a father or, you know, being a teacher, being an artist, were all—of course, greatly informed by my parents, but then honed in a different kind of way because of the—the cultural and intellectual context of the Centro and my experiences at the Centro and working with the Border Art Workshop, in regards to my understandings of being an ethical human being and to—and to try to be an integrated human being rather than being compartmentalized. 

[00:43:39.12] And, um, not [laughs]—not that I'm a perfect human being, but [laughs]—for sure, but those are certainly our gifts from—from being in the presence of amazing human beings, working with an institution that is aspirational and inspirational, such as the Centro. And so, you know, I start working with them. And the doors become even—I mean the doors in regards to what could occur in regards to making work, become—they are blown off. [Laughs.] You know. They don't exist anymore. And that becomes a really exciting time for me, an exciting moment in realizing that the possibilities were—I thought were endless before, right, but become infinitely endless, um, at that time, especially when you're working with a bunch of people, you know. 

[00:44:59.64] And we're all working on a schedule. Working on—we all have similar goals and a singular purpose. And that's—that's intoxicating, you know. And it's one that, other than being at Georgia College [laughs], which was very similar to that being single purposed and everyone working well together, comes very few times in your life I think. Working singularly, I mean, is one thing, but working with a group of people, of high—you know, as artists, high functioning—incredibly high-functioning artists, it becomes very inspiring. 

[00:45:55.47] And, um—and so the—so one of the pieces that—you know, one of the many pieces was the Venice Biennale piece that we talk—had talked about. And the other piece that actually we're still working on as individuals, but now as a group, is the Border Sutures piece that we that we did back in 1990. And the Border Sutures piece, it was a transition within the Border Art Workshop. Guillermo has just left, but he participated in a lot of the—him and Emily—had participated in a lot of the sort of brainstorming. And then, you know—and then we kept going with the Border Sutures idea. And so that was Robert Sanchez and Berta Jottar, Michael Schnorr, Yareli Arizmendi, the actor, Carmela Castrejón, Victor Ochoa, and then we brought on also Patricio Chávez, who was then the curator/director at some point at the Centro. And, um, Patricio left an amazing legacy at the Centro. And then to help document, Lourdes—the Mexican photographer Lourdes Grobet. 

[00:47:30.13] And so, um, we had had all these series of meetings, et cetera, you know, getting ready. We had we had been awarded a major grant from the NEA. Um. I think it was around 30-some-thousand dollars. And so the idea was to suture the border. And cross—zigzagging back and forth. And we had fabricated these steel staples at Southwestern College in Chula Vista in their sculpture area. And so I don't know how many we had, maybe 30 or something like that, and they were all quarter-inch steel, about four inches wide, and anywhere from three feet long to six—six—six and a half feet long. So they were heavy [laughs] and big. And they looked like staples, you know. 

[00:48:36.42] So we were stapling our two countries back together again. So that was the premise. And then there were also accompanying—other accompanying performance rituals, like the border beds and border baptism and border tug of war, et cetera. And, um—and so we perform them all along the border. 

[00:49:02.03] So we drove a motor home that we had rented. And—and then—so it was Victor Ochoa, myself, and Eva Sandoval, his wife, and their newborn child, Victor—little Victor Junior. And the four of us drove out from San Diego to Brownsville and picked up the rest of the artists that flew into the Harlingen Airport, and then we started. And we started with our first staple at the mouth of the Rio Bravo, the Rio Grande, where it empties itself into the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico. And so we walked from the north to the south, and found a small, submerged spit of sand in the middle of—in the middle of the river in between the borders. And that's where we blessed the first staple from water the Pacific Ocean, from our hometown—from our homeland, right, to commingle with water from the Atlantic. And blessed ourselves, even though I don't know how many of us—I'm not Catholic anymore, you know, but we kind of use the same sorts of rituals that we're familiar with and imbue them with a different kind of power, we hope. 

And, um—and then we all—there was texts that I had written that I was reading. And then we all took turns using a sledgehammer to drive the staple into the earth. And, um, you know, there's actual video that I—that I just saw last week that I haven't seen—that I actually don't think I've ever seen. This is 1990—'cause everything was just put away and archived. And so it was kind of a surprise. I mean, it was a really pleasant surprise to see all this work that we did, you know, 30-some years ago and to see live-motion images of us walking around and doing odd things, and these performance gestures. 

[00:51:43.12] And, uh—and so—I remember that moment as if it was today, you know, swimming across and waiting—waiting for the water to be deep enough to swim, and carrying the staple with me, and then, you know, gathering and—as I mentioned before—doing all these rituals and wishing the staple the best, you know, for it to do its—in its new home and for it to fulfill its obligation. And, um—and then we left. 

[00:52:33.48] And then we kept going from town to town to town to town to town all along the way, finding appropriate places, whatever that means, "appropriate" in quotation marks. You know, appropriate based on whatever we felt was appropriate for that particular space, whether it was in town, like we did in El Paso. The staple that we put in—in El Paso was in the canal in the middle of those two cities, El Paso and Juárez. Or in, say, for example, Piedras Negras, we would—we were on the outskirts and we found an island in the middle of the river that we waded across and put two staples, one on the east end and one on the west end of the island. And so each of these—each of these staples would dictate their own terms to us in regards to how we were to treat the—the—the situation. Or define the appropriate space for it to fulfill its obligation. 

[00:53:57.72] And some of them were right—you know, I mean, the river is the border. And some—and then, especially when we got to New Mexico and Arizona, where it becomes a much more terrestrial border. And so there, we would pull down the—bend down the barbed wire. And so then the staple would be holding the wire down. And then we would all take turns, again, with the sledge hammer, and drive the staple into the flesh of the earth. And so we just kept going and going and going. 

[00:54:39.98] And unfortunately, um, I would say three-fourths into the project—'cause we were on the road for a month in a motor home, you know, seven to eight of us all living together 24/7, uh, we had a major dispute. And we decided—and it became so—it—the philosophical dispute that we had, it was irreconcilable. And so we all voted to end the Border Art Workshop. And—but then—but we continued with our obligations and kept going and kept doing our performance rituals, et cetera, and—you know, all the way back home. And, you know, so that's what we decided would happen. But that's not what happened because then another member decided to reconstitute it and kept going, doing more projects as the Border Art Workshop. But that's—that's for another—another story, I guess. 

[00:55:59.64] But I—what—I think the power of that particular—that particular time and that particular piece was all these young people together. Um. We were all around 30-somethings. Victor and Lourdes was older and Michael was older, but, um, kind of everyone in their 30s or so, uh, working within this site that is a direct place of—not a direct place, but has a direct—we have a direct connection to in regards to our home and how we see ourselves and how we see each other. And, um, the border context is our biography. And so to be able to do work in that—in that site of our birth and to respond to it with these, you know, symbolic gestures, whether they were gestures or actual concrete acts, was really a magical time, you know. 

[00:57:38.65] And so—and the good thing—the positive thing—well, the positive thing is that we did it [laughs]. And the other positive thing is that, although it took a while—and I'm as equally to blame—it took a while for us to reconnect and reconcile, and understand that this project was far more important than our own individual egos. And, uh, so now we're all working on it together again to produce a documentation, to say this piece existed within this time frame. And, um—you know, and so then, just recently, the Centro, thank goodness, got a major grant from the Mellon. And so they're doing a series of shows about how the Centro was a—not only a magnet, but a facilitator and instigator and propagator of border art. 

[00:58:56.60] And, um, so—you know, so we're doing an exhibition. David Avalos is curating. You know, so he picked up the curator hat again from the Centro, and is curating a show, to include major projects from the Border Art Workshop. And so the Border Sutures piece is one of them. And so it's interesting. So that's why I'm telling you that—oh, I just saw a video of the Border Sutures performances—was because we've had to go to Michael Schnorr's archive and find video footage. We have our own, lots of photographs, but he had all the video footage. And so to relive all of that is kind of odd, right, especially because I've been so detached from it—detached from that sort of visceral experience that is provided by looking at moving images, you know. 

[01:00:13.31] I could see photographs and stuff and I have my memories, however [laughs]—however dependable they are. But to see actual video footage that's—and to re-experience it, and to re-learn it and to re-encounter it and to see things that you don't remember seeing at all is—is quite—quite moving. And so I'm enjoying doing that, and—and being provided, you know, another wonderful gift. 

[01:01:00.71] And so the Border Sutures became a very important piece for me because I was one of the directors of it. So I had to learn how to manage a major project, and, um—and sort of keep everything together. And, um—you know, and there were things that happened before the fallout, and there were certainly things that happened during that project, where we were confronted with like severe ethical choices, you know. And not just as an individual, but as a member of the Border Art Workshop. And so then we had to really think through all of that and, you know—and then rethink it 30 years later. [Laughs.]

[01:01:56.18] So the—the border—the Border Sutures project, again, was—and here's the odd part, Laura, because, you know, as we're kind of recounting the things—the art pieces that I've done in the past—one of the ones that I'm focusing on is the one that very few people are familiar with, because of the interpersonal conflict, we buried it. I mean, that's all there is to it. We were like, the hell with that shit. I don't want to deal with it. [Laughs.] I want to just get away from all of you. And that's a shame. You know. So. So but now we're working on it. And so I feel very present with it right now. 

[01:02:56.75] And so, you know, obviously, since we all decided to dissolve the Border Art Workshop, rightly or wrongly, um, and—and also, during that time, Robert Sanchez and I had already started working together on a lot of stuff, you know, work that was shown at NYU and Palomar College and other places. So we found a kinship while working in the Border Art Workshop. And, um, you know, we both have a sense of humor and—I think. Maybe him more than me. But then we operate differently. He's very meticulous and, um—and I'm kind of not as meticulous, although—and—and then, you know—I know how to—he's—we both have the same kind of aesthetic sensibilities and, most importantly, we enjoy—we enjoy being with each other. And so we started doing all this work, you know. 

[01:04:16.21] And our first major piece was the Entrance Is Not Acceptance piece that was featured at the—at the California Biennial, at the Newport Harbor Art Museum. And then it was selected to be a part of the Istanbul Biennial that was curated by Patricio Chávez. And I think I mentioned it before, where Amalia, you know—Amalia was in it and Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie and Robert and I, David Avalos and Deborah Small. And I mentioned it because our funding was removed because—well, it was censorship basically by the US government. And—or they tried to censor us by removing our funding. And, um—and so—and then, also, the Entrance Is Not Acceptance was part of a show at the—in Manchester, England, in the Cornerhouse Gallery. And there were a whole bunch of really amazing Chicano artists that participated in that. Celia Muñoz, you know, and—who's a dear—I haven't seen her in a while—but a dear person. And, you know, Amalia was back in it and, although she didn't get to go. Celia did go. David went. And so Robert and I went. 

[01:05:53.71] Anyways, so we got to go to England and install that show. But then, when we were at the—when we were installing the show at the Newport Harbor Art Museum, Robert and I would take breaks—and they would just leave us in the museum while we were installing. We would take breaks and we would go to their bookstore 'cause they have—we didn't have a lot of money [laughs]. And so we would start reading their books while we would take breaks. 

[01:06:30.18] And one time, I remember, we saw Andres Serrano's work, shooting the Klan, on the cover of—I think it was—High Performance magazine. And I—we saw it and we were like, What the hell? And there was an article by Coco Fusco. And we read the article right there at the Newport Harbor Art Museum [laughs] when we were supposed to be working. And we read the article. And it was—and, you know, Coco, she—she's an amazing human being. And—and Coco's writing catapulted us to do work for the next 13, 14 years. You know, when she wrote about Andres Serrano using the camera as a way of defining white supremacy. And then her previous writing has been influential to us, especially the essay of—and I'm going to forget—but one of her essays in regards to, um—anyways, it'll come to me later. But when she talked about Andres Serrano using—defining white supremacy—here is this black man using the camera to define, rather than to be defined by, that was—that was another door, right, that was removed. 

[01:08:16.66] And right there in the book—the bookstore of the Newport Harbor Art Museum—now it's called the Orange County something or other—and we conceived of the Los Anthropolocos right there. We're like, what if this, Richard? Richard, what if this? Robert, what if this? What if—whoa—what about this? What about this? What about—that was the awesome thing about working at a collaborative that I failed to mention, is to be able to see the excitement and how a concept can be, you know, born and transform multiple times, until everyone agrees to something or other. And so we just started brainstorming like mad. And I think we wrote the entire manifesto right there on a legal pad about—it was called the White-Fying project, starring Los Anthropolocos, Dr. Robert Sanchez and Dr. Richie Lou [laughs]. And little did we—little did we know at that point—and I think this is 1991 or something like that—and little did we know that this would just blossom for us. 

[01:09:44.30] You know, nobody may have cared about it but, damn, Laura, Robert and I were sure having a lot of fun. And it was—'cause we would just be making art and laughing at the same time. I mean, what could be better? You know. And then people inviting you to have shows, and all you do is make work and laugh and put the work up, laughing, and people come and laugh, you know, it's like—[Laura Augusta laughs.] 

[01:10:17.65] And as you know, the premise is what would happen if, in the future, you know, white people would be extinct and Chicanos would become the dominant culture, and us, Robert Sanchez and myself, in the future, are these two crazy anthropologists, Los Anthropolocos, and, um—and we were to discover artifacts from the lost white race. And then create theories about these artifacts and how they fit within a larger—what we call the Colorless, right—the Colorless cultural practice? And so using, of course, satire and, you know—hum—satire, of course—and also the academic language and borrowing the academic language to make it appear—which is difficult, but some people actually would think it was a real thing—but appear to be plausible. And so we had a great run for, as I mentioned, from 1991, I think we started, having performances and installations across the United States. 

[01:11:50.45] And, you know—and they became installations, they became books, they became web pieces, video, of course, photographs—large-scale and small photographs—making artifacts—fake artifacts, you know. You know, digging up mummies and all sorts of nonsense. And, um—and, you know, all we did was—again, the both of us were pretty good at researching—all we did was look back at the Victorian era, you know, and saw how Europeans would objectify and dehumanize people. Um, you know. The most well-known example is the Hottentot Venus, and, you know—and the World, um—World's Fair, where they would have dioramas—actual living dioramas—they would bring in tribes and all that—the Wild West shows, all those sorts of things. And so all we did was just emulate them, right, and then recontextualize them and then show—pose the question in regards to how dehumanizing these practices were. And so—and using humor to—to pose the question. So—'cause we thought—and I'm sure we learn this a lot from—because right now, I'm looking at James Luna's photographs, and I'm sure that was reinforced by talking to, thinking with, being with James Luna and other artists that had used humor. Guillermo would use humor to great effect as well. 

[01:14:10.33] And, um—and so we launched this—this this other kind of career [laughs], in a sense, based on Los Anthropolocos. So we kind of shifted from one border to another border. And worked very heartily, on, as I mentioned before, producing all sorts of tangential narratives based on the major premise of these two characters. You know. And tangential, because we were trying to be as fun—not as funny as possible, but to continue to use humor and making sharp left or right turns and having surprises was always kind of a way of keeping—hopefully keeping our audiences in suspense. And then, also, because it was just fun and it was challenging to us to come up with like, what if they did this? You know.

[01:15:18.17] And so—and that was like—you know, quite honestly, that was, in my art career, hands down, the most fun I've ever had in my life in regards to producing artwork, doing the Anthropolocos series with Robert Sanchez. And others participated, like our dear friend Marco Anguiano would participate in a lot of that stuff. Our children would—would participate. His daughter Monica and my two daughters at the time, Gloria and Maricela, would participant in our—in our stuff. And our student, Duane Trammell, would help us build all this electronic stuff that he knew how to do, and so—you know, and Isaac Artenstein, one of the founding members of the Border Art Workshop—an amazing filmmaker—he hosted our first performance, you know. as Los Anthropolocos, which was really a fabulous performance if it wasn't two hours long. [Laughs.] 

[01:16:41.39] If we had—if we had—if we could have—if we had the restraint that we didn't have, and—and the performance lasted maybe 35, 40 minutes, it would have been brilliant. But, of course, we didn't. And I'll never forget, Shifra Goldman was sitting in the front row. And while I'm in the midst of this performance, she's saying, Richard, it's been going on long enough. [They laugh.] In true Shifra style. She's pointing at her watch, Richard, it's gone on too long. So after Shifra Goldman tells you it's been going on too long, you start to wrap it up. 

But it was—it was, you know—it was really a wonderful, fun piece to perform. We had a live autopsy of one of our mummies. And a good friend of ours from UCSD, who was the director of the media center, had hooked us up with all of this—all of this technology. And so Robert—we had built these helmets—we had actually bought football helmets, and then we attached video cameras to the top of the football helmets. So he had one, I had one, and then our friend from UCSD, you know, we made these backpacks with the transmitters. And so we—and so then there were a video projector and large monitors that we were streaming live—this is 1991 or '92—we were streaming live so the audience could see what we were doing with our hands and what we were looking at. If I was to look at the audience, they would see themselves up on the screen, you know, while we were doing all these things. 

[01:18:50.11] And so it was much, much fun to think all that stuff through. And to—and we had a huge—I think there was like a couple of hundred people there, probably all dying of thirst. But it was, again, another sort of pivot point for us and learning experience and being able to expand, right, as an artist, and then also to open more or write more chapters about the exploits of Los Anthropolocos. And so that—so that became like another kind of pivotal piece for us, again, making art, writing scripts, you know. It was right up our alley, you know. And you just felt like you were using every bit of yourself, right. And not leaving one aspect of your desire to work in one medium or another unattended. And so it felt very, very fulfilling in that way.

[01:20:15.97] So I moved away from San Diego 'cause it became too expensive. Even though I had a good job at Mesa College, you know, I was department chair, et cetera, and it became too expensive. And I think I talked about this before. And then there was some real safety issues in having young children, et cetera. So Maricela and I decided to start looking for another job. And I landed at Georgia College and State University, in Milledgeville, Georgia, which was, like, awesome—an awesome place. 

[01:20:56.65] I'll never forget when they—[laughs] I was picked up by the ceramicist, Ty Dimig. And he takes me to dinner. It's like nine o'clock Milledgeville time, but it's six o'clock for me. And I'm like starving. So we eat somewhere between Atlanta and Milledgeville. And then we drive. And he's talking to me about Milledgeville, et cetera. And then he says, oh—and we pull into this driveway, and there's this huge building—and I'm like, What the hell? And he goes, Oh, you're staying at the former governor's mansion. I'm like, Wow. And he says, Have they told you about the ghosts? 

[01:21:39.64] It's like 12 midnight when he's dropping me off. And he has the trunk of his car open and we're pulling out my luggage and he's telling me about ghosts. And I've traveled I don't know how many hours and it's 12 midnight. And I said to him—with as much restraint as possible, I said, Ty, these are things you tell people after they've stayed here, not before. 

[01:22:08.37] And I'm thinking, okay—and so, then, you know, of course, everything he—then he stopped telling me all these things about it. But he told me enough to, like, scare the shit out of me, you know. And so then he's telling me all these stories about the governor's mansion—all these ghost stories—and then—and then he's like, If it smells like strawberries in the kitchen, or something like that, something weird is going on. But he lets me in. I go in. And I walk up the stairs. Because I think they put me in the main—the master suite or something, because they had two full bathrooms, and it was huge. The bedroom was half the size of my parents' house. And, um—and I'm walking up the stairs. And I swear to you, Laura, it sounded like someone was walking behind me and it sounded like bones rattling. I'm not kidding. Okay, so I'm thoroughly petrified by now, right. 

[01:23:25.90] And so then I try to sleep. And of course, I can't sleep because there's this huge oak tree outside. And—and thank goodness it wasn't thundering or lightning, but there was a bright moon—a full moon. And the full moon is shooting the shadows of the oak tree into the room. So you see all this, right, stuff on the walls. And I'm laying there. And I'm supposed to have breakfast with Dottie, at—she's picking me up at 7:30 in the morning or something crazy like that. So I'm laying in bed. It's like three, you know, and I can't sleep. Although I did walk around town, and I remember calling Maricela, and I said, This place is great. They have Krispy Kremes in the gas stations. And so I'm like, that's already a plus. 

[01:24:20.28] And so, anyways, I'm trying to sleep. And so the only way I slept was I—I—I started talking out loud to whoever was there. And I said to them, I'm not here alone. I said, I come here with all my ancestors. And I'm here—and I'm here not to do you no harm. So I come here in peace. I hope your spirits are in peace. And—and I just want to let you know that I'm not alone. And then I fell asleep, for two hours. And then I had to get up, take a shower. Anyways. 

[01:25:01.62] So that—so Milledgeville will always remain—have a soft spot in my heart because I had such an amazing, welcoming, positive time there. And so I show up to Milledgeville and—you know, as department chair. And we do all these things together as a faculty and staff and students. And, one of them—and, oh, [laughs] I'm going to jump around a little bit. And one of the things that I—one of the first things that I do while I'm in Milledgeville is this piece called The Penance Machine. And I think I talked about that, where I—you know, we went as a faculty to the Martin Luther King Center and saw the show of the postcards, right, the lynching postcards. And so I created this piece I mentioned before, a border patrol uniform with 1,000 nooses on its back. And so that was my first, I think, foray into confronting the South's past 

[01:26:19.87] And I had—I had thought long and hard about, well, I'm not from the South, but—at that time, that's what I was thinking, I'm not from the South. How do I make work about the South if I'm not from the South? And I started thinking, I go, well, unfortunately—I mean, fortunately, the Southerners are amazing human beings, they're—they're wonderful people, but their history is awful. And the South had become—or was and continues to be—a social laboratory for some of the most oppressive practices in regards to race and sexism and homophobia and anti-trans, et cetera, now. But they were exporting those strategies, as we know now, that, you know, before—before World War II, the Nazis became very interested in the practices of the South in regards to race and legislation. 

[01:27:33.68] And so—so in that sense, I'm like, wait, what has happened in the South has a direct bearing to what has happened to my family, in regards to being mixed race and the miscegenation laws and all those all those sorts of things—exclusion acts—all those—all those things have—I'm not saying the South is directly responsible, but contributed largely. 

[01:28:07.82] And, uh—and then the other thing that I realized much later on is that, well, my father was from the South. [Laughs.] So that became sort of—I felt better about, like—and then, also, because the sort of work that I started doing about especially the Confederate monuments, it's not just, you know, addressing the Confederacy, but the history of racism in the United States. That's—that—looking through the lens of the Confederacy certainly crystallizes certain aspects of racial relationships, or certainly puts it in a historical context, you know. Reaching as far back as our Constitution, and—which is foundational. 

[01:29:00.62] And so then it's like, yes, I have skin in the game, right. My children have skin in the game. My family has skin in the game of making work about the South or the Confederacy. I don't want to conflate those two 'cause they're not. And so—so Dr. Jenkins, who teaches art history here for us, took me on a trip to see the General Forrest—Nathan Bedford Forrest monument in Forrest Park, in Memphis, Tennessee. 

[01:29:46.21] And knowing Dr. Jenkins, I think she knew that that would bother me and I would probably do something [laughs], because she knew the history of the work that I was interested in. And so, you know, I saw this large equestrian statue. And then below is the tomb of Forrest and his wife. So, you know, after thinking about it, it started to bother me, much like, you know, watching—watching the border patrol agents be disrespectful to my grandparents. It becomes sort of an itch. And—and there's—there's an uneasy unsettling—unease, you know, that you have that you can't shake until you respond somehow. 

[01:30:52.84] And so I started thinking about how this park, which is owned by the—owned by city, and it's a public park, and that how Memphis is an authentic Black city, you know, 65 percent African American, and that 65 percent of those people are, like, supporting, through taxes, the maintenance of this park. You know. The audacity, you know, the hubris, the cynicism. And I'm getting upset all over again [laughs]. And the injustice—the everything—you can think of all the verbs. And to support this—really—this public utility that, like a—like a radio station, is transmitting this incredibly powerful signal 24/7 since 1904, unabated, you know. And it's like, you know, how sociologists describe torture, that torture only works within the context of a public, right, because it's about teaching: this is what happens to you when you transgress. And so this statue is:  this is what could happen to you if you transgress. Or, We're still in power, or, et cetera. So it's still, as I mentioned before, this beacon that continues to emanate and transmit a thoroughly bankrupt idea. An immoral idea. 

[01:33:04.99] And so I started thinking about how to address it. And then—and I was thinking, Oh, wait, I've done this kind of work before. Back in 1992, I think it was—yeah, it was 1992—when Clemson University invited me back to work with their graduate students. So I was there for a week. And I said—I would come out for a week if they would allow me to use their small gallery to do an installation. So I contacted my friend Robert Spencer, who, he and I graduated together from Clemson, and told him what I was thinking and that we would we—so we collaborated on an installation piece, called Slave Sticks. 

[01:34:02.83] And so when I arrived, he took me to a slave cemetery, that was behind a chicken farm, you know, 'cause Clemson owns vast amounts of land, and it used to be an agricultural college—technical, mechanical, and agricultural college. And, um—and so I remember walking through the forest—I mean, it's completely unmarked. I mean, you're just walking through the forest. And every 10 minutes, I'm like, are we there? Are we there yet? Like a small child. And he said, Nope, nope, nope, nope, until he says, We're there. And I was in the middle of it. And it—and if he didn't say we were there, I wouldn't know how to pay attention to that site. So he gave me the signal to pay attention. 

[01:35:03.09] And then I started seeing all the rows of smooth stones, as—and they were the markers. And so there were, I don't know, maybe 50, 75, something like that, smooth stones, and maybe four or five headstones, that Robert told me that that's when—after Reconstruction, that people, after they got a little bit of money, would purchase a headstone and put it there. And I don't know how to describe the feeling that I had, standing in the middle of a slave cemetery. And, um—it was overwhelming, to say the least. 

[01:35:59.83] And so we stood there for a while, you know, talking in hushed tones. And then we were like, Let's pick up some of these sticks that resemble bones. So we gathered a bundle of sticks from this slave cemetery and took it with us, and we installed it in the gallery, along with covering the floor with earth, and then using flour to trace, um—make a ceremonial spiral—and then also trace the mounds of grave sites. And then the sticks were hanging from the ceiling. And then we had written text on the wall. 

[01:36:47.08] And so when people came in, you know, we had buried ourselves in the dirt and then, when people came in, then we arose from the dirt and did these performance rituals. And then we—we gathered the slave sticks—they were already in a bundle—and we carried it between us like on a litter. And we set off on a pilgrimage from the gallery to [laughs] the John C. Calhoun Mansion [laughs], which is at the center of campus. And, um, we didn't tell them we were coming. And so there's like 50 people, I think, following us, all from the Art Department and architects. 

[01:37:38.02] And Jo Carol Mitchell, my dear friend, was taking pictures and documenting it. And so then we walked, and the people are following us, and—and we placed two or three sticks and bundles at the doorstep—at the doorstep, yeah, of each door of the mansion. So we circled the mansion and put bundles of sticks in front of the door. And then there's a study that's a separate building in the back of the house, and the slave quarters are all gone, but—and so then we put the bundle of sticks in front of the doorstep of the study of John C. Calhoun, and then, you know later on, Thomas Green Clemson, who the university is named after. 

[01:38:40.05] And so I thought about—a thought about that came back to me in regards to something that I've done previously in regards to addressing the Confederacy, along with my friend Robert Spencer. And so the piece that I did for Memphis, which was called Recovering Memphis—and it's like a three-part series—or actually a four-part series, I think—and the first time I did it was in 2009, and I did a site-specific performance right in front of the equestrian statue. So if you were to be—if you were sitting in front of the statue, what you would see is six people assembling wooden boxes that were 20 inches by 20 inches by 20 inches. And they were all painted. And I think you—I think you have the slides for that. And they were painted. And so imagine you're sitting down in front of the equestrian statue, facing north. Two people would come up, my daughter Gloria and her friend John Lewis, and they start singing Negro spirituals, like "Wade in the Water." 

[01:39:56.53] And, uh—and so while they're singing these spirituals, then you see six people walking in single file, carrying these boxes, and they start stacking the boxes in front of this equestrian statue in a pyramid form. And the first—and while they're stacking, an image appears, because one side of the box is painted in a continuous image of fire. And so when they're done stacking, if you were sitting—as I mentioned, if you're sitting in front, the statue would disappear. It would be behind this new image, right. This counter-image. 

[01:40:40.97] And—and so they would finish singing. And then someone would come up, 'cause I invited six Memphians to tell their stories, and so then they would tell their stories, a counter-story or counter-narrative. And, um—and then they would be finished with their story and then they would leave, and then six people would come back and tear down the pyramid, take it back to its place. Then Gloria and John would start singing again. And then they would bring back the pyramid, re-stack them, but a different side would be facing towards the audience and so there were—'cause there were six different images. 

[01:41:26.62] One image was fire, and another was an image of a Chickasaw warrior with the map of Tennessee. Another was a slave auction. Another was Fort Pickering, which was a Union—'cause, see, Memphis was a Union city. It was a Confederate city for a very short time, but, by and large, it was a Union-held city. But there's no monuments to that. [Laughs.] 

[01:42:09.09] And, anyways. And then the last image is a photographic image of what the park would look like without the statue. So it was just sort of green grass, you know. And so then, you know, every time they assembled and someone would tell a story and then disassemble, et cetera. So imagine this wave of images coming up and receding and coming up and receding, and singing and silence, and singing and silence, and storytelling and silence, and singing. And so all of that was the activity during that performance. And at the very end, the last person to tell his story was a friend of mine, Agustín Díaz, who was an Aztec dancer. So he comes—and he's in his full regalia—and Raul Salinas was drumming for him. And so they start drumming. And it ends with him dancing around the equestrian statue, and the piece ends. 

[01:43:21.67] And so there were probably about 80 to 100 people there. And this was—I didn't advertise it. It's all just sort of word of mouth. Because, you know, if I had advertised it, then the police would have shown up and shut it all down. But the police showed up anyways. [Laughs.] And the odd thing, Laura, is—'cause someone came to me and says, Richard, the police are here. They're looking for who's in charge. I'm like, Okay. 

[01:43:52.53] And I had—I had invited a friend of mine, who is a first amendment lawyer, to observe, right. You know, things you learn as a member of the Border Art Workshop. [Laughs.] And so—so he was there. And—and so I felt good about it. We had talked about it beforehand. So I go over there. And I knew everything was going to be all right 'cause, as I was walking up, the police were photographing themselves with the Aztec dancers. [Laughs.] And then, when I went up there—and this is the curious thing, Laura—is that when I went up there and I said, Yes, you're—you guys have questions about what's going on? They're like, Are you in charge? I'm like, Yes, I'm in charge. "Is this a peace protest?" And I'm like, No, it's a art piece. "Oh, okay." 

[01:45:00.06] So I guess a peace protest would have been horrible to them, but an art piece I guess was ambiguous enough [laughs], or squishy enough not to know what to do about it. But a peace protest would have prob—would—it looked like would have had a different kind of response. But after I told them it was an art piece, they were happy. 

[01:45:26.25] And in actuality, all these people were parking across the street in the—in the Staples parking lot—the office supply. And the Staples people sent someone to tell me, they were—if people weren't moving their cars in five minutes—in 10 minutes, they were going to start towing. And I'm like, Oh, no—and we still had half an hour to go out of a one-hour performance. And I'm like, Uh-oh. And then a police officer saw me talking to them. And he's like, Mr. Lou, what's going on? I said, Well, I'm going to have to announce that everyone has to move their cars cause they're going to tow. "Oh, don't worry about it, Mr. Lou. We're going to take care of it." [Laughs.] So the police went to Staples and told them not to tow anyone's car. 

[01:46:16.76] I'm like, holy smokes. One of the first times I ever got cooperation from law enforcement for anything that I've ever done, and, I mean, art-wise. So that was kind of odd or weird, and thankfully so. They did their job well. [Laughs.] You know. 

[01:46:39.74] So that—that piece turned into other stuff. Because then, you know, a couple of years later, I did another piece in regards to the same statue, where I invited—where I invited couples to come and be photographed in front of the statue as part of Valentine's Day. And it was called ReCovering Memphis: Courageous Love, where I wanted people to show the courage of their love. So I invited, you know, gay and lesbian couples, transgender couples, interracial couples, straight couples, it didn't matter. Come and show—you know, show your love in front of the statue. 

[01:47:30.73] And the word got out somehow. And the Daughters of the American Confederacy found out and showed up. And also, there was an online white supremacist—well, I shouldn't say a white supremacist—a white separatist. So I'm sure they—they appreciate that I'm making the distinction. They wrote this huge online article—they're no longer in existence, thank goodness—but a huge online article about me doing—about to do this performance. And I took great care to read all the comments [laughs], which is a whole other matter. And, so—but they were—the Daughters of the Confederacy were there in their folding chairs. And they were fine. And I offered them cookies. They refused. [Laughs.] Cookies and cupcakes. You can't even build a bridge with cookies and cupcakes anymore, Laura. What's the world coming to? 

[01:48:50.20] And so, um—so they complained to the university president, telling them I should be fired, and et cetera. So, you know, that sort of thing. Which is, you know, not the first time people have complained that I should be fired because of the artwork that I've done. But anyways. So that response—and then there was rumblings that the statues were going to be removed. You know, the sort of—and all of this actually—there was a lawyer, a judge—D'Army Bailey, who really started in Memphis the movement towards removing these statues. And I read his article. It was written back in 2001 or something like that. And I got to meet him, got to talk to him. A wonderful, wonderful guy. I think he has since passed away. And talked to him about the piece, et cetera. And so, you know, great gratitude towards him in regards to, like, me thinking about this piece in a different kind of way. 

[01:50:09.69] But then the Klan showed up, you know. They were about to show up to protest the—just the mention of the removal of these statues. And so a whole bunch of us started—actually, I invited a whole bunch of community people that I knew—activists, et cetera, to the university to have a discussion about, how do we respond? And, um—and there was probably about, I guess, 50 people there or something. So we started having a series of meetings, a series of meetings, until we responded by not counter-protesting, but putting together what we called a people's conference, where there would be workshops on community activism, community response, you know, uh, panel discussions about racism and the nature of racism. 

[01:51:15.42] And so there were vendor booths. And all this was at the—in—I forget the name of the building, but it was right there next to the Liberty Bowl, which is a football stadium in Memphis. And so the city provided a space, and we had a day-long—day-long conference. And it was—you know, probably a couple of thousand people showed up—about a couple of thousand people showed up, and I think 40—30 or 40 people showed up to the Klan and stuff. 

[01:51:59.50] So in that sense, by measure, right, I think it was a successful event to not focus on them, right, and to focus on how to empower more people and inform more people on the history of it. And so we invited people that were part of the Defenders in Memphis, and so—which was a civil rights activist group—Black activist group. And so they got to talk about their activities back in the '60s, et cetera. And so it was—you know, and then we had kar—no, we had Kung Fu demonstrations and all sorts—you know, we had, of course, Aztec dancing and Mixteco dancing. So it was like a nice, rich kind of carnival atmosphere, with all sorts of learning opportunities. 

[01:52:57.15] And so that just sort of—you know, one thing just kind of rolls into another thing, you know. And, um—and it's just all part of the work, right. It's just all part of the work. And so then, you know, I also was thinking about my family and I started doing this one piece called Stories On My Back. And Stories On My Back is an immersive installation, where I build these columns. And so they kind of shift, right. You know, not totally 'cause I continue—well, back then I was still making more work that's kind of confrontational, but then I also make work that's less so, but still articulates the same issues, right. And so with the Stories on My Back, which are stories about my family. And as I mentioned, it's an immersive installation, so you walk into the space and it's dark, and the only light that you see is emitting from these columns that I built that are sheathed in corn husks. 

[01:54:29.97] And, um—and these columns are eight-foot tall, but then there's other columns—not columns, 'cause it's a post-and-lintel construction. So the lintels, which are these vertical—I mean, horizontal pieces, so altogether, we're talking about a 10-foot-tall piece and, maybe—depending on the space, could be 20, 30 feet long, 20 feet wide, sort of thing. And so there's all these columns that are lit from the inside. And then there's speakers inside of not all the columns but four or five columns. And those speakers, as you're walking through the space, a sort of ceremonial space, you hear the voices of my children, telling stories. And in my work—my children participate in a lot of my work, you know. And Stories On My Back is probably emblematic of that particular practice. 

[01:55:35.90] And so not only do you see these columns that are sheathed in corn husks—actually, tamale leaves [laughs], to be more precise in regards to the utilitarian aspect of them—but—but then there's also digital images—digital prints of images of my father and my mom, my uncle, my aunt, my daughters and my son, my—and—and then there are also other images that are images that—that pertain to the stories that are being told. 

[01:56:20.80] And so—so you walk through this entire space. And then also you'll see a—a chair that was my father's chair—a reclining chair—that was remade by my good friend Chere Doiron. And, um—and so there's images of my mother, images of my children and my father on that chair. And so—and it's elevated on a platform. And that chair is typically looking—watching a video monitor 'cause that's how you would see my father reclining, watching TV. And on the video monitor is a video that I directed. And it's my children telling one particular story about my father. And I call it Across the East China Sea. And so, you know, that's sort of the gist of that particular installation. 

[01:57:27.01] And I was lucky enough that it traveled across the United States, mostly from here West. I don't think it's—it's never been shown on the Eastern Seaboard, I think. Maybe someday. But I think I'm getting too old to be making installations. [Laughs]. And, but, you know. So it's traveled to Louisiana and Texas and California and Seattle and Chicago, that sort of thing. So—either as a whole piece—whole installation—or elements of an installation. 

[01:58:05.56] And so that—that particular piece—because I had written stories about my family—that particular piece was the sort of—the impetus for the work that I'm doing now, which is this graphic novel that I'm working with Lisa Williamson and Pam McDonnell, and—where I've written 10 stories. And they're about 15,000 words. And by the time we're done, I think we're close to 300 images—300 drawings. And—and you know, Frederick Aldama, from UT Austin [laughs], is eagerly awaiting to publish it. And so I'm really excited 'cause it's a whole other challenge. So it's a old—it's a new challenge in an old manner of creative thinking for me. 'Cause as I mentioned before, I started off writing. I promised myself I'd go back to it. And so I'm back at it. 

[01:59:20.51] And—but also it's—also, you know, it's turning into an installation as well, of course. I just got through saying I'm getting too old, but—so I'll be building an installation next month at a small gallery here in Tennessee, at the Union University in Jackson. So they invited me two years ago to have a show. So. They wanted one thing, but I'm like, Oh, guess what? I'm doing something new. And that's what I want to do [laughs]. 

[01:59:55.37] And as an image maker, right, you always—for me, I always want opportunities so I can make new stuff—so I can think about new stuff. Or probably, really, think about old stuff in a new way. And so this particular graphic novel is—and this is another kind of BAW/TAF-ian thing of reformatting. You know, how do you reformat an image, where it goes from being a photograph to being an installation to being a performance to being a video, et cetera? So this graphic novel will be the source for an installation and a series of prints. 'Cause we're actually using a laser cutter—engraver—to engrave the panels of the graphic novel onto plywood. 

[02:00:56.55] And so they're on—so right now, I have three plywood sheets with the images and text. And so for this exhibition, it will be a total of nine. But still—and Lisa is working on the last story, which is the newest story, called La Copeta. And that story is about my—the relationship between my mom and I, ultimately. And it was a loving relationship except for I couldn't understand her—her don, you know, her gift, of being a healer. And by and large, being educated in the West, doesn't leave intellectual room for that kind of reality. 

[02:01:58.00] And so I've always had—I've always—not—I would kind of stay back. Even though she and I were, you know, super close, that was the part that I was the most afraid of 'cause I didn't understand it. And it never caused problems between my mom and I, as far as I know [laughs]. But in the story—'cause actually it's me going to my uncle's funeral and all that sort of stuff, and then my other Uncle Nacho, in this story—which, all of it's true, by and large—the funeral ceremony is over, so he's like driving me around town. And he takes me to this hotel where my family used to stay when we would come and visit my grandmother and my uncles and aunts. Well, actually my uncles, because my aunts were in Tijuana. And the hotel is called Hotel Tres Rios, Three Rivers. And so we would—we would stay at the hotel for a week. And there was an amazing swimming pool, et cetera. And so—and so my mom would read the tarot cards, right. 

[02:03:21.71] And so that time that my uncle took me to Tres Rios—because I asked him to, I'm like, I'd like to see and reminisce—I got out of the car and walked around to the bungalows we would stay at. And then, on my way back to the car, it started to rain slightly. And on my way back, I—there—I saw something glisten in the grass. It was a tarot card. And so I picked it up. And this was maybe five, six years ago. And it was La Copeta. And, um—and I had—I had since—after my mother died, I had since resisted—or, I had since stopped resisting her don, her—whatever extra thing she had going [laughs]. And so when I think she's communicating to him—to me, I—I—I receive this signal wholeheartedly. And so, you know, there was this tarot card on the ground in the grass. And I picked it up. And I've been carrying it in my pocket ever since—in my wallet ever since. And it was a way that my mom is like, Don't forget that you're my son. 

[02:05:08.61] And I find great comfort in that. [Laughs.] Not that I could ever forget, [laughs] 'cause of the scoldings I would get from her. If I would, like, miss a couple of days not calling her, and I would call her, Que milagro. [They laugh.] "Mom, ah, come on." "Que milagro. You remember you have a mother now, huh?" 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Te recordaste a mi. [They laugh.] 

[02:05:43.04] RICHARD LOU:  Oh, my God. And so then we would laugh, right. 

[02:05:50.83] But you know—so I—so going back to Victor Smith, I guess, I—I pay attention to that now, you know. Because in the story, there's—there's this thing that happened—I came home—I came to my mom's house after work, as I would, to check on her and talk to her and see how she's doing and just visit 'cause I loved my mother and it was fun being around her. And she looks at me and she goes, What's the matter? I'm like, Oh, nothing. Because I'm like, uh-oh, [laughs] she's going to try to do something to me. 

[02:06:34.19] She goes, I see it in your face. Veo la cara. I'm like, Well, I have a headache. Which was true. I had a headache. She goes, Oh, let me fix it. I'm like, No, mom. No. It's okay. I'll go home and I'll take an aspirin. No worries. "No, no, no. Ándale." "No, no. No, mom, please." "Cabrón, dejame." You know. "Okay." [Laughs.] And you remember her? She's like five [feet], one [inch], if that. And—but she had a power to her—not just a power, mother-son, but something else. 

[02:07:14.32] And, um—and so she starts rubbing my elbow. And I'm like, Mom, my head hurts, not my arm. [Laughs.] But, you know, whatever. And damn, if my headache didn't go away. 

[02:07:29.98] And so she looks at me and she goes, Are you better now? And I said, No, it still hurts. I couldn't give in, Laura. I couldn't—I couldn't—I couldn't. It's not like I was being willful, 'cause usually I would agree on all sorts of things. But I couldn't—I couldn't—I couldn't accept something I couldn't understand, you know. 

[02:08:00.15] And I felt small and I felt ashamed. But at the same time, I'm like—she did something, and it went—I mean, as soon as, it went [snaps fingers]—like, we say, santo remedio. And—and—I didn't have the capacity, the maturity, the—all the wonderful gifts that a human aspires and strives to be, I didn't have it. You know. 

[02:08:34.68] And so [laughs] she looked at me—'cause the name of this graphic novel is called, Embustero, which is what she [laughs] used to call me all the time. "You are such a liar!" And so she goes, Okay. I told her, Oh, no, my head still hurts. And then I said, Oh, mom, I got to go now. I got to—so she says, Okay. Say hello to your mujer. Say hi to the kids, et cetera. And we're walking outside. You know, we hug and kiss each other. And I turn around and she says, Como eres embustero? She knows. How does she not know? You know. And so—and that's the end of that story. 

[02:09:23.84] So the—the opportunity of—of writing—and I might have talked about this before—writing about my family members gives me an opportunity to visit, and to spend time with them and to—and like now, like me visiting with you—to laugh and to cry and to feel my humanness, my fragility, my mortality, you know. So. And then that's the impetus for this whole book thing—is that, at first—and I don't know if I mentioned it before—'cause I have two amazingly beautiful grandchildren. And of course, all grandparents think their grandchildren are geniuses, right, and so—and that they're the most beautiful things in the world, as we should. And so, for the longest time—I think I've mentioned this—my brother and I—oldest brother, Robert—we were like the keepers of the stories. 

[02:10:31.98] And so I thought, okay, I better write all this stuff down because I keep—Laura, I keep thinking, my father died at 74. And I'm 65. I'm like, let's see [laughs] what happens. And my mom passed at 79. So we don't have a really good track record. I mean, we're kind of like close to the average [laughs], but I'm like getting close to that average now. And so I hope I live a long time. But I'm like, okay, how do I—this sort of selfish indulgence—how do I make sure my grandchildren remember me? By telling them stories, right, and writing it down. 

[02:11:20.13] So my first thought was, well, I'm going to write all these stories down and then just take 'em to Fedex or Kinko's, make a bunch of copies, and then, here you are, honey. When you're able to read, this is what your grandfather wrote for you. And then, you know, of course, give it to my kids and to my sisters and my brother and my nieces, and nephew—nephews. So they all have copies. And then, when I'm gone, they can refer to it. And then that's my way of them hearing me, you know, hearing my voice while I'm in the darkness, right. 

[02:12:11.43] And so—so that was my first like, yeah, I'd better I better do this. It's my manda. And so, you know, the more I wrote, I'm like—it might be my own mythology, you know, or my own inflated sense of self-worth—I'm like, hey, some of these are pretty good. [Laughs.] Some of these are pretty good. And I'm like, oh, what if they were turned into a graphic novel? I don't even know what a graphic novel is. So what's the difference? I might have talked about this before. So I did five minutes of research to find the difference by going to Wikipedia. I'm like, Oh, that's the difference? Okay. I had no idea. You know, I'm 64 then. I had no idea. A comic book is a graphic novel that doesn't end. [Laughs.] Graphic novel it is. So I'm like, Okay, let's do a graphic novel. 

[02:13:19.23] And then I bought a whole bunch of graphic novels. And some I had already—one I had already read, Maus. That one I had already read. The rest were—I mean, I've heard of them, but they were new to me. But I never read them before. You know, like Persepolis, Ghost World, a bunch of other stuff. And then I'm like, Okay, what's an illustrated novel? So I'm like, okay, I better order one, too. And so I ordered one—an illustrated novel. Okay, good. There's not much difference. It's just—it's a novel with some illustrations. That's it. 

[02:14:01.03] And, um—so anyways, so I'm putting this—I'm writing and I reached out to my good friend, Lisa, who teaches here at the university—teaches foundation. I said, Hey, I'm working on this. Would you like to do the drawings? And she's like, Yes, of course. And so she's been doing the illustrations.

[02:14:18.53] And then I felt kind of like, Well, I better get more guidance other than just kind of going out there. And so, when Guisela Latorre—when I went out to Ohio State, she and Frederick Aldama invited me, and so—and Frederick was one of the editors for Latino culture editions for Rutledge Press. And he had, you know, published a bunch of Guisela's writings about me and about others, et cetera. And so he was very familiar with my work. And then I also know that he's, like, you know, a major scholar in Latino comic books. So I wrote to him. I'm like, Hey, Frederick. Hope you don't—I said, Congratulations on being at UT Austin, from Ohio State. And I said, I need some advice. I want to write a graphic novel—or I'm writing a graphic novel—working on a graphic novel. And, you know, what should I—you got any advice? And of course he has advice. And he writes back, Send it to me, [laughs] I'll publish it. I'm like, holy smokes. Okay. 

[02:15:40.04] So, you know, that was certainly encouraging. And Frederick is certainly knowledgeable. And so then, not too long ago, I sent him some images. And—and he's like, basically, Hurry up. And so we're working on this and, um—and like I said, having—finding great joy in another way of articulating my experience. You know, whether through installation or performance or just visual arts, but through writing. And as I said it, provides a whole other way of touching—touching those that I have lost. And I—and I find a great comfort in doing that. 

[02:16:37.61] And I'm also looking forward to closing this book because I have 16 pages of notes for more stories, you know. So I can't wait to get to that and start writing—writing more. And so we'll see what else happens [laughs] after that. I'm 65. We'll see. 

[END OF TRACK aaa_lou24_5of6_digvid_m.]

[00:00:01.58] LAURA AUGUSTA:  So hi, good morning. 

[00:00:03.32] RICHARD LOU:  Good morning, Laura. 

[00:00:04.79] LAURA AUGUSTA:  [Laughs.] It is—I'm looking at the date. It's March 23, 2024. And we're at this point in the conversation where we're thinking about kind of broad thematics or influences and ideas. And you mentioned that you'd like to start actually with a kind of early—I think an early memory, although perhaps you're also still involved in swap meets. I'm not sure. But we wanted to talk about swap meets. And so can you give me some context for why that's important to you? 

[00:00:33.22] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. Um, you know, I was talking to my wife, maybe a—well, I mean, I talk to her every day. But I was talking to Kathy, she said—she said to me, You know, Richard, you talk about the swap meet a lot. You should include that in your resume. And I'm like, Hell yeah, I should include that in my resume. 'Cause it's been completely formative to, you know—I mean, not completely, but a significant. It was a significant environment for me to, like, learn all sorts of things, not just about myself but really about how to interact with other people. 

[00:01:19.03] And so, you know, we—my parents started this swap meet business back in the, I think, late '60s, so I was maybe eight or nine when we started. And, you know, it lasted for 20-some years. And so from a child to being an adult, seeing the same people over and over and over again on the weekends, and then they became—they would come over and we would have birthday parties, et cetera. 

[00:01:53.72] And so I'm—I mean, I have really fond memories. So [laughs]—so when Kathy and I discussed this, and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to—the first thing I did was I changed my resume to reflect all these years at the swap meet under my administrative experience, I guess, which is not an administrative experience. But, you know, at my age, it's like—I'm like, who cares? This is in regards to some kind of silly format, you know, CV format. This is, like, important. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[00:02:33.44] RICHARD LOU:  And so I just stuck it in there. And so then I went to my LinkedIn and my Facebook page [laughs] and I changed it. And then I got a—not a flood, but some of my friends were like, You quit your job at the university and you're working at the swap meet now? [They laugh.] 

[00:02:55.94] So—which is, I mean, it could be a possibility, who knows? [Laura Augusta laughs.] And so I had to like, Oh, no—so I had to to articulate it, right? And so, then people understood what was going on. And just told them how being at the swap meet, there were, like, a number of things that I learned, is like working together as a family or as a collective, right, really strengthened—strengthened our relationships, you know. 

[00:03:29.10] And one of the greatest joys that I had growing up is—is working with my father. And, you know, at first, he would be doing most of the work 'cause I was just a little boy and then a pre-teen and teen. But then the bigger I got and the more experienced I became, then it was like 50/50. And then as I got older, then it was like me doing the work and then him sitting in a lawn chair, telling me stories [laughs], which I completely loved. 

[00:04:05.01] And so, you know, he got older. I got older. But me getting older, my body maturing, I became stronger. Him getting older, he became not as strong. And so then the physical labor shifted, right, but the experience and him sharing his experiences with me shifted from one person to another through storytelling. And I'd be, like, you know, digging holes or working with a pickaxe or helping pour concrete or framing something or other, and as I mentioned before, at—at first he would be showing me and then working alongside, talking, and then him mostly talking and me mostly doing. 

[00:04:58.56] And so then the other thing too is the—how—how we can belong to multiple communities, and how we identify with, you know, different communities all at the same time. And so that was what I learned at the swap meet too, that, you know, I was a swap meeter [laughs], as we would say. And I would have a very close relationship with a whole group of people on the weekends. And as I mentioned before, sometimes it would spill over into celebrations. 

[00:05:40.51] And, um—and, you know—and they would watch me grow up as a kid, and I would, you know, be friends with their children and watch—watch them grow up and leave for college or get married or et cetera. And then also just the idea of commerce and, you know, being involved in commerce for a long time.

[00:06:04.89] And, you know, it was interesting how you said that if I was still working at a swap meet, kind of, and I think of, like, yeah, I am at the university. [Laughs.] It's an educational swap meet, you know. And because of the way it operates, it's really no different. Everyone has their—their territory, their stalls, their specialties, and trying to attract students. 

[00:06:35.28] And in part, some—and there's some kind of transaction going on, whether it's knowledge or actual money, you know, or some kind of goods. And so—and you know, and it's like—and then everyone shows up and gets busy, so it's like, yeah. So. And then everyone works together, right. And so I guess I haven't stopped being a swap meeter in that sense. 

[00:07:09.58] And my parents were like pretty shrewd in regards to utilizing all of us, so when I got my driver's license, and after a while—well, first, for example, when—'cause I have an older sister, Linda. So we started at the National City Swap Meet, and then Linda would start—so my dad would franchise us out. [Laughs.] So Linda was at Spring Valley selling, and then as I got older, then I would go to another swap meet. And then my younger sister would go to, I think, Kobey's Swap Meet, and I would go to Oceanside. And sometimes I'd go to Spring Valley if Linda wasn't able to go. 

[00:07:55.66] So, you know—so there was, you know, at one point in our lives, there were like one main site, which is National City, and then three other satellites of selling stuff. I was never very—I was never very good at selling, like my sisters or my parents. And I remember my sister Linda telling me not too long ago, maybe about 10 years ago, she said that my dad asked her to go spy on me. [Laughs.] "Why isn't Richard selling?" 

[00:08:36.11] Although I had every intent of—my dream was to show up, set up, sell out, go home without a box in the truck, right? That was my dream. That never happened. I think I got close, but that never really happened. 

[00:08:53.14] So anyways, so Linda tells me [laughs] that she goes to—this is Oceanside—to go spy on me and see why—why was I not selling as much as everybody else. And [laughs]—and so she reports back to my father, and my dad goes, Well, what's Richard doing? She says, He's reading a book. [Laughs.] 

[00:09:23.66] And that was, you know, kind of funny, I guess. Not to my dad, probably. But I guess that was my interest, you know? It's like, well—instead of actively trying to sell stuff. So I was probably being robbed blind by reading [laughs] these books, too. 

[00:09:48.68] But, you know—but our whole world kind of revolved around the swap meet, 'cause the swap meet not only was—and I think I might have mentioned this before—it was not only just a weekend thing, but we would have to go to Los Angeles, drive up to Los Angeles and pick up merchandise. 

[00:10:10.06] And—and that's where the storytelling became more intensified, because my father and I and my sister, or my father and I or when my sister would go on her own with my dad, uh, he would—he would be telling stories. And so I remember distinctly driving along, whether he was driving or I was driving, me asking him questions. And then what happened, and then what happened, and what about this, and what about that? 

[00:10:41.11] Um. And so I think that's why—I mean, just that the swap meet experience provided the—provided the opportunity because we were together so long, you know, whether it was at the swap meet itself selling and talking in between customers, or in the car, right, going up and bringing back merchandise to—to our home. 

[00:11:12.86] So, you know the—you know, the—the sort of denizens of the swap meet became indelible, right, like Kim Chesney, who sold—he was right next to us, and he had the corner stalls. And he—he—he drove like an old '68 GMC truck filled with just boxes, and he would unload. And he was like the Woolworth of the swap meet. You know, he would—he could find fingernail clippers, pencils, crayons, rulers, tape measures, like anything imaginable. You know, pocketknives. 

[00:12:03.65] So he was like a mobile five and dime store, right. And since he was in the corner, he had three fronts, and so he always had to have people helping him because if he's looking over here, something else is happening over there. So whenever he would go to the bathroom, he would, like, call me over so I can keep an eye on his stall with his workers. But he was a lovely man. 

[00:12:30.28] And then there was Danny Levi's. And Levi's is not his last name. Levi's is what he sold, so that's how I remember him—Danny Levi's. And he—he was a character. And I'll never forget him yelling at the customer and snatching Levi's away from their hands, going, Are you looking or are you buying? You know [laughs]. And you would hear that refrain every Saturday and Sunday from Danny Levi's. And then Scott, the T-shirt man, where we would go and buy our T-shirts from him, and he was next door to Kim Chesney. 

[00:13:11.30] And then actually one of my classmates, Carmela—I can't remember her last name right now—but she sold across from us in one stall, and she would just pull up her car, her and her mom, or her and her mom and her dad, and they would sell pirated 8-track tapes. [Laughs.] And so people would, you know—people would come in and do business. 

[00:13:38.43] And then there was another couple next to us, a mom and her son. They would sell Avon. For a long time I always was kind of—it was always odd to me that they could actually make money selling Avon, but I guess so. You know, especially when the bottles would be sitting out there in the hot sun. [Laughs.] Kind of percolating [Laura Augusta laughs] all that cologne and perfume. 

[00:14:08.21] And then next door to them was this Egyptian couple, and we called him Boss. And—"Hey, Boss!" And they were as sweet as they would come. And he was a locksmith, so he would drive up in his van, open the back of his van, and make copies of keys. And he showed me how to do it as well. And he and—his son and I were—his son was a little bit older, and, you know, for them, from a distance, they were like the immigrant dream. They'd come, they'd have this swap meet business, he becomes a locksmith or was a locksmith in Egypt, and then their two children become doctors, you know. 

[00:15:00.51] So off they go. And I think one of them ended up at the Mayo Clinic or something like that. And so, from the swap meet, you know. And so—and then in front of us next to the snack bar—and actually the snack bar was awesome too, because I fell in love with eating donuts and hot chocolate because of that snack bar. 

[00:15:26.99] And then there was a farmer's market that we could—you could buy fresh corn tortillas. And then there was a deli in there. We would get pepperoni. And kind of—and my love of pepperoni is because it tastes kind of like chorizo. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Uh-huh [affirmative]. 

[00:15:42.56] RICHRD LOU:  And so we would slice the pepperoni, and then we would roll it up in this fresh tortilla, and oh, my gosh, that was so good. [Laura Augusta laughs.] 

[00:15:51.35] But anyway, so there was all this sort of—and then Rudy, the egg man. You know. And he had an egg farm—a chicken farm, out—somewhere out in the country in the East County of San Diego and would come and sell eggs. And then there—and then there was the people right in front of us that sold jewelry. He was a Cubano and married to a Mexicana, and they would sell jewelry in front of us. And my mom would go there all the time because she loved jewelry. 

[00:16:27.32] And, you know—and that was our life for 20-some years of, you know—of this amazing, transient, you know, memorable community, you know, where I learned about how flexible a community could be and how you can align yourself with multiple communities. And you could always—you could always count on them. 

[00:17:02.74] LAURA AUGUSTA:  What did your family sell there? What was your specialty? 

[00:17:05.69] RICHARD LOU:  [Laughs.] We sold—at first, we sold artificial plants and flowers. So at an early age, my sister and I—well, she's five years older—we learned how to mix concrete, you know. So I'm, like, nine years old or something, and so she must have been 14—13, 14, and we're there mixing concrete because my dad built this system of tying the plastic trees to these two by four structures. And so we would tie them, you know, and then they would have these cardboard pots that we would fill with concrete and then, you know, make sure that they were plumb, right. And so the concrete would dry, and then they would stand up. 

[00:18:04.96] And so we would—I remember helping my dad build a small little trailer that he bought and painting it. And, you know, he bought the frame and then just built it up. And we would put our, um—our artificial trees in there—and then my parents would also make flower arrangements out of feathers. 

[00:18:31.37] So we would drive to LA and to one factory, pick up the artificial—the plastic plants and plastic trees, and then we would go downtown to LA to the garment district and go up some ancient skyscraper up to the 20-something'th floor, which was really cool for a young kid like me, and, you know—and pushing—seeing the rows of buttons in the elevator. 

[00:19:02.60] And then there would be this long, musty corridor, and you would just knock on a door. I remember it had like a glass frosted pane. And you opened it. And the—the corridor was like a gray drab. And then you'd open—they would open the door, and then feathers of any color—every color imaginable. 

[00:19:30.35] So it's just like this—it's like The Wizard of Oz when it goes from black and white to color [laughs]. So we're at the land of feathers instead of the land of Oz. It's like, whoa. And there would be bags and bags and bags and bags of all sorts of feathers. Small feathers, big feathers, et cetera. 

[00:19:50.12] And so my father would buy feathers, and they would take them back home. And then he would also purchase from Tijuana these plaster of Paris vases. And, um—and then he would mix chemistry to make Styrofoam, and then would start filling in the feathers, green feathers to make like this—like grass or something. And then my mom and dad would make flower arrangements into Styrofoam cubes that were that were connected to wires and then would put them in—put them in there and make flower arrangements. And then we would sell them at the swap meet. And sometimes they would get crushed, and they would just fluff them. We would just fluff them back up. 

[00:20:40.04] And yeah, so we sold that for a while, but then all of a sudden, people wanted real plants. [Laughs.] And so we had to scramble around. And so we literally sold junk. So we were going to this major Goodwill, you know, repository in LA somewhere. It would just be—it was a giant parking lot with a big building. It would just be piles and piles of stuff, and my father would just say, I'll give you this much for that pile of stuff. 

[00:21:18.35] And the pile of stuff would be golf clubs, you know, and golf bags, bicycles, skis, et cetera. And—I mean snow skis. All the stuff we didn't know anything about except for bicycles, so I would like fix the bicycles. We would cannibalize parts, and I would—between my dad and I, we would fix the bikes. 

[00:21:45.15] And the golf clubs, we'd never golfed before, but we knew how to count [laughs]. And there was numbers on the heads of the golf clubs, so we just put the missing numbers in there. You know, what did we know? And then the skis—the snow skis, we would just match up to make sure there were pairs, et cetera. 

[00:22:06.00] And the funny thing is about the skis—I'll never forget. We could never sell these skis. Never sell them. We didn't know why, 'cause we knew skiing was popular. Until this man came and said, Why are you guys selling these cross-country skis? No one cross-country skis in California. It's all downhill. What? We didn't know the difference. [Laughs.] And so I told my dad, I'm like, Don't buy skis anymore 'cause we're buying the wrong ones. 

So—and then car—we would buy carpet. Old carpet because, you know, Los Angeles is—there's offices and factories and showrooms everywhere, and so they're replacing their carpet—imagine, you know, they're replacing their carpet maybe every four or five years, and so there would be all this used carpet. 

[00:23:01.34] And my father would like, I'll give you so much for—and there would be, you know, rolls and rolls of carpet that we would buy and, you know, wag onto the trailer or into the van. And then we would take them home, and then we would unroll them and cut out the good parts [laughs] where like the office furniture sat. Yeah. 

And then we would measure them, roll them up, and then we'd—my father's favorite, you know, masking tape. He loved masking tape. Tape up the ends, and then write down eight by 10, 11 by 14 or whatever, so that way people would know that's the size of this carpet. And so we did that for a number of years. 

[00:23:48.31] The one time, I remember, my brother Robert worked at Town and Country, and, you know, Town and Country is a major resort hotel in Mission Valley in San Diego. This is before the convention center was built, so it was also a convention center, or a conference center. And my brother, who was an executive chef there. And my brother Robert calls my father and says, Hey, they're changing furniture. You want some of this furniture? And my dad says, Yeah. So we went over there, and my father put in a bid and bought all this furniture. I mean, we're talking about a hotel that has a couple of hundred rooms [laughs]. 

[00:24:37.22] And we drove in to—it was—they had an underground parking, and it was just filled with, you know, tub seats, and nightstands, and those coffee tables. Those sorts of things. I don't know how many. Hundreds. And so it was kind of overwhelming. I remember my dad looking at it and going, Uh-oh. [Laughs.]

[00:25:04.61] And so we went and loaded everything we had. We had a—we had a 1971 Plymouth Fury with a rack on top pulling a—a six by 12 trailer. And then I was driving a van that had no sides and no back and just had a two—a three-quarter-inch plywood top and roll bars, and just the front, that we got from Don Millikan. 

[00:25:39.91] And Don and Jeannie used to live with us. They were in a motor home, and they were like nomads. And so they would live with us six months out of the year. 

[00:25:47.77] And so anyways—so we load it up, took it home, and then we'd go back. And I think we did two trips, you know, within a couple of months and was selling this stuff at the swap meet. But we had so much stuff, and it was moving kind of slow. And then my brother Robert, like, Hey, Dad, they want you guys to come and get all this stuff. It's just sitting in the parking garage. And my dad's like, Well, I'm trying to sell this fast as I can, you know. And so then I remember Robert calling my dad and says, Hey, okay, they need the parking slots in the parking garage, so it's outside in the back behind the hotel. 

[00:26:35.30] My dad goes, Okay, that's fine. 'Cause, you know, we live in Southern California, so things being outside is fine. And then about two weeks later we have one of the biggest rains in the history of [laughs]—of San Diego County. And, you know, so it's on the news. And Mission Valley is called Mission Valley for a reason, right? [Laughs.] 

[00:27:02.33] And the hotel is like in the valley, and behind the hotel is a river. I think it's the San Diego river. And it like peaked its banks. And so my dad and I were watching the news, and we looked at each other. We're like, Uh-oh. [Laughs.] 

[00:27:23.01] And so—so Robert called, and he's like, Hey, I think some of that stuff is gone. I don't know because no one can get back there 'cause it's all flooded. And so we waited a couple of weeks. And so my dad and I and I think my friend Jim Elliott came with us to help. And we drove out there, and the water had receded. It was still—parts of it were still flooded. And I look over there, and it's all gone. 

[00:27:56.54] And I'm looking at my dad. I'm like, Oh, no, he's going to get so upset. And I was starting to feel really, really bad. And we drive around, we get out of the car, and my dad's looking around, and he goes, Thank God it's all gone. [They laugh.] I didn't want to move all that shit. [They laugh.] He said, I got my money's worth. But not exactly environmentally-friendly business  'cause it all washed—washed downstream. But that was kind of the—the nature of this kind of i—itinerant business, where you just sort of strike a deal here and there and make the best out of it. 

[00:28:49.46] But anyways, you know, the—you know, the—you know, I would watch my father work seven days a week, right, for almost two decades. And then my mother. So it was like—it was just constantly—and, you know, then—you know, then as a kid, my weekends were tied up, so it was at the swap meet from—depending which swap meet was at, if I was driving to the Oceanside, I'd be up at 5:30 or something and on the road by six to get to the swap meet. Or like if Linda wasn't at the Spring Valley, I would have to be there at two in the morning in line to get a stall. At National City we had our own stalls on reserve, so that was not an issue. So we would get there at, say, seven o' clock to set up. But because we would have to drive in with the trailer and unhook the trailer, park the car, unload everything, and set everything up. 

[00:29:59.56] And, you know, then the longer you're in the business, the more elaborate your setup is. You know, at first it's just everything's on the ground. And now you have all these tables. And then now you have tables and an umbrella. And then now you have, like, all these covers with galvanized tubing and—and tarps. And that was really—that became really nice. But then it requires more and more time to set everything up and break everything down. 

[00:30:33.97] And so on Sundays, Linda and I, you know, once we were older, we would converge from wherever we were—and Mina too, wherever she was—and show up at the National City Swap Meet, help our parents break down. All our stuff was already in our vehicles. And we would go home, and then my dad would make fried chicken dinner [laughs], with steamed rice. 

[00:31:02.94] And so that like—that was our routine. And my mom always enjoyed counting the money at the end. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[00:31:11.38] RICHARD LOU:  So it was—that was her thing. So she would sit—she would sit at the dinner table, open up the green metal tackle box, and then start counting the money, separating the ones from the 20s and the fives and the 10s, and, um—and add it all up, and that's what we would make, you know. 

[00:31:34.25] But that was—you know, there was a part of me that's like, Oh, I could be doing other things, but then there's a bigger part of me that this was my duty, right. And et cetera. And I'll never forget one time, because I always loved football and played football every chance I would get. And I remember asking my dad, I was like, hey, Dad, could I could I play Pop Warner football? And I said, it's on the weekends. And he goes, Oh, of course. Sure you can, son. Don't worry about it. I'll just hire someone to do your work. [Laughs.] And I'm like, Never mind, I don't want to play football. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  [Laughs.] Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[00:32:23.09] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. And so—and, you know [laughs], he was smart that way, and in many other ways too. But, you know, the obligation to help my family became paramount. That was—that was the focus, helping each other. And I think by extension, right, the swap meet family just got bigger and bigger by all these people that I grew up with.

[00:32:57.70] As I mentioned before, Kim Chesney, and Scott, the T-shirt guy, Danny Levi's, and Boss. So all these people have watched me grow up. And I remember when I would come back from college, and they would be like so excited. I would be excited to see them, and they would be excited to see me. It was like family. 

[00:33:19.77] So it really taught me the idea that—also, I know I talked about how expansive community can be but also how the notion of family can be expansive. It can be an expansive one as well. 

[00:33:35.70] LAURA AUGUSTA:  It seems also like a place or an experience that taught you a lot about making, and about resourcefulness and materials and—and also just labor, right. Just kind of the routine of labor. But that you knew a skyscraper in LA where you could buy feathers, that's such a specific type of resourcefulness. And then that your—your creativity has to pivot because the market changes, right, and no one wants fake flowers. It—I feel like there's so many skills that are embedded into your creative practice in art that come out of the creative practice of that kind of informal economy as well. It's really interesting. 

[00:34:14.67] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. I mean, I think that it is flexibility and adaptability, right, in regards to the use of materials, where anything can be imbued with a creative power, right. And so yeah, absolutely. And then just walking around, you know, the swap meet, because that's what we would do. My mom would come, and we'd talk, blah, blah, and I'm like, I'm going to go walk around and see what's going on. 

[00:34:40.15] And, you know, you would see someone selling tires next to someone selling dolls next to someone selling, you know, women's clothing next to someone selling tools, next to—it was like no rhyme or no organization other than people are there to try to make a living. You know. And then also all this stuff that would be left behind, you know. And so we would all kind of look around and see if there was anything that we wanted. 

[00:35:14.45] And there was—and the barter system amongst ourselves, right, became very useful. Oh, yeah, and then we had a really good friend, who—a young woman, a little bit older than me, a little younger than my sister Linda, and for maybe five or seven years—I can't remember her name, but she was—she became a good friend of ours. And she would come over with her husband, who was a musician. 

[00:35:43.66] And her stall was ear piercing. So right next to it. So we would see—so we would hear little girls crying all the time. [They laugh.] We would hear "pop" and then "Waaa!" next to our stall. [Laura Augusta laughs.] And, um, that's because she would use the gun. And she would put on the gloves and sanitize everything, so she was doing it right. 

[00:36:19.68] And, um—and so, you know—and then I remember—another thing to remember—there was another couple—you know, 'cause there's all this transition, right. I mean, the people that were there during the entire time that we were there was Kim Chesney, T-shirt—Scott, the T-shirt guy, and Danny Levi's, and Boss. But then every—every—all the other people around us would leave, someone new would come, leave, someone new would come. 

[00:36:48.14] One of my favorites—I can't remember their name, but they were a couple. They had a TV shop in San Ysidro. They would show up with a giant box truck. They had—they had the best setup as far as I was concerned. They would set up—they would drive in with a big box truck, open the back, and they had a living room in there, you know, with two easy chairs and big giant TVs. I fell in love with them. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[00:37:19.29] RICHARD LOU:  You know. And, uh—and they would just open, and they were open for business. And, you know, they would close and drive off, and that was it. It was their moving truck. And, um—and so we became really close friends with them too. And, so, you know. But that sort of movable, right, installation I first saw at the swap meet [laughs]. 

[00:37:48.18] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Yeah. I mean, this is a little bit of a nerdy question, but how do—in your words, how do you see the aesthetic of the swap meet informing the work you make? 

[00:37:58.23] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. Rasquachismo, right? Making—making do. Making do, making it work. And as you mentioned before, using the resources at hand, and—because you have a goal, right? The goal at the swap meet is to make money, extra money or the money, depending. And, um—and you just make it work in whatever manner you can. 

[00:38:35.34] You know, 'cause you're not—you're not—it's not a brick and mortar, right. It's a transient, ever-changing environment. So it's not like, you know, you're investing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in some shop in a mall. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[00:38:53.91] RICHARD LOU:  Although some of them did have a shop in a mall, you know, and they would just come and supplement with whatever, or sell their irregulars, right, at the swap meet. 

[00:39:08.05] So yeah. I remember—what was his name? Zeferino who sold women's clothing at the swap meet too. And he was an interesting character. He was a friend of my sister. He had a—he had a shop in Mission Bay right on the boardwalk. And the most interesting thing about him was, for me—he was a super nice guy, very smart businessman. And I remember talking to him. I'm a young guy. Maybe 17. And he has—he opens his car, and he's talking to me. And I look in his car, and he has stacks of legal pads. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[00:39:50.31] RICHARD LOU:  I'm like, Zeferino, what's going on with all these legal pads? He goes, Those are my to-do lists. "To-do lists?" He goes, Yeah, and he takes it out, and it's dated, filled, crossed out, et cetera. I'm like, wow. I've never seen anything—I mean, I've seen a to-do list, but I've never seen, like, so many. 

[00:40:14.18] He goes, I have—I have boxes and shoe boxes of to-do lists going back 25 years. He says, Every week I write a to-do list. And he says he would go back and visit them and see how his goals have changed and what he's accomplished, et cetera. So it was—I mean, the sort of things that I learned, right, from the people that—that I associated and became friends with at the swap meet. And the thing about the swap meet is that you're there—you're there for eight hours. And so you're there with these people for a long time, over a length of time in regards to years, but, like, in regards to those days, it's those, you know, six, eight-hour days. And you get to know them pretty well. And you get to share a lot of—a lot of things with them. And then some of them, you don't, of course, just like anything else. 

[00:41:26.62] But I'll never forget that about Zeferino, about him having these lists. And the idea of inventorying your goals and then being reflective and having access to, like, a sort of a concrete inventory is really kind of fascinating one to me. And one that I still use, especially with my students, is I always say, Have you made a list? Right. What is your goals? What are the things you need, et cetera. 

[00:42:02.76] So I'm thinking about Zeferino, right. And I don't ask my students to make 20 years worth of lists, but certainly on the importance of writing things down, and that helps articulate in your own mind, right, the things you want to do. And how writing helps you articulate in another kind of way where you can discover things that you may not have thought of, especially about your own work, especially about your own goals, 'cause you have to prioritize, right. 

[00:42:42.21] And so when you prioritize, you have to say—you have to create a value system and say this is more important for now. And so those are all really effective tools, obviously, for my students. So yeah, the—we could—we could—and I'm hoping to, at some point, write more about the swap meet because it was such an important experience. 

[00:43:17.61] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. There's a lot of people skills involved in that as well, right, and a lot of relationship—like, ways of being in relationship. And I wonder, are—how do you describe the things you take from the swap meet in terms of interpersonal skills and your work within an administration of an institution? 

[00:43:38.39] RICHARD LOU:  Oh, absolutely. You know. I think one of the most important things is listening to what your customer needs, right. You know, 'cause you have a goal, right, and you're trying to match goals, and so I think that was a really important thing.

[00:44:01.71] And then also just how to, like, as you mentioned, how to talk persuasively to somebody. You know. Not to the point where you're trying to bamboozle them, right, but be persuasive enough without being pushy, I guess. And, um—and then kind of figuring out if, okay, well, this is not the thing for you. [Laughs.] 

[00:44:32.81] There's a certain boundary—especially when they start to ask you to reduce your prices beyond, you know—there was a margin that we could like haggle, but at some point—and then also every once in a while where people would try to, like, cheat you, you know. I remember—not too many times. I mean, out of 20 years or so, maybe four or five times. That's not bad. 

[00:45:04.45] I remember someone giving me a [$]10, and they told me they gave me a [$]20. That old trick. I'm like, No, you didn't. And I'm like 14. To kind of stand my ground with an adult, telling me that they gave me a [$]20. I'm like, No, you didn't. You didn't. And I remember saying to them, If you want, you can come back at the end of the day when we zero out our cash box in regards to our inventory and how much cash, and if we have that extra [$]10, we can account for it, and I'll return your money. And as soon as I would say something like that, they would like, Never mind. And no one leaves at 10 bucks, right? 

[00:45:56.36] And so that sort of thing. So being kind of—standing up for—for your space, right. So that became an important lesson, and—a necessity really, more than a lesson. But yeah. And then, you know, just going up and talking to people. Even though, you know, I think when I was on my own I probably would just be reading as my sister caught me doing, but—but I think most of the time I would go up and start talking to people. 

[00:46:37.07] And so that was a really invaluable—invaluable skill, 'cause, you know—because as an administrator, you're getting up—getting up in front of a whole bunch of people and trying to convince them this is the direction to go. And so it was a skill that I acquired at a young age, to go up in front of people and start talking. 

[00:47:05.76] So, yeah, there was—you know, negotiating. I don't want to say public speaking, but just speaking to strangers and feeling comfortable. Um. Those are certainly skills that I learned. And—and for sure the work ethic, because it was—it was constant. As I mentioned before, because just going and selling at the swap meet and setting up and breaking down, that's just what happens on Saturdays and Sundays. But all the preparation work and all the inventory and going and purchasing more and organizing and loading and, you know, all that—all that sort of stuff, the background stuff like any kind of—that any kind of business has, we had to do as well. 

[00:48:06.38] LAURA AUGUSTA:  I have a couple of questions in mind. I'm trying to kind of think about—about the next thing I want to ask you. But this is a little bit of an unusual interview for me, because usually when I do these interviews, I don't know the person very well. Or I've heard of them and I've studied them, but I haven't spent time with them before. 

[00:48:25.99] But in this case, I met you in Georgia College, in Milledgeville, Georgia. And we've talked a bit about that place in your career and in your, kind of—as a formative space also for your method of working with other people and as a chair. It was your first time being a chair of an art department, right? [Richard Lou holds up two fingers.] Or were you chair at Mesa? You were chair at Mesa, right? Okay. 

[00:48:50.62] And so I—you mentioned wanting to return to that conversation. And I think—I don't want to put myself into this interview very much, but I also think there's something important to be said about me as a former student coming into this conversation and the work I do at the Smithsonian, because that directly comes out of your mentorship in Georgia College, right. 

[00:49:15.71] So you moved your whole family to the middle of Georgia in the early 2000s, and—to a very specific context and place, and I—I wonder if you could describe Georgia College a little bit when you arrived, like, what is that place? How did you approach that place? And then what were some of the goals you had as a leader in that department? 

[00:49:46.30] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. So say, for example, like at Mesa College I was the youngest full-time faculty member and became department chair pretty quickly, like two or three years after I was hired there. And then—and the process at Mesa College was a voting process. Well, supposedly we were all supposed to take turns. And so I wanted my turn sooner than later, and I was hired by Ross Stockwell, a sculptor. A super nice guy, super—and a really good teacher. And he was the chair. And then once I got hired, then Georgia Laris, who was the fiber artist, was chair. And when I decided to become chair—when I decided I wanted to become chair based on what I talked about, the whole idea of the citizen diplomat, et cetera, that Guillermo would talk about, Georgia was kind enough to let me sit with her. So I would sit next to her, at her desk, and she would like mentor me. You know. 

[00:50:57.25] And it was, you know, because of her ability to like teach me what to look for and watching her deal with people and her talking through the issues of the department I was able to like take it on. So then we had—we had a vote, and people voted for me. And, um, then people kept voting for me until I left. 

[00:51:33.14] So every two years, there would be a vote. Every two years, and so I was—would continue as chair. And so it stopped being a rotating thing because I wanted it. I liked it. And I think a lot of the faculty were like, Thank goodness I don't have to be chair. You know. Good thing Richard likes being chair. 

[00:51:53.33] But I was the youngest member with a lot of older faculty, right. And they were lovely people. And so I was able to implement some things, you know, and not others. And so—but when I got to Georgia—when I applied to the position at Georgia College—I think it—was his name Bernie Kaufman or Bernie—

[00:52:23.98] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Bernie Sanders? No. 

[00:52:26.44] RICHARD LOU:  Bernie Sanders. 

[00:52:27.31] LAURA AUGUSTA:  [Laughs.] No, that's not right. That's the politician. It's Bernie Anderson. He was the dean—

RICHARD LOU:  The dean. 

[00:52:34.75] LAURA AUGUSTA:  —of liberal arts, yeah? 

[00:52:36.19] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. Super nice guy. I love Bernie. And—and Bernie and Beth—and Beth Rushing was his assistant to the dean or assistant dean. And then later on she became dean. And they told me that they were looking for someone, that the Georgia College just got its new mission maybe four or five years prior, and they wanted—they said—almost verbatim, they said they wanted the art department to help articulate the new mission. And I'm like, Whoa. 

[00:53:14.80] And so, you know, before I left, they offered me the job. And, um—and 'cause I remember, they were like, Oh, Richard, we'd like to take you to dinner again. And I'm like, oh, that was not on the schedule, the itinerary. And I'm like, Yeah, okay. You know me with dinner. [Laughs.] Sure. So then they offered me the job. And so I'm like, Well, I have to go home and talk it over with Maricela. 

[00:53:49.68] And, uh—and so when I arrived, you know—when it was a done deal—and the way that they talked about it, they—they basically said I would have kind of free reign to do whatever I wanted to do. You don't get those sorts of opportunities. 

[00:54:08.75] I remember I got that kind of opportunity when I was hired at Mesa College to teach photography, 'cause I remember Betty Jo Tucker, who was the vice president—I remember her telling me, Richard, congratulations, we want you to take this job. We want you to start a photo program, except you'll have no budget, no equipment, and no space. And I said, I'll take it. You know. 

[00:54:40.00] And so in a couple of years, you know, because of the swap meet, you know, wheeling and dealing with my friends, and I was, I guess, well-liked in the community, so other photo programs would call me. Hey, Richard you're starting a photo program? I'm like, Yeah. "We got two or three enlargers we don't need or we know some enlargers over here," et cetera. And I cobbled it all together. And then within three years, we had a full running program, you know. And were able—and I wrote the curriculum for it, and off we went. 

[00:55:17.01] So in that sense, I had a taste of what could happen, the potential. right. And so when Beth and Bernie said that, we want the art department to articulate—I mean, typically the art department is not even thought of in that way. It's like, okay, we need an art department. Okay, just do your thing, and don't get us in trouble. And so—but they wanted us to help lead and become the face of the—help become, well, one of the faces of the university. And that was—that became exciting to me. You know. 

[00:55:59.53] And so when I showed up during the summer and I met with all these amazing, wonderful people, especially like Tina Yarborough and Ainsley Eubanks and Roxanne and Bill Fisher and all these—all these people that were there. And we had a retreat the first week or two before school started. And I asked them—and it wasn't like I came up with, like, this is what we need to do. I asked them, What do we need to do so you feel like our students can succeed? You know. You know, they're at a small regional university that has a new mission now. What do we need to do? And so then we all started brainstorming. And the first thing we did—I think I mentioned this—is to write a new mission statement with new learning objectives. And we wrote—we rewrote the entire curriculum the first semester I was there. And as I mentioned before, the only full curriculum—Susan Wylly was there too, and a—lovely human being. 

[00:57:25.66] And the only fully-developed curriculum was the printmaker. I forget his name. Super sharp guy. Super energetic. And he also ran the gallery. But he had left before I got there. 

[00:57:40.72] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Marc Snyder. 

[00:57:41.68] RICHARD LOU:  Marc Snyder. Marc. Right. And that's when Bill Fisher took over. And so Marc's a good guy, and, you know, he's the only one that had a full curriculum. So we used his as a model, right, for all the rest just to make sure that, you know, instead of one or two classes in photography, that there were four or five. And everybody else. 

[00:58:11.39] And then we kind of like said we're keeping fiber arts because of the history of—of Georgia College, right. And also because fiber arts is like a super dynamic discipline, because it's not just one thing. It, you know—it's in installation and all sorts of things. Its use in contemporary art strategies is incredibly impactful. 

[00:58:47.98] And so, um—and then we developed all these new behaviors, et cetera, that I talked about before. But the thing—the thing about—the thing about Georgia College for me, you know, in a kind of egotistical kind of way, I always felt that those few years that we worked together left a legacy, right. And so I was already thinking about a legacy. And—and most importantly is how can—how can a united faculty working in—in—in an intentional way with a single purpose impact students in the greatest way possible? And so I think that's what we were able to do. And then have fun. And have students feel good about themselves, feel good about being at Georgia College, feel good that they can go and compete with anybody. You know. 

[00:59:56.73] And then Georgia College at some point became—I think after UGA and Georgia Tech had the third-highest, um, SAT scores, you know. And so Georgia College, not because of the art department, but because of the whole package. It became such an important magnet. There are a lot of super bright kids coming from all over Georgia. 

[01:00:28.42] And as I mentioned before, you know, when I first arrived, we were at 57 majors, and when I left, we were at 160-something. You know, so. And then we were able to hire eight people before I left, or more. Or 8—I actually say eight people in the first two years—four the first year, and another four. That never happens. That never happens. 

[01:00:56.04] So those are the sorts of things that I'm, like, so grateful for Georgia—for Georgia College to—if there's a political will, right, within the administration, then really good things can happen in the classroom, and—that greatly benefit students. 

[01:01:19.65] And so that was, like, the most exciting time for me and most joyful time. And I've had a lot of fun here at the University of Memphis, but not to any degree—not even close to Georgia College. 

[01:01:38.27] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Can we talk about diversity in the curriculum there too? Because I don't fully understand—I don't understand the backdrop of that conversation, but I do understand, as someone who was a student there, that I had a very unusual education because there was an emphasis on broadening the curriculum, um, from art history down to every as—every type of class. 

[01:02:01.67] And so my first classes in art history were African and African American art history, women in art, Asian art, and I really didn't get the European survey until I was graduating. It was the very last thing I got. And I had to learn the hard way that that wasn't normal. 

[01:02:20.45] Um. And I kind of think about that as—um, I think it was a very specific place in time, but I also think of it as a legacy of some of what was happening in the '90s, right. And so some of the effects of the conversations of the early—early to mid '90s informed—at least how I understand it—informed that curriculum. But also it was just a very unique place to be doing that kind of work. The America's Diverse Cultural Heritage course, for example. And this is a place that's the middle of the deep South, right, and so to teach America's Diverse Cultural Heritage and have conversations around mascots and sports teams and cultural sensitivity in the early 2000s I think was—was fairly unique. And I wonder if you could share how that curriculum came about a little bit. 

[01:03:12.65] RICHARD LOU:  The university at large was interested in this, and, um—and was already working on such matters before I arrived. And then once I arrived, you know, there—we had key faculty members in place that had already embraced such ideas, you know. And Tina Yarborough being one, and Roxanne Farrar being the other one. And so then when we hired Fadhili Mshana, you know, uh, we were able to round out—and then Roxanne with her voracious appetite for writing curriculum [laughs]. Was constantly coming up with new stuff. 

[01:04:02.64] And—and, you know, there were other faculty members—and then because of the hires—and—and, you know—and I have to go back to the mission, because the mission was about signaling that this is the value system that we consider important. And, you know, being interdisciplinary, being experimental, and also having some kind of primary, secondary, or tertiary expertise in issues of gender or race, and issues of community, et cetera. And so those—and we would say these are the things we're looking for. 

[01:04:48.99] And so—and I think it brought candidates that were like, Oh, okay, I'm valued. I'm valued here. And as I mentioned before, I was the first person of color to be hired tenure track in the art department. Not the first person of color in the art department, but tenure track. Certainly the first person of color to be department chair. And, uh—and for a while, the only person of color until our first wave of hires. And then by the time I left, it was 54—56 percent people of color on full-time faculty. 

[01:05:34.58] So we went from a homogeneous to a much—to a much—incredibly diverse faculty with all sorts of ideas to apply to not only the curriculum, but to how [enable us to] the experiences that they were bringing to the classroom. So it was—it was very intentional to—to bring these sorts of academic and classroom experiences for our students, because to prepare our students to go out and do whatever they're going to do in the world. 

[01:06:16.81] And, so—and because of that, I felt very, very good. And as I mentioned before, I thought I was going to just retire at Georgia College, you know, because it was a great place to work. It was—you know, my—the bus driver would drop my kids off at the department instead of taking them home. My kids somehow convinced them to break the law [laughs], or ed code—state ed code. 

[01:06:46.93] And [laughs]—and so they would come into the department, and they would go and eat at Chick-fil-A across the street and then come back and hang around, you know. And so it was—you know, family and the workplace became completely integrated amongst the faculty, you know. We were at each other's homes all the time. You know, and as I mentioned before, I'd go with them to go purchase their first car or their home. I'll never forget—I think I mentioned this—I think there was, like, six or seven of us got into a car and drove to see Valerie's house that she wanted to buy. And we all walked through it, and we're like, Yeah, buy it, you know? And, you know, stuff like that. 

[01:07:43.36] Again, it was like a sense of family at—at Georgia College in regards to the art department. I know—and there were faculty members outside of our department that always asked me to join, like Ross Feller, I remember him saying, Richard, is there any way you can get me to be a part of your department? And Kora Radella, his wife. And I'm like, No, you guys are in a different—I can't do that, you know. 

[01:08:10.54] And Beauty Bragg would come over and hang out with us all the time. And—and I think—I think they just—we had this sense of this esprit de corps, this camaraderie that was—that I'd never seen anywhere else, quite frankly, you know. And I'm actually seeing it now in my department with the whole—because we have a whole new cohort of faculty, and I'm seeing it there, which makes me so happy. You know. That people are enjoying each other's—they're enjoying each other as friends and professionals, and, um—because you got to have that, you know. 

[01:09:00.57] LAURA AUGUSTA:  That was also the first place where I had conversations with you specifically around allyship across communities, right. And so coming out of a context that's very marked by a lot of stereotypes and a lot of truths about race and history and class and violence and trauma, to sit down with someone from a different background and have conversations about how can I work to support you or to think with you or kind of understanding that. And I think the language has shifted, but I remember thinking about allyship very early on, and that seemed like an integral part of what was being taught in that space as well, right? 

[01:09:44.83] RICHARD LOU:  Actually, I remember having that conversation with you. And I think about it, you know, from time to time about, yeah, we need allies. And that wasn't—that wasn't where I was maybe 20 years ago, but I had arrived at it, you know, maybe 20—well, not 20 years ago. I'm thinking 20 years ago when I was at Georgia College. 

[01:10:13.95] You know. But when I was much younger, I didn't think that way, you know, because it was—the struggle in my youth was, like, I want to say really intense, but then I'm thinking right now, my God, it's crazy. But, you know, where—'cause where I grew up was much more homogeneous, and the struggle was very delineated, clearly defined for us. [Laughs.] 

[01:10:45.10] But as I—as I sort of grew up in the struggle and working within the community, and then also in reading, you know, especially like Malcolm X—reading about Malcolm X and his turnaround, right, from not believing in allies to believing in allies. That really kind of changed my perspective completely. You know. 

[01:11:18.72] And so—so—so I was able to have those sorts of conversations because, you know, in this kind of—in the world that we live in or we've been living in, not having allies is a surefire way—it's designed for failure otherwise. Or I should say it's designed for status quo, and status quo is not where we want to be. 

[01:11:50.20] So it's—it's not—you know, it's not an educational philosophy. It's—it's one of survival. It's a political one. That I—I impart in an academic setting, right. And so—and encourage students to, yeah, that this work is needed by whoever, you know. And we need support by like-minded, like-hearted human beings, you know. 

[01:12:25.28] And the system is like—is not at a place where—and actually going in the direction that people like me will be supported. It's like the opposite. You know, so. And so in that sense, I have great fear about my grandchildren. And so. Um. Yeah, so the—the question of alliance and collaboration and collectivity, um, is—is paramount. 

[01:13:08.41] LAURA AUGUSTA:  I remember that conversation being, Am I allowed to do this work? Right? 

RICHARD LOU:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[01:13:14.17] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Can I, from an outside place, work with a community that I'm not a part of? And the way, the generosity with which you responded to that informed my entire career, right. That you can do this work—there are ways to do it and ways not to do it, right, and a lot of it's about invitation and openness of communication and respect and kind of patience and lots of other qualities that are—you work on over time, but that this work needs to be done regardless of what your background is. And so if you can do it in a way that is respectful, then the work needs to be done, right. 

[01:13:50.95] And the other thing I have been thinking a lot about is this—kind of like—a thing I learned from you—it did not come from my other classes or from my family experience—was this, like, resistance to a hierarchy of expertise. That—that there's all different kinds of expertise, right. 

[01:14:09.67] And so, you know, coming out of graduate school from a program that really believed in connoisseurship and expertise and professionalism, all these things, and deciding not to pursue that path but to do support work for colleagues who are changing academia or to do oral histories with people who have changed the shape of—of artistic practice and academic institutions and many other things, that that could be just as valuable, right. 

[01:14:38.66] And so that—that leveling of hierarchies, which I think might come out of swap meet experience too and family experience and growing up on the border. And, you know, I think there's lots of lines of thinking in your life that come out of the childhood you've described to me and the young adulthood you've described to me. 

[01:14:54.63] And so I just want to flag that as a thing that was happening at Georgia College in really interesting ways, right, during your time. 

[01:15:01.12] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. Yeah, 'cause—and I think I mentioned it before, when we would work with the—the senior students, that the art—the art history was—when we would be guiding studio students, the art historians would be—everyone would be there, including the art historians. 

[01:15:22.40] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Yeah. 

[01:15:22.77] RICHARD LOU:  And they would give their perspective, even—even if it was a part of the studio practice, right. And then when it was—when we were critiquing the art history students, all the studio faculty were there, and they would—because there's, like, you know, pockets of expertise within the studio faculty that would be applicable to whatever that student was working on. 

[01:15:49.54] And so—and the studio faculty would feel at ease speaking up and contributing, rather than going, Oh, it's not my discipline, so. Or the art historians saying, No, it's not your discipline. It's like—it was completely integrated. It's like number one, how do we best support students? And number two, we have share—we have some shared expertise, and then there's pockets, right, of knowledge that some people would have over the others. 

[01:16:25.76] Some student's working on some—the history of some painter, then the painters would be like, Oh, have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? And then this approach and these materials, or these other artists that were potentially aligned. And so it was like a—a very rich environment for—for discussion, right, and contribution that—that everyone felt, I think, at ease without—without one discipline dominating over the other. 

[01:17:07.21] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Yeah. 

[01:17:08.02] RICHARD LOU:  That doesn't happen too much. 

LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. 

[01:17:12.98] RICHRD LOU:  And that was by intent. That was purposeful. 

[01:17:22.36] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. We're kind of talking about it already, but—but I've been wanting to think with you about how you think about mentorship. I've seen it in action, but how do you think about mentorship? And this might also segue into a bit about your kids, which you mentioned to me is something you want to talk about in this interview, and so I want to—I want to ask you how you think about mentorship, and then I want to think about the role that your kids have played in your creative life and also your life as a mentor. 

[01:17:53.26] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. You know, the—you know, mentorship—I mean, actually, just teaching—and there was a colleague of mine that taught here for a couple of years, I remember interviewing him, and one of my general questions, like, Well, how did you get into education? And he said it's a moral imperative. And I'm like, good answer. [Laughs.] 

[01:18:24.13] And that's—that's how I feel about mentorship or teaching. It's a moral imperative, right. And, um—but it's also one of just exercising my humanity. To me, that's just—that's just normal stuff. You know. Whether it was like my uncle or my father or, you know, an older cousin, or—or for example, my friend—my best friend in Tijuana, Chuy Ramirez, his father, Amador—Amador Ramirez, Don Ramirez who was a taxi mechanic. You know, I remember I was probably five—or five years old or something, six years old, and he saw me crying because all the older kids, you know, like my sister and Chuy and his sister Carmela, and some of the other neighborhood kids were telling me about the end of the world. You know, we grew up Catholic, so. [Laughs.] 

[01:19:33.97] So the end of the world. The end of the world. The end—the world is—will end, et cetera. I'm, like, inconsolable because I'm thinking about not seeing my parents and not seeing my sister and all my friends, et cetera. And Don Amador came over and talked to me, talked it through. You know.

[01:19:58.43] And, um—and so that's just what you do, you know? You see—if you have something to share that could help somebody, and it just makes us a better society. And, um—so, you know, once you—if—if—and hopefully whatever you say or whatever you do they find a value. But the most valuable thing—thing, I think, even if whatever you impart to them is or is not, is that they understand that—that help is available, right. In one form or another, and that people will not reject them, or cause them to feel that their helplessness is a deficit. You know, because we all need help at some point, you know. 

[01:20:58.62] And so to me, it's not an additional task. It's my task. And—uh, and it's not even a task, you know. And at the same time, I feel it's like an obligation but not one that I'm coerced to do. It's one that I feel compelled to do by a sense of duty, you know. 

[01:21:29.14] And so it's—it's something that is completely integrated into me being—wanting to be the best human being I can be. And in that sense, then teaching and mentoring go hand in hand. 

[01:21:53.72] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Tell me about your kids in relation to your work. 

[01:21:57.08] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah, my kids. Like, say for example, you know—and that becomes—I always think about this one thing I remember my oldest daughter Gloria saying to me, and it made me really sad. And this is when we were in Milledgeville. She said, Dad, I had a dream about you, and that I was—I was looking for you, I was looking for you 'cause I needed your help. And then you were in your office helping a student. And I saw the student, and I—and this is Gloria telling me. "And I saw the student, and I said to myself, Oh, my dad's helping that student. That student needs more help than I do." 

[01:22:49.50] And when she told me that, I felt, kinda of—I felt conflicted, and, um—and sad. Conflicted because, like, she saw me as being helpful but sad because she placed herself in a different priority than I would have placed her, right. And so maybe she was modeling me or something or modeling someone else. Like, that person clearly needs more help, and my father's usefulness at this point in time should be focused on that person, so I'll sacrifice myself, right, for the moment, until my father has time or something for me. [Laughs.] 

[01:23:42.69] And so when she told me that, I'm like, oh, my God. You know. And I hope—I hope my children don't see that I put others before them. You know. Or maybe because—maybe because they've seen me helping people all the time, then they maybe just think that way. I don't know. So it—it has always given me pause, right. 

[01:24:16.80] And so with that kind of caveat in regards to, like, working with my kids—you know, it's like—you know, for me, I remember people—when I would have a—I remember my first show in New York or et cetera, and people would be like, Oh, my god, Richard, I heard about your show in New York. That must be the most amazing thing that's ever happened to you. I'm like, Nope. Watching the birth of my children is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. Because I've always wanted to be a father, right. How good of a father, who—you know. I know I've tried, but [laughs], you know, a lot of it is just luck. 

[01:25:10.08] And, um—and so—and, you know—and I remember my wife, Kathy. You know, Oh, Richard, I know you were a really good son. And I'm like, I always think to myself—I always say, I could have been better. I could have been better, you know. And I just really honestly feel that way, 'cause I'm like uh. 

[01:25:35.10] But anyways, um, I could have been better at a lot of things, [laughs] I think. Or maybe this is as good as I get. [Laughs.] But the—the joy I have with working with my kids and including them in as many things as I can, you know, 'cause like right now, with this graphic novel that I'm working on, you know, we included Magda, and so her—it's her—once we get it to the publisher, it will be her script, her handwriting. 

[01:26:13.80] And I like the idea that now—that in a sense, the stories will be told through her script, her writing. The way she forms an H will transmit to the reader and imbue it with somewhat something else. And I guess it's a way of, like, uh, making—kind of reinforcing that this is a part of their lives, you know, and that their life is such a huge part of my own. 

[01:27:00.78] And whether they're—you know—and I just talked to Gloria about, you know—that I'm hoping to work on a video soon, even though she's—about this story called "A Love Letter to My Mother," which she narrated the first time. But I've changed it a little bit, so I need for her to, like, renarrate it. And she's all happy that she's going to do that. You know. 

[01:27:28.17] And so that they're happy to work with me is, like, really a joy, and that they feel like they're participating in it because all this stuff is about them in one form or another, you know. And I think about all the work that I do is for them. About them or for them. And the reason I say for them is because, you know, in my own maybe faulty—you know, creating my own fallacy, or whatever, but I think that the work that I do is a way of—of eroding whatever barriers exist that could potentially negate my children's humanity. You know. 

[01:28:26.66] So in telling these stories, I'm hoping that—that—especially because of how divisive our country has become for all the wrong reasons, as if there are any right reasons, are—being able to articulate that there are these families that share the same sorts of hopes and desires and struggles as everybody else, that—that their humanity would be touched by—by our own. 

[01:29:08.59] And, um—and instead of—and you've heard this a kazillion times—instead of focusing on our differences, which is so small, and so—I mean, they are insignificant. And some of our differences are completely, you know, fabricated, that—to focus on our similarities. 

[01:29:42.07] And so in that sense, you know the work that I do is like—it becomes like a talisman, right. And that—I'm not going to say an antidote, but certainly hopefully something that will protect them, you know. And for sure [laughs], a way where they can continue to hear my voice in their hearts, and, uh—while, you know, after I'm gone and in the dark. 

[01:30:38.52] So—so, you know, um—so like say, for example, in this installation Stories On My Back that has traveled around for a bit, you know, they've done pretty much everything. Everything from helping me assemble it, you know. Not all of them are at the same time. Some whenever they have time. But when I did that piece here in Memphis at Crosstown Arts, you know, Magda helped me put it together, you know. 

[01:31:11.35] But they've all done voiceover or narration. And I just sort of like leave it to them. They just work amongst themselves. And that's kind of the fun part. And so when they deliver it to me, I'm like, Oh, this is awesome. [Laughs.] I just hand them the script. I'm like, Yeah, you guys decide. Then, you know, 'cause Gloria knows how to do that sort of stuff. She does all that audio recording. And—and, um—and they deliver, you know. 

[01:31:49.20] And then now at some point I'll probably involve my grandchildren. Even though I've written about my granddaughter, you know. And so let's say, for example, this border—the chapter that I'm writing about for the Border Sutures book, it ends about my granddaughter, you know. About—actually, the same thing that I'm talking about. It's that our youth is the antidote for whatever—however us boomers screwed up our country. And, um—and they're going to—hopefully will save us from ourselves. 

[01:32:34.29] And, um—and so I think about Quetzalli now, her brother Tupac, how now there's all these giants, you know, like Emma Gee, and Dolores Huerta, and Margo Machida, and Amalia Mesa-Bains, and Coco Fusco, and all these. And that, in learning about those giants, that I hope it unleashes the giant within them, so they can participate in a—in an actual true democracy. 

[01:33:19.16] And, um—and that's—and if that happens, then we'll be saved. And it will be—and the struggle will be complete. Um, so in that—in that sense, I see the work that I do. And of course, you know, in sort of, like, the—the, like—the bigger picture, you know. Outside of, like, it's fun. Or like I was describing the Anthropoloco project with Robert Sanchez. It's so, uh, liberating and joyful to make work like that. Just like it's joyful to be working on this graphic novel with Lisa Williamson and Pam McDonald and the others that will probably help out too. Mark Rollinson. So—and Guisela Latorre. 

[01:34:22.59] So—and so I see the work all operating in the same kind of way, you know. Kind of like sliding in and amplifying. Sliding and amplifying. And sliding in and making—making space. Making not just space for me, but for others. For other voices. Other voices that give a larger understanding of—of how—to allow for other voices and hopefully to be able to bridge the parallel universes that we live in. You know, the parallel universe of those that are in power and those that are not and to have those voices be able to be heard, crossing that gap. And—and as I said before, crossing that gap and connecting with the humanity that's on the other side. 

[01:35:23.62] So—so there could be a kind of a collapse. That's like—I'm sure that's idealistic at best, but what else do we have going on? You know. And so in a sense, this is the path that I've chosen that best supports the kind of abilities and capabilities that I have, to—to work towards my understanding of what a just society could look like. 

[01:36:04.60] And so, as I mentioned before, you know, my children are, you know—they're the best thing that ever happened to me [laughs]. So. And I look [video disruption]—here's the thing that I fear the most, is, uh—is that—

[01:36:29.41] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Hang on one second. 

[01:36:30.34] RICHARD LOU:  Oh, did it stop? Oh. 

[01:36:37.92] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Okay, I think we're okay. Sorry about that. Just a little internet glitch. Go ahead. 

[01:36:41.82] RICHARD LOU:  Okay. I g—you know, and I talk about this with my wife Kathy and I'm like—and I think I mentioned this before. It's like, my dad died at 74. My mom died at 79. I'm like, this is how much time I have—I have left. I hope I have a lot more time. 

[01:37:01.05] And on my refrigerator I had, like, at this age—at this age, Quetzalli and Tupac will be this age. And at this year, [laughs] so it's like—I hope it's not a countdown, but inevitably it is. I just don't know when I get to zero. I don't know where my zero is. But I'm certainly conscious that zero is approaching. 

[01:37:29.96] And, um—and so I g—so right now, I'm focusing on a vast majority of my work, not avoiding zero, but mitigating it. And I think I mentioned before, it's like at some point, you know—I keep—I keep telling my kids, all right, we're going to get together maybe hopefully it'll be this summer, and come to my office, or the classroom next to my office, and I'm going to spread out all this artwork that I have, and you need to take it, you know. 

[01:38:11.55] And I think I mentioned this before. They do a really good job there. All this work that, you know, whether it's other artists work, because right now I'm looking at some James Luna prints and a Sandra Trujillo, you know, and—and a bunch of other stuff that I have from undergraduate school that needs to be not in my office, and, um, you know, collecting cobwebs like forlorn memories. So they need to be seen. 

[01:39:02.84] LAURA AUGUSTA:  [Break in recording.] Okay. So the next question I have for you, I want—I'm reflecting on a moment at Georgia College again. But I really just want to use it as a moment to ask a broader question. So I remember a moment in which there was a press release circulating around a new publication series coming out of UCLA called A Ver that Chon Noriega was organizing. And I remember sitting with you and seeing that list of artists, many of whom were friends and colleagues of yours. Your name was on that list. And having a kind of realization as a young person that there was an absence of scholarship around Latino and Chicano art, right. 

[01:39:44.09] And that was a realization for me because I was in this kind of bubble of Georgia College. I was studying a Chicana artist in 2002 and interviewing her. And, um—and so then I kind of had this realization that there's a vacuum in terms of collections—it sounds very naive, but I was young—but in terms of collections and museums and publications and art history. All of the infrastructure of this field, there was a huge vacuum in many areas, but particularly in Chicano Latino art. 

[01:40:16.85] And so I want to ask you—it's probably a two-part or multi-part question, but the first part is how you have seen that field change over the course of your career. And then how do you connect at this moment to that category of Chicano art? What does that mean for you to be a Chicano artist? And how do you define that? Okay. 

[01:40:41.87] RICHARD LOU:  Right. I mean, I think—I think when that came out, in a personal way, I'm like, that was kind of astounding because, you know, thinking that a group of scholars that I admire and have been pretty much at the forefront of the field have deemed that—that what I've done consi—that in regards to their opinion, that some—a book, a monograph or something should be written about me and my work. 

[01:41:25.68] So that—to me that was sort of—on a personal level, I was like, oh, my gosh, you know? So there was like a—a weight to it. A sense of gravity. That—and, you know, I saw the list. And I mean, these are, you know, friends and heroes. And people that I've modeled my—myself, my work, or borrowed their strategies, right, or amplified upon them. And, um—and so that was—that was a kind of a sobering moment. 

[01:42:11.63] And at the same time, you know, I came from, you know, say, for example, when I was with the Border Art Workshop where we would have to design and write and create the content for our own catalog, you know. So here we are in a sense, you know, not self-publishing, because Artists Space was sponsoring this particular catalog. Artists Space out of New York. And, um—and so we saw it as an opportunity to basically write about ourselves. So. And knowing, especially because Guillermo was a writer, and Emily, you know, were—they were both writers. And Isaac  was no longer there, or Jude. They had left the group before. But they certainly understood the importance of—of, um, catalogs, of publications, as an enduring artifact, right, so scholars could have access and et cetera, where that just didn't exist for Latina, Latino, or Latinx artists. You know. And, of course, Chicana and Chicano artists as well. 

[01:43:40.67] And so to see that Chon, you know, with his group had put together, like, these are the artists that, if scholars are interested in writing about them, these are the artists that we think should be investigated, and resources should be allocated to support the research of these artists. 

[01:44:12.79] So that was—as I mentioned before, that was on a personal level very sobering. And on a professional level, in regards to being part of a larger creative and political and cultural environment, it was hopeful. And it certainly was like a door that had been closed for a long time springing open and saying—and not just sort of episodic, which is what the art world is kind of like. You know. It's sort of like, this happens for a little bit, and then something else happens. And it's like—uh, not whack-a-mole, but it's like a bunch of squirrels, [laughs] you know. Or dogs looking at squirrels, you know, running around, going, Oh, this has caught my attention for now. 

[01:45:11.19] But that there was a systemic approach very much like every other discipline in the art world. That there was a systemic approach and that there was a group of scholars, and that these artists have been—been vetted, you know, in a sense, and that these particular artists had contributed in a certain specific kind of way that merited further investigation. 

[01:45:45.30] So that was—you know, as far as I'm concerned, that was sort of new, and especially for Chicanas and Chicanos artists that, um—that had been working within a field that a publication would be happenstance. And as I mentioned before, episodic. 

[01:46:11.76] Um. And so that was a major breakthrough. And of course, I'm like, when did this happen? I didn't really understand, right. And I understood later on that this was like a guide—like a guide book. And since then, thankfully, the roster continues to expand. And so there's a—there's a roadmap where a roadmap didn't exist before. And so thankful to Chon and Teresita and all the other people that had worked on—on, number one, coming up with the idea and then expanding it. 

[01:46:54.92] So now, I think—now, when it first started off as Chicana, Chicano. Now it's Latinx, which is as it should be. You know, because—you know, and I still consider myself a Chicano and probably will die that way. [Laughs.] And, you know, for me, it's the idea—the expansion to Latinx is—I think is due in part because of, you know, not just Chicanos but other Latino cultural contributors, cultural workers of expanding—just expanding the field. Just the idea of saying you're a Chicana or Chicano is already expanding the field. Or considering yourself a Latina or Latino, you're already expanding the notion for what it is to be a cultural participant within a larger society, right. 

[01:47:59.40] And so I think it's only a natural, um, course that—that it expanded to Latinx, you know, and that we just fit within—historically we fit within that particular term. And so, you know—so I feel very comfortable in regards to considering myself a Latinx. 

[01:48:27.81] But to be more specific, right, a Chicano artist. And so—'cause it really—that specificity I think informs the viewer or the reader or the scholar or whoever, uh, my history that I have aligned myself with and how important that is to my—my identity and my ideology, which is, you know, I guess one in the same. [Laughs.] And also a geographic—a geographic location. 

[01:49:14.61] So—so you know, back then, locality was almost equally as important, and, you know, not so much now, 'cause, you know, now I'm out here in the mid South, you know, and—along with a lot of others. And so the interesting thing is that I'll bump into young Latinas, Latinos that, like, are interested in—in the Chicana/Chicano experience. And some of them think of themselves in that sorts of way. 

[01:49:52.85] I'll never forget Valerie Aranda, a dear friend of mine at Georgia College, put together a—or helped organize a conference with her daughter at UGA in Athens, Georgia. And it was like a Latino youth conference. And this is when, in Georgia, there were—there were all these raids going on, and people being taken away from their homes and leaving behind kids, et cetera. 

[01:50:30.91] And so Valerie asked me to give a brief overview of the Chicana/Chicano movement and its—and its visual iconography, right. So, you know, Yolanda López's, of course, right, um, Who's the Illegal Alien, Pilgrim? Who's the Illegal Alien, Pilgrim? poster, and also Gilbert Luján's, Magu, Return to Aztlán, right? Was two of many of the other images that I showed. 

[01:51:20.50] And when I showed them and talked about them, I would hear gasps [laughs] in the audience. And, um—you know as I was talking about Yolanda's, who, rest in peace, um—and both of them, actually. Magu. Both of them. How Yolanda not only made that piece but was very generous and, like, Use it. You know. Use this piece for that protest, this protest, this call for action. 

[01:52:07.39] You know, that's like, you know, emblematic of the kind of, uh, utility that we wanted our work to be, to how—how we want our work to function, right. And she was able to really crystallize in that image a whole movement, right. And galvanize. And within that one image, sort of like distill, right, very complicated ideas into that one image, and make it accessible. 

[01:52:51.67] And so anyways, showing—showing those two amongst a bunch of other images, as I mentioned before, I would hear the students in the audience kind of gasp and then murmur and talking, et cetera. And then afterwards, about maybe 10 or 12 kids gathered around me and said to me, We didn't know those images existed. And those images, you know, to paraphrase what they were saying, articulate our life now. And—and almost in a sense, where have these images been? Well, I know where they've been. [Laughs.] But they haven't been accessible to them, that's for sure, because that's not the way curriculum works. [Laughs.] You know. 

[01:53:47.76] But, I mean, it could work, and we talked about that at Georgia College. But for them to be able to see for the first time images that reflected their face, right, that reflected their lives, that they could pin—that they tether their life to an iconic image from the past because what they're going through is similar, was a really powerful thing. 

[01:54:16.49] Not only for me as someone that—all I did was just talk about them and show them. But certainly for them, and I would—and would imagine for them that they would go home and investigate further, not just images by Yolanda or Magu or, you know, Amalia or David Avalos or whoever, but the context from which—from which those images emerged and for them to do the research—historical research of why—of why these images were made. And how they can help us, you know—they become like legends on a map, right. Help us explain and decipher the confusion that we may have in regards to being a marginalized community. And so the—the power of that work, you know, whether it's by Yolanda or Magu or any number of the artists that I talked about, endures. You know. And it endures thankfully and unfortunately because the circumstances that the work was forged out of continue to exist. 

[01:55:44.19] And, um—and that's—that's a tragedy, right. That work that was created to galvanize a community or to become a—to become like sort of a lightning rod for understanding our world, or understanding our position in this world of almost 50 years ago, these—especially Yolanda's piece. Almost 50 years ago. Or around 50 years. But those conditions not only exist, but they have become worse. 

[01:56:30.05] So and that's the grand tragedy as—as an image maker that is interested in working within social justice. So my connection to the Chicano movement as a—I'm kind of like a second-wave or third-wave Chicano, right? Definitely not the first wave 'cause I'm not old enough. And, um, it's still a strong one. And, uh—and, you know, it's something I don't plan on getting rid of [laughs], or sloughing off like—like a reptile. 

[01:57:22.34] And, um—it's—it has helped. You know, the—my Chicano identity has helped me understand my world in a way that I feel I could become useful, and with purpose. And without it, I think I would have just been an angry—an angry man. And—without the tools to work in a positive manner. And, you know, like, I've seen friends of mine end up in prison, or kids that I went to elementary school, et cetera, that were Chicanos like me, Latinos like me but didn't have the—the—weren't presented, right, with the opportunity to—to bump into a place like the Centro. Where, as I mentioned before, it's like the lugar de mi nacimiento, my second—my second birth. 

[01:58:50.74] And, um, so for that, I will always be indebted to these giants that I walked amongst. You know. I think I mentioned them before. Marco Anguiano, my mentor, my best friend who I miss so much, Laura. And Veronica Enrique, who was the director when I first came to the Centro, and David Avalos, who was the curator. And Marco worked there. And then I met Josie Talamantez at the Centro. And I mentioned before I met Amalia Mesa-Bains at another centro, La Galería de La Raza in San Francisco. Amalia, another giant. I met Margo Machida. Shifra Goldman brought her to the Centro so she could meet me. You know, Shifra, another giant. Margo, another giant. 

[01:59:55.07] And the lessons that I've learned under those—under those—under those amazing human beings are enduring ones and ones that I've hopefully passed on unadulterated to my students and to my children, et cetera, to other people. 

[02:00:17.73] James Luna, who I miss. I'm looking at him right now. And, um, there's so many—there's just so many people. Guillermo. Guillermo, I met at the Centro. Robert Sanchez, I met at the Centro. Emily Hicks, I met at the Centro. Berta Jottar. All these people. Um. Patssi Valdez, I met. Barbara Carrasco, I met at the Centro. 

[02:00:52.93] You know, so it's like all these people that have left, that I—that I followed in their footsteps. And to contribute to a larger understanding of what it is to—what—to what happens when we assert and affirm our reality, you know. And like Ruben Salazar said, you know, it's like, well what is a Chicano, is someone that has—he said it's a Mexican American—if I can paraphrase this correctly, a Mexican American who has a non-Anglo view of themselves. But what he's really talking about is a self-determinant view, right? To define oneself outside of the colonial system. The decolonized self. 

[02:01:49.33] Am I there? No. [Laughs.] Not even close. But it's—but it's one that I const—I aspire to because the system is already—you know, you work against the system. That—but at the same time, you collaborate with the system that oppresses, you know. How can I decolonize myself if the two languages that I know the best are the colonizers [laughs]? English and Spanish. You know. 

[02:02:34.81] So anyways, it's a complex system of—that constantly needs refinement in becoming a better human being, you know. And, um—but there are certainly lots of models. Coco Fusco, I met at the Centro. She's a tremendous human being who I admire greatly. And so there's all these—you know, there's all these people. I talked about—I remember sitting on a bus with Gilbert Luján and having a wonderful conversation with him. You know, we became—we became friends. And whose work I—I—I treasure. I treasure Gilbert Luján's work. It's so intelligent, right, and humorous and—and beautiful and complex and contradictory. Um. All the things that makes the human condition is within—within that picture plane, you know, with his—and within his work. So. Those are all the people that I would encounter because of—because of the Centro. 

[02:04:15.20] And I was lucky enough to visit quite a few centros when I was the curator of an exhibition called Hecho in Califas back in 1999. 1999, I think. And, um—and I was able to go around and interview different artists at different centros. I met Don Anton—Don Gregorio Antón, who is brilliant. You know. Juana Alicia. So I think she was the one that you were interviewing, if I remember correctly. You know. Brilliant artist. 

[02:04:53.34] And so I was lucky that way to find myself—René Yañez. I was lucky that way to find myself amongst all these—all these people, trying to not blunder in, but just wander in, I guess. And for them to—and for them to play a large part in putting together the puzzle that made me who I am now, you know, to help shape me while I was semi—semi-malleable. Forever grateful, you know. Forever grateful to have that opportunity—to have those opportunities. 

[02:05:50.19] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Do you have any regrets or any feelings about being so far away from Southern California for so many years in your career? I imagine your life would have been so different if you stayed there. Your career, your work, your community, all of those things. How do you think about that? 

[02:06:12.04] RICHARD LOU:  I did—I did what my parents taught me, you know, which is how do I best position my family for success. And that's the best I can do. And, um—and, so yeah. We could have stayed in—and I think I mentioned that there was—I had an opportunity to work with Amalia. And I think about—believe me, Laura. And I remember not talking to Amalia not too long ago, maybe a year or two ago, and I said, you know, that I have pangs of regret not taking that job with her. All—everything that I could have learned. And then just being with a good friend, you know. And—and as I keep saying, a giant, you know. And I think about that, you know. 

[02:07:16.81] But at the same time, I remember—I remember my good friend Marco Anguiano, when we left for Georgia, he was mad at me. I remember him saying, and I don't mean to—I'm not trying to puff myself up or anything, but he said, Richard, you're too important to leave Southern California. You know. Your voice is needed here. He said, The struggle is here. I said, Marco, The struggle is everywhere, unfortunately. 

[02:07:47.14] And so I guess I kind of balanced that—that, you know, as a—as a Chicano, right, and as a border denizen—a border person, that I was able to use those sensibilities, that language, that ideology, that framework, that, you know—that ideological structure, that analysis to do work here. You know, whether it was The Penance Machine, or Colonial Towers with Bill Fisher, or the series that I've done on the confederate monuments. You know, whether it was at Clemson, at the John Calhoun mansion, or here in Memphis at the Nathan Bedford Forrest Park, you know. And—and to work with, you know, people from the South that were interested in this kind of work. 

[02:09:05.23] And so, yeah. I could, you know—there's the careerist part of me and the network part of me and the collaborator part of me, although I've done collaborations here. But, like, the—and then, of course, I left my family behind. My sisters and my brother—my brothers at the time, and nieces and nephews and cousins, and then my proximity to—to Mexico, you know. So that was not an easy decision at all. 

[02:09:47.52] And, um—you know—and I—when I go home, I feel—I'll be going home next week [laughs] for my sister—my sister Linda's 70th birthday, and so we'll be in Mexico for four days or so celebrating. And my daughter Gloria is going and my daughter Maricela with her husband Brandon and my two grandchildren, Quetzalli and Tupac, are going. 

[02:10:20.36] And so—and I know they long for being back in San Diego, but they've settled. They've—I'm more than positive they consider the—the South, their home now. My children have lived here more in the South than they have in California. I haven't yet. [Laughs.] It's still a little ways further to go before I've lived in the South more than I have in California. So. 

[02:10:57.95] But yes, that—that—I think about that. I think about what you posed. Not as often, you know, because I'm interested in whatever—you know, I'm interested in what's in front of me here. And—and as I said, like I told my good friend Marco, like, unfortunately, the struggle is everywhere. And unfortunately, the struggle in the South has intensified. 

[02:11:33.10] We just had Kyle Rittenhouse here day before yesterday. And so, you know, Kyle Rittenhouse—and they're touting as that he's here to talk about his experience and exercising his first amendment right to free speech. This is the person that crossed state line as a minor armed with an AR-15 to suppress other people's first amendment right to free speech, with a weapon. And so—and now we're supposed to listen to him. 

[02:12:20.05] So, um—so those sorts of things are—the anti-trans laws. And we talked about, you know, Roe being dismissed, and just—and all of that intensifying in the South. The reverse—I mean, the banning of books, the curtailing of curriculum that talks about contributions of ethnic people, or marginalized people in the history of the United States, or whitewashing it or et cetera. No, it's—the—the struggle—the struggle is incredibly intense here in the South. 

[02:13:03.94] But here's something that I'm struggling with myself, Laura, and—is that, you know, I've been writing about—I've been rewriting and editing this piece about Border Sutures, this piece—the project at the Border Art Workshop when I was a member, did back in 1990. And I'm writing about the art active—the art activism that I was entrenched in and immersed in my youth. I'm 30, something like that. And while I'm writing, I'm thinking about my own paralysis in regards to what has been happening now, and my own inaction. And, um—and it's troubling to me. 

[02:14:15.12] And, um, you know, not that—you know, things can move along just fine without me, but my level of participation is one that is foreign to me. And, um—'cause I'm use—for—since my early 20s, I've been in it. And since my return from Clemson, from graduate school back to California, I've been in it, in some form of being a constructive participant in struggle. 

[02:15:07.95] And now, uh, I'm not. And, you know, unless writing is one form. Certainly, but that's not the kind of participation that I—that I have identified myself with. And so I've been thinking about that for—and this started to occur maybe three or so—well, really when—since the middle of the—at the—during the pandemic, in the middle of the Trump administration. 

[02:15:56.45] And I think a lot of it has to do with, where do we start? Where do we start to respond? I did reach out to about 30 other artists in Memphis. I wrote to them, a year ago, April, about starting a collective to respond to what's been happening. And there—and an overwhelming—I mean, all of them, every—30 or so said yes, that they would like to, and that they felt kind of this—they felt kind of useless, or impotent, I should say, with the growing—the frequency, right, and the sort of—it's not certainly not random. But all of these—all of these very oppressive initiatives are coming from all sorts of directions all at the same time, but all from the same group of people. And so, you know—you know, I'm like—I feel troubled and conflicted by—I remember one of the first things you talked to me about is like, Hey, Richard, you remember that you led this protest against the war when you were in Milledgeville? 

[02:17:38.73] I'm like, No, I don't remember, Laura [laughs]. I was doing so much stuff. I'm like, Yeah, I'm sure I did, or helped, or helped organize or participated or whatever. And maybe that's just what age does. I'm not sure. Or just me. Or—I don't know. So it's something that I'm going to have to do something about. 

[02:18:16.75] And, um—but I think it's useful to talk about it within this larger context, in regards—especially since if anyone's going to—if any other than you, Laura, are going to listen to all this stuff and to see the trajectory, and to see at 65, that although I have all this experience and skill sets to help not just myself but other—others to maybe distill and then respond, right, that I'm at a quandary. And, um—and that life is a lot more complex. 

[02:19:15.63] So I hope to kind of get over this, 'cause it is bothering me.

[02:19:27.03] LAURA AUGUSTA:  I think my last question has a lot to do with that last answer. And it's—it's really a broad question about advice. What do you wish for young people, young artists at this moment in history? Do you have advice or do you have wishes, right, for a different generation? 

[02:19:47.46] RICHARD LOU:  I have both. Advice and—I'll start with the wishes. You know. I wish you the passion for your work that it is due. 'Cause the work—the work—the work has expectations, the work has demands, and that if you're going to commit, that you respect the demands of your work by putting in the time and the passion and the—and the research. 

[02:20:40.93] And—and also, if you're going to do the kind of work that we're talking about, you better be right. And the piece that you're making, you can't be a sloppy researcher, because if there is one factual error in your assertion—your creative assertion, people will use that one factual error out of the 9,000 that you're presenting to discredit not only you but the conditions of your community. 

[02:21:28.99] And so I wish you the passion which only, you know—which when applied in a disciplined way could garner you the sort of joy that you will find in the work that you make, and to find the joy in the work that you make, in all work that you make. So that's what I wish—wish for. 

[02:22:08.23] And advice is, we need you. [Laughs.] We need every fiber of your being. And, um, to—to assert your reality, because there are forces at play that are trying to negate who you are as a human being. Who you are, your history, the history of your parents, of your ancestors, your ability to identify, to be whoever you want, the ability to identify whoever you want to love, the ability to control your own body, the ability to control your own history and your own narrative. That's what's at stake. And we need you. 

[02:23:22.34] You know, the—you know, I remember Guillermo talking about, you know, we don't have the luxury. And that was back in the '80s [laughs] he was talking, saying that. So the—the courage you will find, 'cause it's a courage of necessity. And, if you—you know, there's that old Chinese proverb about the 10,000 miles starts with the first step. Once you walk into it, once you utter it, once you say it, it'll propel—you know, once you conceive of it, it will help you, it will propel you to do it. 

[02:24:23.03] And, um—and you can do more than one kind of work. You know, you can do a work that is sensually pleasurable to you, intellectually pleasurable to you, aesthetically pleasurable to you, but also do work that helps your community. You can do more than one. 

[02:24:50.67] And collaborate. You know, collaborate, collaborate, collaborate. Um. And not only—especially for artists. I mean, we're—I mean, in—at the university settings, college settings, we're taught to—we're taught and rewarded to work as individuals. But you will learn, if you try, that working as a collective has its own rewards that are—that are not the same as working as an individual where the rewards are mostly external. The reward of working in a collective or in a collaboration is an internal reward that you will never experience in any other manner. And connecting with other human beings that—that care deeply or are passionate about the same things that you do is not only uplifting, but it's sublime. 

[02:26:07.56] And so within that, you know, urge you to work within a collaboration or a collective where you can forge a new sort of path together, to respond to the critical issues that we have at hand now, and come up with new models for how we can relate to each other. 'Cause the present ones aren't working. To create new models of how we connect with each other's humanity. Not one of dominance, right, but one of mutuality. 

[02:27:03.07] And so that's the—that's the wishes [laughs], and the advice that I would give to young artists. And also, learn—learn to work with great earnest. To work hard and find people that are nice, you know, and smart and work harder than you so they can inspire you to work harder than them. 

[02:27:39.78] And, um—and don't look for the art stars that are troubled themselves. You know. Let them work out their troubles on their own, or if you can help them, help them. But, you know, if you want to work, make sure you find other people that are kind, have a giving heart, that are filled with love and joy, and see the same things that you see in regards to what best—what to do best to put our society and our humanity on the right path away from destruction, which is what's occurring right now. 

[02:28:35.94] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Does that feel like a good place to you to wrap up? 

[02:28:41.65] RICHARD LOU:  Yeah. 

[02:28:44.17] LAURA AUGUSTA:  Thank you, Richard. This was gorgeous. Such a special opportunity for me. Thank you. 

[02:28:50.84] RICHARD LOU:  Thank you, Laura, for driving the ship. So. [Laura Augusta laughs.] 

[END OF TRACK aaa_lou24_6of6_digvid_m.]

[END OF INTERVIEW.]