chibicandy01's Diaryland Diary

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Paper #2

Candice Williams
English 101
Prof. Lardner
Rough Draft #2
Feb. 15, 05
Cultural Palette: Understanding Freedom of Expression
When is a house more than a house--When the house is painted purple.
Overlooking differences and setting about change in any community is hard to do because understanding between cultures comes slowly. Losing the filter of generational bias or looking beyond the obvious is, likewise, a difficult task for any community. This is the case for the city of San Antonio. A purple house on Guenther Street has raised personal motivations in the owner to fight for her right to keep her color. The legality of this purple house has similarly raised the Historic Review Board to take proper legal action. Ms. Cisneros’s, and the Historic Review Board have ultimately one question to face. Is the cultural palette for this Historic District of San Antonio historically accurate? Or is there more at stake than meets the eye?
October last, Ms. Cisneros painted her home a deep purple with light trim. Colors that were not approved by the San Antonio Historical Review and Design Commission. The Historical Review Board voiced their objections over Ms. Cisneros claim and the city of San Antonio sent her a citation. Ms. Cisneros stood up against there citation.
Ms. Cisneros agrees with the Review Board on the need to have accurate preservation in terms of the cultural palette but due to personal motivations she would not back down until the palette is changed. “…I want my house to reflect the traditions of the city’s Tejano past (Cisneros.)” Never the less, the first skirmish ended with a compromise. “I’m not arguing against the preservation laws. I have great respect for the preservation of all cultures (Ms. Cisneros.)”
Still, Ms. Cisneros claims that the Tejano era is not accurately represented; yet she lacks the evidence needed to show whether or not the color purple is a documented color of the Tejano era. In Ms. Cisneros eyes this controversial issue has begun to represent the community itself. Ms. Cisneros took back her statement and decided to fight the issue once more. Vivid colors, according to Cisneros, reflect her Mexican culture, in the Tejano era.
According to the Review Board the color is undocumented; therefore it is an inappropriate color that offsets historical uniformity. I feel that there is more to the Review Boards backing down than meets the eye. Is whether or not the house painted the color purple the issue at stake?
“The issue has moved beyond the color purple. What these people are saying is that the visual history of the Mexican people is not valuable, that it doesn’t count. (Ms. Cisneros.)”
So where is the historical record of the Mexicans living in the Tejana era? Or could the possibility that there is a cultural bias still in existence, and has not allowed room for the laws governing the palette to change? Can tradition and the truth be centered on the uppity review members claim of uniformity?
The cultural palette of San Antonio has become a hurdle that separates the cultures in this community. Ms. Cisneros’s sees this but does the Review board?
The legalistic views put forth by the Review Board are hazy. “Appropriate paint colors in historic districts should be based on historic evidence of colors actually used on that house, that neighborhood or the era.” Historic preservation officer Ann McGlone said the color purple was “inappropriate” to the King William Historic District Commission; yet they agreed to take no action. The approved colors are white, Plymouth Rock gray and union blue. Ms. McGlone reviewed what other colors of a wider palette may be appropriate for Ms. Cisneros neighborhood. “There just isn’t any evidence or documentation that these colors were ever used in the King William area” Ms. McGlone also said she had no objection to bright colors for homes in the historic district.
Perhaps greater irony can be found in the definition of the word Palette which means, “a board on which paints are laid and mixed” (Webster American English Dictionary.) We are taught at an early age the concept of the American melting pot where America is a land where cultures mix together. Sure enough, Mexicans and Texans have been sharing the same border for over 300 years. So isn’t it probable that the two cultures would mix?
I will go even further to suggest that the United States has developed historical communities where the culture is mixed, like a palette, yet still holding on to outdated laws. More speculation leads to this thought; the current legal system of San Antonio upholds historical accuracy and freedom yet curtails this personal freedom at the same time. A Review Board with a supposed historically accurate palette and they have yet to integrate Ms. Cisneros culture into their own acceptable standards.
Whether or not, it was the intention of the Historical Review Society to confront the issue of personal freedom, they never-the-less have opened up a ‘can of worms’. What I mean is that they have set in motion a feeling, more aptly described as a burning desire Americans love to call personal expression. Our rights to express ourselves are shown every day in our art, our clothing and our homes. Awareness of one’s own cultural identity is paramount to expressing one’s self. In fact America has doctrine specifically giving the freedom of speech, this idea of personal expression.
Why is Cisneros so adamant in her protest against the review board’s decision?
“I always dreamed of the day when I could make the exterior a reflection of who I am. (Cisneros)”She is personal motivated by her individualism. In the historical society of San Antonio Ms. Cisneros identifies the act of accepting this rigid palette as similar to denying her self the freedom of personal expression. Personal expression is to as important as her culture; they are the same to her. By changing the color she will have assimilated her personal identity into the standards set by the Historical Review Board.
Being true to herself is crucial to Ms. Cisneros happiness, as well as to her psychological confidence. For example, at the commission hearing she dressed like herself, Wore red dress, green scarf and cowboy boots decorated with cactus, and presented an eight-page history on her home with the changes she’s mad . In her novel, The House on Mango Street, the house symbolizes her own past, poverty the shame of growing up poor and the triumph of rising above it. “Growing up in third-floor walk-ups in Chicago, poverty was, for me, an ugly door, a peeling wall (Cisneros),”
“Culture is the mechanism to which humans adapt to their environment,” (cultural anthropologist Malinowski) Culture is expressed by how people interpret what they see, a set of meaning and interactions that lead people to do something. “I like to think my casita makes their day happier, (Ms. Cisneros).” Friends, neighbors, and local artists support Ms. Cisneros quest. She has supporters in the community who wave as they pass by the purple house or they smile. By surrounding herself in the representation of her common culture she has found pride.
“To me, San Antonio is where Latin America begins, and I love it. (Cisneros)”
Ms. Cisneros plans to solve the historical inaccuracies through her own fieldwork amongst the community. To foster the growth of the cultural palette, Ms. Cisneros plans to invite students to do a history of the cultural colors and she plans to collect the testimonials of her neighbors in San Antonio.
Also, Cisneros researched the history of her neighborhood. Also, she visited the San Antonio Conservation Society library and although she has yet to find the color purple in the documentation of the vivid color of San Antonio’s homes she is still trying. The principle is that Cisneros does field work, she does not just speculate and sit at home, she has a need to find out and ask the people in her community herself. Ms. Cisneros has this idea of expressing the cultures palette in her community, and embracing her personal freedom at the same time.
Questions that are paramount to finding the answers to gaining, a deeper understanding of side’s, an understanding of the controversy over the purple house needs to be taken into account. Does the color signify the spanning of two cultures? Will broadening the cultural palette allow a greater understanding to develop between the citizens of San Antonio?
Restricting the culture, our American culture, through the palette is no less than sticking to a way of dividing people. Historically, America has always been a diverse group of cultures and ethnicities arranged in a hodge-podge fashion in the 50 states. Ms. Cisneros has this concept; she just has yet to fully center the concept of breaking down the borders between the Mexican-American and separating them from her own personal motivations. How far will the review board go in curtailing this personal freedom? Only time will tell but I predict that sooner or later color will be added out of cultural necessity. After all I do not hold much faith on the idea of the American concept of the ‘mixing pot.’ The Review Board needs to filter out the ethnocentrism and focus not just on the color purple but on the diverse community. The freedom of personal expression is paramount to understanding the American cultural palette.
“Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity—an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven (Hubert H. Humphrey.)”

2:29 p.m. - 2005-02-23

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