 Yasmin Hernandez and Vieques
By Robert Waddell, July 16, 2009
(Photos courtesy of Yasmin Hernandez)
In November of 2006, artist Yasmin Hernandez literally missed the boat but found out she’s closer to the island of Vieques than she thought.
Hernandez was traveling to Vieques by lancha, a small boat, from Fajardo. New Yorkers can understand it’s like missing a bus or train. Speaking with one of the dockworkers, Hernandez learned that her uncle is married to one of David Sanes’s sisters. Sanes was the worker killed by a Navy bomb and his death began a renewed activism that lead to the United States military leaving the island.
“I've learned that everyone in Vieques either knows each other or is related somehow,” Hernandez said, “When my dad starting speaking to her, it turns out she was David's sister and my dad mentioned having a relative in Vieques that he had lost contact with. She truly gave my dad his number because it turns out that he lives with a sister of hers…that's how Vieques is.”
In the last 2 years, Hernandez has traveled to Vieques on 4 different occasions collecting material, taking photographs, interviewing residents on film and preparing for a major art exhibition titled “Bieke: Tierra de Valientes.”
“When I get inspiration it has a spiritual quality,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez was born in Brooklyn and has had major exhibitions at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College and El Museo del Barrio. She is a recipient of the Ramon Felician Social Justice Prize from El Centro. Her artwork centers around the cultural and spiritual importance of Puerto Rico and the cultural and political connections she realizes within her art.
 "There are very few people that I have had the privilege of working with like Yasmin. She is an incredible artist,” said Dylcia Pagan, who Hernandez painted Pagan’s portrait. “Most important is the content of her art and her commitment to struggle.
"I am certain that her Vieques project will be an addition to the work that is so necessary in advancing consciousness in our movement for National liberation. Vieques needs to be put on the front line of our concern as Puerto Ricans."
The idea for this major Vieques installation came when Hernandez was invited by the Jamaica Center in New York to create some artwork based on Vieques. Her ideas were on militarization and landscape and the idea of children being robbed of their innocence in the same way that the military has appropriated land from Vieques, said Hernandez.
“She shows us that the people of Vieques, especially the children need to not be forgotten by la isla grande, the United States and the world,” said poet Mariposa. “There is one painting that depicts a little boy by the sea that grabs you and confronts you with reality... that if you love Vieques you have a responsibility to support the people.”
Part of Hernandez’s installation was made up of barbed wire. When she did go to Vieques, she was surprised to see that many roads lead to chain link fences that kept residents out.
"We would always reach a fence,” Hernandez said, “Here we were in a land where the people had limited access to their own island, to a portion, 1/3 of the entire island."
Hernandez felt enraged. It was as if she saw the people of Vieques caged in. She went to Vieques after the Navy had officially left but still she saw a need for a massive clean up, a population with serious health issues and the land moved from the military to the department of Fish and Wildlife. Hernandez felt a need to do something.
"I felt anger,” said Hernandez, “What happened to all those people who went to Vieques? What happened?"
 She secured funds through the CUNY Caribbean Exchange Grant at the Center of Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College and the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture where she was able to return to Vieques and interview on camera the citizens of the small island.
“I found a place where the Navy still controls part of the island with their radar antenna,” said Hernandez. “It’s very depressed financially.”
One of the shocking evidences of how the population of Vieques has been contaminated was when she and her husband went to a gas station. There was a young man blasting hip hop from his car radio and when he turned around, Hernandez was shocked at the size of the tumor on the back of the man’s neck.
She realized that more work had to be done and while the protests were successful Hernandez thought too much attention was put on the celebrities who supported the Navy’s departure. The Vieques citizens, husbands and wives, mothers and children, old women, for her, they are the real heroes of the Vieques struggle. To her, they are the ones left while celebrities have all gone home.
"…a life sentence because they live there,” Hernandez said, “They didn't come there on a boat, get their picture taken then went home to the privilege and comfort of their safe homes."
 One of the other historical facts of the island that impressed Hernandez, she said, was the finding of a 4,000 year old man called el Hombre de Puerto Ferro, a site that resembles Stone Hedge. Historically, Vieques, it’s theorized, was a place where indigenous peoples came from South America stopping at small islands. In Vieques, those original Indians broke off into the Caribs and the Tainos eventually settling the greater and Lesser Antilles, which made Vieques a hub of ancestral importance.
"Some of the most important archeological sites are in the bombing range. God only knows what’s been destroyed,” said Hernandez. “But no one has a right to it because it was taken by the U.S. government."
Opening October 10th, “Bieke: Tierra de Valientes” opens at Museo Fuerte Conde Mirasol on Vieques and runs until November 8th. Consisting of around 30 pieces, Hernandez uses burlap, camouflage, drab green colors and used military gear in her artwork. Hernandez uses the word Bieke because it is the original pronunciation of the island’s name.
“I didn't come here to teach any body anything but to learn,” said Hernandez.
With all of the interviews she’s done, Hernandez wants to create a website and video stream these oral histories and perhaps produce a documentary from the footage she already has shot.
“People tend to forget,” said Hernandez, “the wind blows and takes contamination to the water the soil, the food….We tend to forget what’s going on over there. I want to keep that bridge always connected."
This story was developed through the Education Beat Writing Fellowship at the New York Community Alliance. |
