A Reflection on Vincent Valdez’s Exhibition Just A Dream

Written by Bizzie Ruth Wilson

From the moment I walked in and looked to my right, I was met with the stairs of a people I never thought I would have to come face to face with. And even though they weren’t real that day, these people do exist in the world and I have probably seen them more than I care to imagine. That feeling, the knowing that each of the pieces in Vincent Valdez’s exhibition, Just A Dream, are in every way not a dream. From the detailed piece of Valdez’s brief encounter with the Ku Klux Klan to his studies of the Chavez Ravine…these images are of events that really happened and that have left a stain on society.

A stain that many have become seemingly comfortable with…

a stain that to many has become a distant memory,

a stain that has become just a dream.

I suppose therein lies the purpose — to remind us that this stain is here, that it has been here. Since Valdez was a young boy, since I was a young girl, since before either of us was thought of, Just A Dream forces us to remember and hopefully never forget where we are in the world and how we got here. Even images as simple as the Amnesia Drawings tell a story of humanity in a way that forces you to remember that we are — much like the boxer in the title piece Just A Dream (In America) — fragile, yet willing to keep fighting. It asks the question…is this what the American dream looks like? Perhaps it does for us, black and brown folk who despite the constant battery, choose to still come here or stay here in hopes of experiencing some sort of better-ness.

Standing there experiencing this exhibition deeply reminded me of words spoken by Ghanaian-American rapper, Sækyi. In the second interlude “Greenest Grass” from his most recent album “Lost In America,” he asks, “Was I supposed to be raised here?…at the core of it we could have…made a better reality over there than come here and help out white people…was it for something better?” His mother then replies, “You know, the grass isn’t always greener.” This conversation quite perfectly sums up the feelings that were brought about while going through Just A Dream. These feelings of belonging that I honestly have been battling with since my father passed.

Where is safety if not here?

Where is home if not here?

Was this world ever our home to begin with?

As I lapped Valdez’s exhibition for a final time, I landed upon similar questions — is being here, staying here in a country that I know does not want me, good? Or, should I leave, return to a country I do not remember but my body and my spirit do? Do I continue being like the boxer — no matter how many times the system strikes me down, do I get back up and keep fighting for something that feels so often unbeatable? Is the grass greener elsewhere? Or is that desire to leave also…just a dream?

Just the American dream.