Dudley Cocke

Robert E. Gard, with additional contributions by Maryo Gard Ewell, Robert L. Lynch, and Michael Winslaw. Edited by Maryo Gard Ewell with Clayton Lord and Elizabeth Sweeney. 2016, 128 pages, Americans for the Arts, Washington, D.C.

New Year's Day, 1980, found Arlene Goldbard living in Washington, D.C. monitoring and reporting on our nation's de facto cultural policy. The fact that Arlene was doing this says a lot about the leadership role that many of us were counting on the federal government to play in leveling the field so that our many U.S. cultures would have an equal chance to express themselves, to develop, and, inevitably, to cross-pollinate. It was a substantial and beautiful vision then, and remains so today.

These thoughts were sparked by attending the Council on Foundations 57th Annual Conference, "Philanthropy: Investing in the Vision of Progress." I was especially engaged by the plenary remarks of George Soros and Newt Gingrich.

To California's great Central Valley they have come from the highlands of Oaxaca, the cities of eastern Pakistan, the relocation camps of Thailand—political refugees and new immigrants from around the world aspiring to build a future for their children, grands, and greats.

For three days in October these new U.S. Americans gathered in Fresno's Tower District for their second Tamejavi Festival. Everyone was welcome; the historic Tower Theatre's marquis proclaimed, “Tamejavi: It's Still Free.”

One effect of attacks on the leading agencies supporting cultural pluralism in the not-for-profit sector, which began with the Reagan administration and continued through the Clinton presidency to the present day, has been to elevate the U.S. commercial arts at the expense of the not-for-profit arts.