When thousands flood the streets of Los Angeles this Friday for May Day, they’ll march alongside a larger-than-life puppet created by Eastside organizers and community volunteers.
The puppet, built over months through a community workshop series led by East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, symbolizes climate justice, community power and resistance.
East Yard members and volunteers gathered at an East LA backyard and worked collaboratively to bring this piece to life. They used spray paint, fabric, newspaper and heaps of cardboard scraps to prepare the puppet.
“What drew me to this project, in fact, was being able to use art as a form of protest,” said Diana Hurtado, the project’s artistic director.
“Puppets are … a very powerful art form, and I think that it’s going to be very meaningful to have a larger-than-life figure that is standing for climate sovereignty and community action.”
The puppet takes the form of a woman with long hair, dressed in a blue tunic and a bright floral headpiece featuring orange California poppies alongside a single red poppy representing Palestine.
Because of its scale, 12 feet by 12 feet, and just under 20 pounds, it will require three to five people to carry it through the streets. Participants will also wear smaller headpieces and crowns that resemble those on the puppet.
For East Yard members, the puppet builds on years of protest tradition.
“We started to implement it [puppets] within our organizing here and there, but last year, we made a puppet for May Day, in particular to call out the violence against Indigenous women when it comes to anti-immigrant and anti-labor forces in the U.S.,” said mark! Lopez, an organizer at East Yard.
This year, the puppet will shift toward something more expansive.
“Our puppet theme is based around life energy, life force, to kind of combat, essentially, the death energy, the death force that the country is projecting a lot, globally, and also within our communities,” Lopez said.
“We’re fighting for our lives against these polluters, and we’re fighting for our entire lives because we are committed to this movement.”
The workshops themselves are as much about community as they are about art.
East Yard member Pablo Barrios opened up his East LA home to host the workshops.
“I’ve been involved with so many May Days that I wanted to do it now, using the arts and doing it in a way where I’m meeting someone new and I’m learning new ways to do art,” he said.
For Boyle Heights resident Fatima Carrera, this series has been a treat to watch unfold, week after week.
“It’s very gratifying to work through something for a while and watching it come to fruition,” Carrera said.
On a recent workshop day, Carrera said she hoped this project would inspire spectators to think about how they, too, can get involved in the community.
“I think it’s very important that we get involved even in the smallest ways, creating these ties with our neighbors and with each other allows for us to create beautiful things,” she said.
