An Inclusive Litany

9/6/93

A $5,000 grant by the National Endowment for the Arts went to a project by David Avalos, Elizabeth Sisco and Louis Hock. Titled "Art Rebate," the art consisted of handing out $10 bills to illegal aliens at day labor camps near San Diego. Each bill was signed by one of the artists, so that the marked money would circulate through the economy and demonstrate that the migrants contribute to the economy through sales taxes, even though they do not pay income tax. Said Hock, "We are sickened by the dominant rhetoric concerning the immigrants—that is, that they are somehow to be blamed for this country's economic problems."

Said one of the artists about the project, it is about "the interaction of physical space with intellectual space and civic space." Said one of the recipients, "People don't usually give us money."