On the side of Mango House, a community center for refugees in Aurora, three Denver artists, Ally Grimm ( A.L.Grime), David Fratu (Ill.Des), and Anna Charney are painting a massive portrait of the Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado.
Grimm, who spent much of her childhood in Venezuela, says Corina symbolizes a rare hope for Venezuelan families, millions of whom have been forced to flee their countries under the current president, Nicolás Maduro.
Listen to the story:
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Maria Corina Mochado mural Alexis Kenyon
The mural is part of Aurora’s Colfax Canvas Festival which will host a block party on Saturday from noon to 5 p.m at Aurora’s Fletcher Plaza next to the MLK library. For more information, visit their website here.
Interview transcript edited for web:
Ally Grimm: Since I was a kid, the Venezuelan government has been controlled by a violent dictatorship. Venezuela has the worst inflation in the world, and they regularly go without water, food, and electricity. The government will often shut off the electricity if they feel like people are protesting too much just to silence them.
Venezuela is experiencing the largest exodus in modern Latin American history. Around 14 million people have left the country—Venezuela had 30 million people before—so when you think about it, 50 percent of the country has left. That’s a lot of families separated. This has been going on for so long. I haven’t been back in the country in almost 15 years because it’s really dangerous.
In the recent election, Maria Corina Machado, who was the original opposition leader, has been fighting this battle for years.
She’s been in government for a long time, but since I was a kid, this is the first political figure who has truly sparked a fire in the people of Venezuela like I’ve never seen before. A huge part of her platform is about bringing people home, and reuniting families who haven’t seen each other in so long.
She has united people who are desperate for peace, basic resources, and their civil liberties, which have been stripped away.
And before this most recent election, Maria Corina had a website made that live-published election votes so the government couldn’t interfere, and on July 28th, the people spoke—almost 80 percent of the country voted for her campaign.
Then the government refused to acknowledge the result. They’ve been killing people in the streets and taking political prisoners. They’ve hidden the ballots. The world knows that Maria Corina won a fair and free election, but the government refuses to step down.
For a place like Mango House, which represents refugees and carries this narrative of people being forced to leave home, I felt she was a really fitting figure to represent the fight for the right to go home.
Aurora is a wonderful city that protects refugees, but at the end of the day, nothing really feels like home except home. We felt she was the perfect symbol of the hope of going back after everything.
Alexis Kenyon: Ally, I think a lot of people, including myself, find it hard to imagine living somewhere like Venezuela, where expressing any opposition to the government is so dangerous. What does that actually look like?
Ally Grimm: It’s incredibly dangerous to speak out in Venezuela. They will come into your house and kill you, or you’ll be abducted. Many activists have simply disappeared, and you’ll never see them again. Since July, over a thousand political prisoners have been taken, many of them young—probably around 18 to 20 years old. They’ll tap your phones and listen to your conversations. They cut off power to your house, but mostly, they control people by force and violence.
During the protests after the election, the police created a database of photos, offering rewards for people to send in pictures of protesters so they could send the police to remove those people from their homes.
If you feel you’re being watched or listened to, many people just flee because of what could happen.
Alexis Kenyon: Hmm. Ally, I know you mostly grew up in the U.S., but this still sounds very personal to you.
Yeah, it is.
Alexis Kenyon: Do you mind telling us more about that?
Ally Grimm: For me, not having seen my family in over a decade and not having been back to the island where I’m from, off the coast of Venezuela, it’s really hard. I was born in Venezuela and spent a few years of my childhood there before my family moved to the U.S., but I spent every summer and sometimes Christmas breaks back in Venezuela. So, a third of my youth was spent back home with my family, on an island that, to me, is this magical, beautiful place. It cuts deep.
And, it’s not even comparable to what people who’ve lived there their whole lives are going through. I have cousins who grew up in Venezuela and had to flee. They were sent to boarding school in Canada and now live in Europe. For many Venezuelans, our families are spread out all over the world. I have family in the U.S., Panama, Brussels, China—we’re everywhere. And we don’t get to see each other. That really hurts; it feels so deep.
We’re all united by this constant, underlying pain that’s hard to talk about because it’s not something visible, but it’s something we all feel—this longing. Even if I bring together people from Venezuela, I’ll never truly feel like I’m home.
Alexis Kenyon: Did you watch the debate this week?
Ally Grimm: I did, and it was upsetting.
Alexis Kenyon: Trump mentioned Aurora in a disparaging way, and he talked about Venezuela and gangs.
Ally Grimm: Yes, and he used some really dangerous language about immigrants, especially at a time like this. When my family first moved to the U.S., we lived in Colorado Springs, and I have faint memories of people being racist toward my parents. For context, I’m white-presenting, but my parents have thick accents—my mom is from Minnesota, and my dad is Chilean. We moved to Washington, D.C. because my parents didn’t feel safe raising us in Colorado due to the racism they experienced. When I moved back to Colorado, my mom asked, “Why would you want to live there? People were so racist.”
Now I live in Denver, which is a bit different because it’s a liberal city, but even here we still see glimpses of the things my parents feared.
Alexis Kenyon: Has anyone said anything to you about the mural?
Ally Grimm: So many people! We’ve had a lot of people stop by, take pictures, or talk to us. I have the Venezuelan flag hanging off our lift, and the other day a man stopped by to FaceTime his family and show them the mural. That meant the world to me—seeing him share this beautiful mural with his family back home.
I’ve had a lot of heartfelt conversations with Venezuelans living here. They’ve said things like, “I hope it works this time. I really want to go home.”
Sharing those moments with the community has been really touching.
