El Paso Statuet

The problem facing the city of El Paso was the erection of the statue celebrating the conquistador Don Juan de Oñate. The original news of the statue brought hope and excitement to the city of El Paso, city council members thought that the statue was a great idea; it would bring in more tourism to their city and in turn help the economy. Since El Paso was the 10th poorest city in America at the time, they needed something to help. The statue of Oñate was just one of a twelve piece project, known as the XII Travelers Memorial of the Southwest, created by John Houser. The project was intended to honor the history of El Paso and the people and culture of the city as well. The project was meant to take you through history via statues and Houser wanted

The Indian people of El Paso hated the idea of a statue of such a terrible man being displayed in their city, to them it was like celebrating Hitler, but the amount of money that had already gone into the project was so excessive there was no turning back. One American Indian artist in the community, Maurus Chino, was so disgusted with the idea he started to get the word out about who Oñate really was and the genocide he caused. Maurus Chino started sculpting feet to honor those who lost theirs in the past to Oñate and it also showed that the American Indians of El Paso, Texas were, “putting their foot down,” to the completion and erection of the statue. There were meetings and votes to decide what to do, they couldn’t have a statue paid for by the public’s money, that the public hated, but the amount of money put into the project outweighed the opinions of the public. The best solution to the problem with the statue I believe was renaming it so that it would not be known as The Equestrian instead of Don Juan de Oñate. There was not another plausible solution that could have been reasonable for both