Commentary: The city of San Diego wants to help artists of color. Here’s how.

by Jonathon Glus, San Diego Tribune

Artist Guillermo Rosette works on a detail of the “Historical Mural” in Chicano Park.

(John Gibbins/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

I have had the privilege of holding the position of executive director for the city of San Diego’s Commission for Arts and Culture since November 2018. As a newcomer to San Diego, I was warmly welcomed into a dynamic, diverse city. After spending more than a year getting to know the community, what I found was a city where arts and culture are deeply rooted in neighborhoods and our many cultures and traditions. And I set out to meet our city’s artists. Artists are the essential workers for the arts.

During normal times, readers could expect to see a written piece from me to address the outsized economic impact of arts and culture on tourism, the power of the arts in building social cohesion, reducing youth recidivism and bolstering education. Or one may talk about San Diego’s growing creative economy and the need to invest in a well-trained creative workforce to remain competitive as a global city. The arts are all of this.

But none of us knew that March would bring us our first pandemic in roughly 100 years. A stark downturn in the economy, a spike in unemployment and a shuttering of arts and culture organizations resulted in furloughs and layoffs across the region.

Even as organizations pivot and move as much programming as possible online, the unemployment numbers are staggering, surpassing the Great Recession.

In response, the city and a group of funders came together with $1.25 million in seed money to leverage and raise much needed funds for organizations to retain artistic staff. Thus far, $250,000 has been directed to small nonprofit arts and culture organizations, and the City is working on two initiatives to get $1 million to San Diego artists. But we know this is not enough.

Now, in the sixth month of the pandemic, three things have become clear: communities of color in San Diego have been disproportionately hit by the cooronavirus that causes COVID-19; the arts and culture sector has not fared as well as other nonprofit sectors; and artists are among the hardest hit.

As the pandemic rolls on, data continues to underscore that artists are among the worst hit by the economic fallout brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Just this week, the Washington, D.C-based Americans for the Arts updated its survey findings on the impact of the virus on artists and creatives nationwide. Of the more than 23,000 people surveyed, 94% reported a loss of income, while a staggering 64% have become “fully unemployed.” These statistics come from pandemic data processed as early as April, when nearly half reported a layoff or furlough and more than 50% reported no savings.

While we do not have such detailed data for San Diego, we can reasonably extrapolate that a disproportionately high number of artists are at or near full unemployment. With some portions of the economy in lockdown and others in partial closure, we can surmise this condition will only worsen. Personally, I know that San Diego artists often care for their families and build a career with a patchwork of teaching, performing and project work, often also working in the service sector. This all came to a halt in March.

To compound this, the pandemic and its economic fallout have again exposed the racial inequities in our community. The rate of COVID-19 infection in Latinx and Native American communities is more than three times as high as White and Asian American communities and twice as high as Black or African American communities. Just a few weeks ago, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Black and Latinx people are most likely to lose their jobs and live in the coronavirus hot spots.

Earlier this year, the Commission for Arts and Culture committed to evaluating its role in contributing to systematic inequities in the arts. We are moving forward with that work, which extends to our support of and investment in individual artists.

We can emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic with our essential arts workers stronger. We can make San Diego a more inclusive and equitable community by supporting artists, and particularly artists of color, now.

Glus is the executive director of San Diego’s Commission for Arts and Culture, and lives in downtown San Diego.