T-shirts embody personal pain, display society’s ‘dirty laundry’

Tuesday, June 2, 1998

T-shirts embody personal pain, display society’s ‘dirty
laundry’

VIOLENCE: Project hopes to increase awareness of violence
against women

By Chauntelle Anne Tibbals

Daily Bruin Contributor

"There is no excuse for domestic violence in any culture, race,
or ethnicity."

— Kristie Kum-Ja Yoo

In a courageous effort to escape domestic violence, Ul-Ei Yoo
immigrated from Korea to the United States 21 years ago.

"She wanted better educational opportunities for her children.
She also wanted a divorce," said her eighth child, Kristie Kum-Ja
Yoo. Divorce was then culturally unacceptable in Korea.

But thanks to UCLA’s first annual Clothesline Project, Yoo, a
fifth-year physiological sciences student, will be able to come to
terms with her mother’s struggle with domestic violence.

The Clothesline Project, sponsored by the UCLA Women’s Resource
Center (WRC), is an international effort designed to educate people
about violence against women.

"We want to bring all women to a common ground," said Robin
McDonald, a rape prevention and education coordinator at the
Women’s Resource Center and head of the Clothesline Project.

"There seems to be an apathy toward (violence against) women. We
want to help people realize that it is not something that ‘just
doesn’t happen,’" she said.

Participants in this year’s project will relate their stories
about violence by creating a shirt representing their experience.
The shirts will be displayed in the Schoenberg quad this week.

By displaying society’s "dirty laundry" on a color-specific
shirt, members of the project hope to break the silence of abuse in
a highly visible manner.

"These shirts will hopefully touch people at the heart. Each
shirt represents an actual person," McDonald said.

Since its small beginning on the East Coast, the project has
grown immensely.

When the Clothesline Project was started in 1990, 31 shirts were
created and were then displayed in the Hyannis Massachusetts town
square to commemorate women who survived violence. Only four years
later, over 20,000 shirts were displayed on the lawn of the
Washington Monument. Currently, there are over 500 active
Clothesline Projects worldwide.

UCLA is aiding this expansion by establishing an on-going
project of its own. Since the end of March, people in the UCLA
community have had the opportunity to make their own shirts. These
shirts are the beginning of what will become "a permanent project
at UCLA," McDonald said.

To celebrate UCLA’s first clothesline display, speakers and
entertainers will be relating their experiences at the Women’s
Resource Center Tuesday through Thursday.

Today’s activities will feature a spoken word performance by
Jaya Lanka, a third-year ethnomusicology student. Lanka performs
under the pseudonym D’Lo with the group WADDA G (Women Aware, Deep
Dark and Gay).

Through her work with various community organizations and her
writings, Lanka has expressed a desire to lend strength to gay
women of color.

"No matter what organization I am involved in, all of my pieces
are about empowerment," Lanka said.

Her performance today will illustrate her dedication to
informing people about violence against women while staying "as
true to the underground as possible."

Over the next three days, the Clothesline Project will attempt
to show UCLA that acknowledging one’s struggle is the first step
toward moving past it.

"I want survivors to know that this is their project," McDonald
said. "It takes a lot of courage to break the silence, but
(breaking the silence) is the only way to eliminate violence."

For information on the Clothesline Project, contact the Women’s
Resource Center in 2 Dodd Hall at (310) 825-3945.