Display gives abuse survivors outlet for pain
By Daily Bruin Staff
May 14, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 Daily Bruin File Photo Maria Quintero
looks at shirts hung during last year’s Clothesline Project.
By Marion Wise
Daily Bruin Contributor
When Steven Zapata Jr. was about 5 years old, his 15-year-old
cousin molested him, but he never talked to his parents about his
experiences.
“I didn’t understand this was wrong,” Zapata
said. “It happened for maybe a couple of months until, I
guess, he realized it was bad. But then he reversed it so it was my
fault.”
Now a third-year history student, Zapata has yet to talk with
his parents about his heterosexual cousin’s sexual abuse. But
his involvement with the UCLA Clothesline Project has allowed him
to begin to come to terms with his experiences.
“Before I joined Clothesline, I never talked about my
past. I thought it was an issue that just affected me,”
Zapata said.
“Now I can tell someone how I was molested as a child and
they learn that story,” he continued. “By educating
others, we’re trying to inform the next
generation.”
Zapata serves as publicity chair for the Clothesline Project
Display, a three-day exhibition of T-shirts depicting sexual
violence. Today through Thursday, Schoenberg Quad will exhibit
approximately 2,000 T-shirts decorated by survivors of gender,
domestic and hate-crime violence. The display includes about 350
shirts made by UCLA students in recent years.
The UCLA Clothesline Project, a two-year-old student
organization, is part of the national Clothesline Project, which
originated in Massachusetts in 1990 to recognize survivors and
victims of violence while providing them a means for healing. The
display itself has been on campus for the past four years, with
previous sponsorship by the Center for Women and Men.
Ronnie Sanlo, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender Campus Resource Center currently serves as
organizational advisor for the project.
“It sort of demystifies and makes public what sexual
violence is. (Sexual violence) is something that people on campus
experience,” Sanlo said. “(The display) is not
pleasant. It’s very, very uncomfortable. But it’s
supposed to be.”
Survivors and friends or family of victims of sexual or gender
violence are invited to decorate a shirt for the display. T-shirts
are usually decorated at the project site, but the Center for Women
and Men and the LGBT Center have T-shirts available for decoration
year-round. The project has also held several shirt-making sessions
throughout the year.
Third-year psychology student Shiloh Krieger, internal chair of
the project, estimates that 100 additional T-shirts will be
decorated in the next three days. Besides the shirts made by UCLA
students, the display will include 1,300 shirts from the Los
Angeles County Clothesline Project and another 300 from Santa
Monica’s Sexual Assault Crisis Agency.
Each shirt’s color represents a certain type of violence.
Survivors of rape decorate red, orange or pink shirts; child abuse
and incest survivors decorate blue or green shirts; and survivors
of sexual harassment decorate black shirts. Friends and family of
deceased victims can decorate white shirts, and survivors of
multiple types of violence decorate multi-colored T-shirts.
“From speaking to survivors, it’s a very therapeutic
process. It gives survivors a chance to break their silence,”
Krieger said.
“Seeing their shirt then displayed with other shirts
creates this feeling of camaraderie and a sense that they’re
not alone. It’s definitely a very positive experience,”
she said.
According to second-year undeclared student Morgan Joeck, one of
three executive co-chairs for the event, T-shirts representing rape
and child abuse or incest are the most common shirts decorated on
campus.
According to a 1997 study by the Center Against Sexual Abuse, 38
percent of girls are abused before they are 18 years old. Also,
12.5 percent of boys will be sexually abused by the time they are
18, according to a 1992 study by the U.S. Department of
Justice.
“Overall, UCLA students seem to be very supportive of
stopping sexual violence when they realize how pervasive it is on
our campus. It’s very moving,” Krieger said.
At Schoenberg Quad, volunteers from the project will aid
survivors and other interested students. All volunteers have
completed Sexual Violence Awareness Advocates counseling
training.
“We’ve had a lot of (survivors) who come through and
read the shirts and that was the catalyst for them, and they
immediately seek crisis counseling,” Joeck said.
The UCLA Clothesline Project is also hosting tonight’s
Women’s Oratorical Contest and Thursday’s “Take
Back the Night” rally, which will start at 7 p.m. on Westwood
Plaza and will feature speakers and a candlelight vigil for
violence survivors.
For more information about the UCLA Clothesline Project, e-mail
[email protected].
