LOS ANGELES—For Chito Mandap, when the Jose Rizal statue rises in the City of Carson next month, he’ll see ten years of hard work finally come into fruition.
Mandap, the chairman of the Jose P. Rizal Monument Movement, has been an instrumental part of bringing the statue to Carson.
He says his hope is that the statue will be a symbol of not only Rizal’s values but can also bring the Filipino community together.
“I am so overwhelmed I really went through blood, sweat and tears literally into this project,” said Mandap, who also credits Fil-Am leaders who helped in the project. “This is something I’ve envisioned to be a common denominator for all of the Fil-Ams here.”
During an announcement at the Philippine Consulate General in Los Angeles on Monday, a roomful of Filipinos gathered excited about the statue, which is slated to be officially unveiled on September 29, right before Filipino-American history month.
Carson Mayor Jim Dear urged the Filipino community to celebrate this “once in a lifetime unveiling.”
“This statue really does show the accomplishments of the Filipino culture in American culture,” said Dear. “This will only enrich the US.”
The larger-than-life bronze Rizal statue is nearly 7 feet tall and will stand on top of a six foot granite base. The Philippine National Hero Rizal statue will stand on a hill on top of the east parking lot of the Congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald Community Center besides City Hall.
Funded by the Rizal monument movement, it is the first statue in what will be the city’s International Sculpture Garden, which broke ground last November.
The garden is the brainchild of Dear, an arts lover, who envisioned a place dedicated for public art and a place where people could gather and celebrate heroes from around the world. The theme of the garden is “Heroes of Liberation, Freedom and Justice from around the world.”
Dear told the audience the Rizal statue, he hopes, is the first of many heroes that will be erected in the garden.
There are only eight Rizal statues in the US. The bronze statue will be sculpted by Toym de Leon and will be the first in California.
source: asianjournal.com