'I draw the funny things': Pueblo cartoonist goes political

Thursday, September 20, 2018

Pueblo Indian cartoonist goes political

By Katherine Saltzstein
Native Sun News Today New Mexico Correspondent
nativesunnews.today

ALBUQUERQUE - Cartoonist Ricardo Caté has turned his attention to politics and the environment.

In a show of his latest cartoons painted on canvas and framed at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, Caté shows President Donald Trump sitting on a red brick wall with the title “Trumpty Dumpty Built a Huge Wall.” At the base of the wall a Native American figure looks up.

Another shows a Native American man and a soldier.

“Let me get this straight. You want me and my men to build a wall around your fort to protect you from us and you want my tribe to pay for it?” “Yes,” says the soldier.

In another painting Trump stands before two Native American code talkers in uniform in front of a portrait of President Andrew Jackson as Trump did recently while referring to Senator Elizabeth Warren as Pocahontas.

“I’d like to deviate from this honoring ceremony by degrading and disrespecting my guests and using them as a backdrop for a political attack,” says Trump.

Ricardo Caté. Courtesy photo

Caté visited the exhibit recently to talk about his work.

“You can’t make this stuff up. It’s amazing what this guy does. It’s great for cartoonists and stand-up comedians,” Caté said. “Trump is a narcissist. Nothing surprises me anymore. I accept him for who he is. Why be angry? I draw the funny things."

“He lies a lot. He goes back on his word. He just blurbs things out. I don’t think he has a filter about the things he says, but it also makes me cringe. Other leaders he meets with are very eloquent. And he comes on. It’s embarrassing. He says the same thing over and over. My cartoons are more eloquent than he is.”

In another two-part series, Caté paints his visits to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) demonstration in 2016. In one of the panels entitled “At the very first Thanksgiving” a pilgrim stands with two Native Americans with the words “Let Us Pray.” The second panel, “Thanksgiving 2016” shows DAPL police aiming their hoses at demonstrators with the caption, “ Let Us Spray.”

Caté visited the Standing Rock demonstration six times.

“I first went out of curiosity. I was hearing about this movement. I took supplies out there. I stayed six weeks. Then I came home to take care of my family and bills and went up there again. I was angry - first because the pipeline was originally going to go a mile north of Bismarck. They said ‘no’ so they moved it one mile north of the Standing Rock reservation. All of a sudden it was OK to do that and that’s what got me first. That really got me."

“Art Through Struggle” exhibit at Albuquerque’s Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. Ricardo Caté “Without Reservations,” the only Native American cartoon featured in mainstream daily newspaper. Six cartoons a week for the Santa Fe New Mexican explaining the Native American experience. pic.twitter.com/G68WCVqGha
— Ward Cornett III (@WcornettIII) July 30, 2018

“I loved the beauty of it, and all of the thousands of people there for one cause. I loved seeing the tribes as they came into the camp, the songs and dancing. There were maybe 150 tribes making camp. By Thanksgiving weekend there were maybe 400 and over 10,000 people. It was pretty packed and the thing that amazed me, on social media it said it was a dirty camp. But it wasn’t. People were picking up trash."

"There was hardly any until the end and they stopped picking up trash. It started accumulating. People took pictures and said ‘look what these people did. These Natives trashed this place.’ But it’s not true. A lot of it wasn’t reported accurately," Caté said. "So I was up there drawing pictures or cartoons, of what was happening day by day. I would post them on Facebook so that’s my contribution to the cause, to let people know daily what was going on there through my drawings.”

The only time he saw violence with police was when “people were bulldozing what might have been a burial site. Demonstrators broke through a fence to get to the site. And police came with dogs. “

He painted a picture of the bulldozers shoveling dirt mixed with skulls and bones as a Native American family watches. “Support Standing Rock,” is painted above the bulldozer.

Caté, who is from Santo Domingo Pueblo, is well-known in Santa Fe, where his cartoons are featured daily in The Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper. In 2012 a collection of his cartoons was published in a book, Without Reservations. He hopes to produce a second book of cartoons soon. And, he plans to publish a calendar of his work in December.

He is best known for cartoons that poke fun at Native life or depict ironies. One of his most famous shows a man with his arm around a boy looking at a view of mountains and hills.

“Someday, son, none of this will be yours,” the father says to his son.

In another cartoon, a car on resting on cement blocks is loaded with boxes on the seats and in the trunk.

“Indian Storage Unit” is the title.

Recently his cartoons have become more political so the newspaper puts them on the opinion page.

He selects some of his cartoons to paint on canvas and sells the paintings at hotels, seminars, art galleries, art shows and on-line.

“The cartoons in the newspaper are mostly for entertainment. I just want to put a smile on peoples’ faces. I try to do something funny to let people forget what’s going on for a little bit,” he said. “I’ll submit something or they’ll ask me for something I put on Facebook. Because the regular ones I submit are just funny. The ones I post on Facebook have more of a political bite to them.”