‘San Jose’ song draws rebuke from multicultural arts leaders
“San Jose,” the song, does a bad job of representing the diversity essential to San Jose, the city. That’s the message sent by a group of more than a dozen multicultural arts leaders in an open letter to Karolyn Kirchgesler, the CEO of Team San Jose, the public-private partnership that handles the city’s marketing.
With quite a bit of fanfare at its annual meeting June 12, Visit San Jose — Team San Jose’s destination marketing subsidiary — unveiled its new marketing video featuring the song “San Jose,” written and performed by 16-yearold New Zealand resident Grace Kelly, who appears throughout the video and was present at the event at the Montgomery Theater. While the pop-country song drew cheers from many city leaders in attendance, it was shredded on social media and raised eyebrows among San Jose’s artistic community, who wondered why Team San Jose decided to outsource its talent.
“We find your choice of Kiwi, Grace Kelly, as the face and voice of an advertisement promoting San Jose to be deeply offensive and dismissive of San Jose’s creative and artistic culture,” the letter, dated June 20, reads. The issue, it says, isn’t with Kelly herself — “a talented musician and singer” — but with the notion that Team San Jose needs to outsource talent and creative production to promote the city. “We are left with the disturbing impression that Team San Jose would rather use local talent as silent props while showcasing a young, white woman as the hostess and global ambassador for our beloved city to visitors.”
The power-packed group includes Executive Director Jessica Paz-Cedillos and Senior Program Manager Demone Carter from the School of Arts & Culture at the Mexican Heritage Plaza; arts consultant Ron Muriera, who also serves on the San Jose Arts Commission; MACLA Executive Director Anjee Helstrup-Alvarez; Empire Seven Studios’ Juan Carlos Araujo and Jennifer Ahn; and Chris Esparza of Giant Creative Services.
And they’re absolutely right about there being plenty of local performers with a love for this area. When I wrote about the song’s debut, I mentioned Santa Clara University grad Jackie Gage’s recent single, “A Secret Place,” as another ode to San Jose (and Gage’s tune was the favorite among readers, over “San Jose” and Dionne Warwick’s “Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” who took a poll attached to the article).
Other readers pointed me to Rey Resurreccion‘s “The Hometown” as a more authentic San Jose anthem. The song, produced by popular DJ Cutso, and its hip-hop lyrics backed with a mariachi sound definitely captures part of the San Jose experience. David Brookings let me know about “Silicon Valley,” a song on the latest release by his band, David Brookings & the Average Lookings. Originally from Virginia, Brookings has lived in San Jose for a decade, “So this is sort of a southerner’s take on what it’s like to live in the Bay Area,” he said. Undoubtedly, there are more songs out there, too.
The arts leaders’ letter invited Kirchgesler to sit down for a conversation about the issue of representation, wondering how many San Jose natives and people of color are helping to make decisions about the image the city presents to the world. One troubling note is that this isn’t the first time this conversation has happened: In 2016, the group reached out to Team San Jose to encourage the production of the video “Where Cultures Shine,” highlighting the city’s diversity and creative legacy.
Team San Jose spokeswoman Frances Wong said the organization has reached out to the letter’s authors and is working on dates for a meeting. That’s good because this is a dialogue that needs to happen. Visit San Jose’s mission is to market the city in a positive way to potential visitors from around the world — and it seems to be doing a good job, reporting that 973,500 international visitors spent more than $856 million here in 2018. But it also needs to do it in a way that everyone who lives in San Jose can get behind.