Lady Liberty, Uncle Sam, two figures who show up often as stand-ins for American politics in editorial cartoons and graphic narratives. But read between the images and the lines, and you can see how those symbols evolve with artists incorporating them to take on challenges of democracy. For artist, Eric García, based in Chicago, be brings these and other symbolic characters out in his work to engage nationalism, white supremacy, and exclusion. For his recent monumental poster, Monument to Lucy Gonzalez Parsons, he highlights a historical figure worthy of more spotlight, Lucy Gonzalez Parsons, a labor leader and anarchist organizer from Chicago whose impact on the history of labor is astounding.

As García shares, “The five-day work week with the weekend, these are all monumental laws that we don't even realize, they're intricate in the workforce nowadays. And yeah, she was a heroine that a lot of people need to know about. And not many people do. The whole holiday of May Day was born out of, right here in the United States, there in Chicago during that Haymarket riot. And people don't realize that history,”

We speak to García about Parson, how he learned about her, and how he could better honor her.

García’s Monument to Lucy Gonzalez Parsons is included in the High Line Joint Art Network’s New Monuments for New Cities. Over the last six months, Monument Lab has been research residents of this project and we are speaking with artists from each of its 5 partner cities – New York, Chicago, Austin, Houston, and Toronto – about monuments, memory, and public space.