Eyes Wide Open:
A Conversation with Activist Christin Hinojosa
by Ben Tanzer, photo courtesy of AFSC

The first thing anyone talks about is the boots—a pair of military boots for each American soldier killed in Iraq. But the exhibit is more than that. Much more. It includes statistics, photos, a memorial wall and a uniform worn by a soldier who killed himself after returning home from the war. Eyes Wide Open: Beyond Fear—Towards Hope is a multimedia exhibition created by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) to draw attention to the costs, both human and financial, of the Iraq War.

Even when competing with AFSC’s already storied history—AFSC was founded in 1917 to provide young Quakers and other conscientious objectors with an opportunity to serve those in need instead of fighting during World War I—Eyes Wide Open is a phenomenon. It has crisscrossed the country from Chicago to Washington, DC, with more and more stops scheduled all the time. It just keeps building momentum. Eyes Wide Open has been covered by every news outlet from The Flint Journal to Al-Jazeera, and has inspired an online movie, Wage Peace Movie, a “wage peace” blue bracelet and a blog.

With the war continuing unabated after more than three years, and the death count from the Iraq War at nearly 2,400 American military (http://icasualties.org) and anywhere from 34,000 to over 100,000 Iraqis (http://iraqibodycount.net), it seems like a good time to revisit the reasons for which Eyes Wide Open was first created. In February 2005, I had the opportunity to sit down with actress-turned-activist Christin Hinojosa, who was with AFSC when the exhibit was originally launched in Chicago in January 2004. Here Christin, the first coordinator of the exhibit discusses how the project came about, where it might go in the future, and what it means to be an activist at a time when we’re all still a little numb to politics.

Ben Tanzer: Maybe you could start off by talking about the different pieces of the exhibit?
Christin Hinajosa: “Of course, the most striking thing is the boots. We have military boots for every U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. They are usually lined up as if marching in formation. Each pair is tagged with the soldier’s name, hometown, and age. A lot of the boots have been touched by family and friends, with flowers, letters, or photos. We had had 560 boots on opening day a year ago. Now they number over 1,500. [Since the time of this interview, the number of boots has risen to nearly 2,400].

One of my other favorites is our memorial to the Iraqi soldiers. My brother built this beautiful black wooden box and on it is a photo of a dirty pair of worn-out shoes on the feet of a dead Iraqi solider. The photographer wrote that most of the Iraqi soldiers killed in that battle had only old dress shoes to fight in. A filthy old pair of pennyloafers on sits on the box with a sign noting that though the estimates are 30,000 to 100,000, no one will ever know how many Iraqi soldiers have been killed.”

BT: And is there more to the exhibit?
CH: “The entire exhibit is too large to describe, but another big component are the large panels covered in photographs and text. There are photos and stats on what Iraq was like before the first Gulf war and what it’s like now. There are lots of charts and graphs with information like comparisons between the percentage of the U.S. budget that goes to the military versus the amount that is for social services. There is a graphic I love where every little army action figure represents a billion dollars that the U.S. spent on the military in 2000. There are 344 and it’s compared to the rogue nations, what the U.S. considers ‘imminent threats,’ and there are only 14 of those little GI Joes. It makes us look like bullies in a schoolyard.

My most favorite piece is this box, I call it ‘Look Within,’ because no one was looking in it, so we put a sign on it that said ‘look within.’ When you look into it you see still images fading in and out of photos we don’t see in our media - Iraqi grief. U.S. grief. People with body parts blown off. It’s a very powerful, intimate way to see these images and it gives a private way for us to grieve and acknowledge our shame and responsibility. We keep having to wipe off the screen because people’s tear drip down onto the TV as they’re bending over it.”

BT: Could you please talk a little bit about AFSC?
CH: “They started after the First World War, working with refugees and since have focused their work all over the world. AFSC has always been active in social justice. For example, they were the first to publish Letters from a Birmingham Jail and they won the Nobel Peace Prize during the Second World War for their work with refugees. They are probably best known for their work with conscientious objectors from World War I all the way up to today. And that’s one reason why this project is so exciting, [it] gets them re-connected with soldiers.”

BT: And how did you get connected with them?
CH: “[Through] my internship with SSA (the School of Service Administration at the University of Chicago). I kind of fell into it. I wanted to work with a peace and justice organization, and SSA had no options. I looked for a peace and justice organization in Chicago and AFSC was the only one with staff. They had never had an administrative intern, so I came on and worked under the regional director, Michael McConnell. He’s a legend in the peace scene in Chicago. He went into college supporting the Vietnam War and he was converted by one simple flyer against the war and has been working on peace ever since. It gives all of us hope, the fact that we can convert someone with a simple flyer. Every little thing has an impact. Every piece of truth you put out there may not change someone’s life, but it can have impact.

We had a whole team working on Eyes Wide Open and I coordinated it. I didn’t know what I was getting into and it became a monster. We didn’t know how big it would get. We scrimped and saved and built the whole puppy for about $15,000. We had many, many volunteers and that’s what made it so successful—all these professionals [who were] willing to volunteer.”

BT: So, you didn’t have any concept of how big this would get?
CH: “I knew it could. As I was always saying, we can sell this—it draws people in. AFSC National did not believe in this for a very long time. But Michael believed in it. And I was there breathing down his neck. And all the people working on it believed in it. Then when it got out there, National was like, ‘this is the greatest thing we’ve done in 50 years.’”

BT: What were you hoping the impact would be?
CH: “I was hoping the cost of the war was going to be pushed to the forefront of the mind of the American public. I also wanted it to hammer into the American mind that the administration is lying to them. Our target was “security moms”—used to be soccer moms—because they were a big factor in this past election. We tried to reach people we didn’t usually reach. Our mantra was ‘don’t preach to the choir’. Instead we’d ask ourselves, ‘what do security moms like?’ We tried to make it look like Oprah, since that’s who they listen to—not that she’d ever touch something like this. We didn’t want to scare people, because so much of lefty information is hard to digest. We didn’t want to dumb it down, just make it accessible.”

BT: What drew you to working on issues of social justice?
CH: “I had another career before. I got really bored and I did not feel I was making an impact in any way. I’ve always been an activist, but there were many years that I didn’t do anything much at all besides sending in my Amnesty International membership. Before 9/11, I hadn’t been to a protest since the First Gulf War when I was in high school. I really got involved through the SOA (School of the Americas) protest which focuses on the School of the Americas, a U.S. military school in Georgia which trains soldiers from Latin America, who in turn use these tactics to brutalize their people (www.soawatch.org). This was very close to my heart because I am Bolivian and I work as a fundraiser for Solidarity Bridge, an organization that brings volunteers to work with the poor of Bolivia (www.solidaritybridge.org). Every year at the SOA there is a protest, which is the most inspiring protest I’ve ever been to. It doesn’t follow the usual route of speeches and yelling. Instead it focuses on song and theater and beauty. It a great way of building [both] community and peace.

BT: And that’s when you knew what you wanted to do?
CH: “After going to that protest, I knew I wanted to get more involved in activism.”

BT: And what was the other career?
CH: “I was an actress.”

BT: But no more?
CH: “No.”

BT: Too unsatisfying?
CT: “I had not done a project that was very good in awhile. I was doing silly TV movies and sitcom work. The only thing I did of that I loved was Dazed and Confused [lead role of Sabrina]. It was the first work I did and the only one where I felt happy about the quality of my work. With the type of work I was doing, I knew I wasn’t that great at it and I wasn’t being of any use to this planet I love. So I decided I need a vocation, to do something I could have a greater impact with and with which I could use more of my gifts and talent.”

BT: How do you feel about the fact that despite all this attention on Eyes Wide Open, the President was still re-elected, and the war still continues?
CH: “Whenever you work on an activist project you hope it will have an impact. Obviously, we were hoping to stop the war. And obviously the ultimate prize was defeating Bush, but there are other reasons also like educating the public, drawing in the non-choir, and reviving people’s patriotism. I was shocked when Bush got elected, but Gonzales got sworn in today [as Attorney General], and I’m almost numb to it. It’s been crazy. The Christian right has been growing and they’ve finally got their man in power. We can’t look at Bush’s re-election as a failure. His first four years got people activated. People had gotten lazy. I had gotten lazy. Look at Rick [Richard Linklater, director of Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Waking Life and the forthcoming A Scanner Darkly], he had always said that voting is stupid, but he just called me and said, ‘I did a commercial for MoveOn.’ So I think the people’s movement has been greatly invigorated by this president.

This is the point where we have to decide whether we are going to throw up our hands or we are going to take all this energy and do something. I think Eyes Wide Open is a great tool for energizing people. I’d like to do an exhibit every two years asking ourselves, ‘What’s the crisis of the day? What will invigorate the people? What will draw them in?’ My current thoughts on a few great exhibits would be ones on torture, Africa or patriotism and what that means in America today. So far AFSC is not going for it. Right now I’m looking for an organization that has the courage to do these types of traveling exhibits because no organizations out there right now are doing anything quite like it. And we need it; we all need to be shook [sic] up with a push, a reminder, an awakening.”