GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas — They came to Grand Prairie for the big reveal.
“I haven’t been able to see the whole project,” said one spectator.
“This was a surprise,” another spectator said. “I had no idea.”
“I didn’t know this was happening,” one woman said.
It’s a surprise they were promised would be spectacular, but almost no one in the crowd knew that what they were about to see came straight from the city dump.
The man who pulled it from the garbage is Joaquin Soto.
Soto is a sculptor, and he gets a lot of his materials from the landfill because, like these scraps, he knows what it’s like to be rejected.
“I felt like I was garbage at times,” Soto said. “But I had to kind of prove myself and show people that wasn’t the case.”
Soto is an immigrant. He came to the United States from Mexico.
“I’ve gotten a lot of comments of ‘go back home,’ ‘what are you doing here,’ ‘you don’t belong here,’” he said.
“I feel like I was those pieces. Discarded or not appreciated, so whenever I see stuff that has potential, it reminds me of myself in a way.”
Soto started with nothing.
When he arrived from Guadalajara as a 7-year-old, he didn’t know the language, the culture, or the direction his life would take. But what he has built is remarkable.
Now an American citizen, Soto is a highly respected sculptor who teaches classes at the Creative Arts Center in Dallas.
By all accounts, he’d found the American dream until he nearly lost it all. About 10 years ago, Soto was in a rollover crash and suffered a traumatic brain injury. As a result, his memories were foggy, but his purpose was clear.
“From one day to the next, I started seeing things differently,” Soto said. “It’s just like I have an ability to see things before they’re done.”
In other words, he sees potential, and from his perspective, it’s abundant.
In art and in people, especially people like him: an immigrant once treated like a burden, now respected and admired. His desire is that other immigrants—many who still endure contempt—would be so fortunate. To help make it so, he wanted to make a statement.
“I’m not much of an activist, I’m not much of a protestor, but when it comes to my art that’s where I shine,” Soto said.
Using what he found at the landfill and other scraps, over the past six months, Soto’s message has risen from the ashes. He sculpted a phoenix, built entirely of what others had cast aside. It sits permanently at Grand Prairie’s Epic Central entertainment district.
Its beak points directly toward the hospital 950 miles away, where Soto was born. It’s a reminder of how far he’s come and how much further we can go.
“I want it to spark a conversation of hope,” Soto said. “This country already is great, but if you add a mixture of all these different talents, points of view, experiences, there’s nothing that can’t be accomplished, I think.”
We may not have his eye, but we can all share his vision.