New Plaza Art Memorializes Residents' Journeys

A monarch butterfly made of steel — its wingspan 2 feet wide — soars 14 feet above an open travel trunk.

Dozens more laser-cut butterflies flutter alongside it.

When unveiled next year, that butterfly sculpture will be the focal point of a newly expanded plaza beside the Luis Muñoz Marin Senior Center in southeast Lancaster. It will be a space for community members to relax, socialize and hear each other’s stories.

It will also serve as a symbol for the journey taken by many in this community.

The monarch is famous for its long-distance migration between Mexico and the northern United States and Canada. Many of the residents of southeast Lancaster came from Latin America.

“It’s an encompassing story of migration and immigration,” says Jack Howell, manager of the neighborhood revitalization program for the Spanish American Civic Association, also known as SACA, which runs the center.

The monarch theme is echoed in colorful murals that cover an entire side of the two-story center, a butterfly-shaped bench and refurbished gardens bursting with native plants that attract living butterflies. An interpretive panel at the base of the butterfly sculpture will connect visitors to a website featuring “Voices of Migration” — recordings of residents and others talking about their own journeys to Lancaster.

Two Community Challenge grants from AARP — in 2023 and 2025 — helped fund the sculpture and improvements to the plaza, part of a multi-year renovation project that extends several blocks beyond the senior center.

Grace Rustia, an AARP associate state director, says the Voices of Migration project has evolved into a much larger effort. “This initiative not only will beautify a historically underserved neighborhood, but also it will attract significant investment and help elevate the community voices, especially those of the older adults,” Rustia says.

As part of the project, gardens filled with black-eyed Susans, orange butterfly milkweed, little bluestem, wild petunias, anise-scented goldenrod, pussytoes and lyre-leaf sage have replaced litter-strewn patches of grass along Pershing Avenue. Thirty-one planters host more native flowers — and also stop drivers from parking illegally on the sidewalks.

THE POWER OF STORIES

“The idea is to bring vibrant green space into a space you wouldn’t expect,” says Elyse Jurgen, owner and founder of Waxwing EcoWorks Co., which created the gardens with help from others. Teams of local youths are paid to collect trash weekly with the vision of eventually helping to care for the gardens as well.

Elements of the plaza have various functions, says Howell, 73, an AARP volunteer whose background is in urban planning and community development. The pedestal supporting the sculpture will also serve as a place to sit. The gardens provide beauty as well as a habitat for pollinators. And a close look at the butterfly wings in the painted murals shows images of local historical events.

The oral history project was the brainchild of residents and center staff working together.

“We started thinking, ‘How could we memorialize the story of our senior citizens?’ ” Howell says.

He notes it’s important for younger people and neighbors to hear those stories — especially when many immigrants see their role in this country being marginalized. The project also includes interviews with students and graduates of Tec Centro, the Spanish American Civic Association’s bilingual job training program.

Claudia Galdamez, vice president of broadcasting for WLCH Radio Centro, a bilingual public radio station run by the association, is conducting many of the interviews. Galdamez, who is originally from El Salvador, hopes the stories will inspire others as they inspire her.

A nurse tells of escaping the Taliban. Two married doctors from Cuba describe trying to start over in Lancaster. An 87-year-old man from Puerto Rico talks about continuing his work as a baker after undergoing open-heart surgery.

“All of the challenges — all of the good and bad things they’ve been through — it is incredible,” says Galdamez, 56. “You say ‘Wow, what a beautiful thing.’ And then you value what you have even more.”

This past summer, migrating monarchs found their way to the new gardens, where they mingled with their painted counterparts. Jurgen shared that news with a resident who had helped plant milkweed to entice the monarchs but could no longer come see them because of her deteriorating eyesight.

“She just beamed,” Jurgen says. “She was so excited!”

Hilary Appelman covers long-term care and other issues. She has written for the Bulletin since 2011.

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