Influx: part 4 of initial impressions of Dallas

The Dallas that George Grosz, the German Dadaist, depicted in 1952 may have had a certain charm.

Photo taken of Elm Street, Dallas, by Arthur Rothstein of the Farm Security Administration in 1942

Downtown in those days seems to have been far livelier, even at night. Compare the view above, and all the cars parked kerbside, with essentially the same view in 2012.

You can see The Majestic on the right hand side in both photographs.

But as one of the blurbs at the George Grosz exhibition points out, Grosz would have seen another side to Dallas, had he stayed longer. It was lively yes, but cowboys, Hispanics and African-Americans did not mix in the street as easily as his tableaux depict. Segregation was well and truly alive.

And as I was standing in the Sixth Floor Museum at the former Texas School Book Depository five days ago, I wondered how many of the police accompanying (protecting) President Kennedy on the day he was killed would have been sympathetic to Kennedy's views on Civil Rights.

I came out of the hotel the other day though, and the street was booming with the sounds of an Indian wedding.

I learned that over 100,00 Indians (subcontinental Indians, that is) live in Dallas, it's the fourth largest population of expat Indians in the US. And here were the Dallas police supervising the closing off of the street, protecting the celebration. When did so many Indians come here? Was it in the 1950s and 60s? Or more recently with the development of technological industries? It wasn't until 1946 (four years after Rothstein's photograph, six years before Grosz's visit) that President Truman signed into law the Luce-Celler Act, restoring to Indian Americans 'the right to immigrate and naturalize', so I imagine this influx is more recent than that.

But as I watched this wedding, I couldn't help reflecting on the socially-beneficial, liberalising, aspects of that basic human urge: to migrate. And yet, I did remember, as an invader-Australian can't forget, that the only drumming that would once have been heard on this plain would have been that of the Caddos, and those 'Indians' seem to be a forgotten people in the broad scheme of things.

For a review of the Grosz exhibit, see:

http://www.660news.com/entertainment/article/364287--artist-george-grosz-s-series-capturing-dallas-in-1952-goes-on-exhibit-at-museum

First impressions - Dallas

Arriving in Dallas yesterday, I was struck firstly by how wooded and green it is on the outskirts. This often strikes me about the US. I assume that, as a country that has been settled longer than Australia and with a more rapacious attitude toward nature, it would be over-cleared. No, that is Australia's dubious honour.

Downtown, though, is one of those bleak cityscapes that you'd find in a Jeffrey Smart painting -

carparks, glass towers,

at night: not a soul. How do US cities get to this degree of urban desolation? The people drive their cars into underground carparks and then straight up into their towers?

I crossed Elm Street last night, and there were sequences of charming old Art Deco or 1920s buildings, but it's a bit like a mouth that once had a set of good teeth.

Yet, Dallas is a cultured city. It has a symphony orchestra and an opera. Its opera company commissioned Therese Raquin, the piece by Tobias Picker and Gene Scheer that in some respects is the most successful contemporary opera - because Picker and Scheer figured out that lyricism's true province is the broad depiction of love and death.

It will be interesting to see how my impressions vary over the next few days.