PHOTO BY SCOTT EISEN
Beth Balliro of Swampscott places one of her “Love Your Neighbor” signs in front of her house.
By GAYLA CAWLEY
SWAMPSCOTT — Since Valentine’s Day, signs have been sprouting up all over town, encouraging inclusion and diversity.
The signs read: “Love Your Neighbor. Your black, brown, native, immigrant, disabled, religiously different, LGBTQ, fully human neighbor,” and are displayed on residential lawns.
Beth Balliro, 43, a Swampscott resident and mother of three young children, bulk-ordered 250 signs after seeing one on a Burrill Street lawn on her way to the train station. The artist commutes to Boston, where she teaches at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
“The big picture here is that I think after the unfoldings, after, even during the election cycle, but certainly after, there were a number of people in this community that were having intense emotional responses and one of those people was my neighbor, Shayne Spaulding, and the other was my mom, my neighbor on the other side,” Balliro said.
The signs were initially created by a Minnesota minister around the time of the presidential election. The signs became so popular in the woman’s hometown that she subcontracted a printer and they are now available online, according to Balliro.
Following the election, Balliro said people in town weren’t sure if it was safe to express their emotional response. She was picking up her son from preschool and encountered another mother, who was concerned about the way people were being treated after the travel ban, referring to the executive order President Donald Trump signed temporarily restricting entry to the United States from seven Muslim-majority nations. A federal judge has since blocked the order.
She said she was trying to figure out what to do in response to those feelings when she saw the sign near the train station. Valentine’s Day seemed like an appropriate time for a collective community “spread the love kind of spirit,” Balliro said.
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“I think for people to reappropriate Valentine’s Day as a way to affirm a more humanist love,” Balliro said. “It’s also sort of playful and I think we all need a lighter side right now. Everything has seemed for many, very dire. And I think in that way, activating Valentine’s Day was sort of a soft edge to a heavy problem.”
Balliro said she spoke with her neighbor, along with people involved in other group projects in town. The idea for the signs was posted on Facebook, which caught the attention of local groups, For the Love of Swampscott, SPUR and S.U.R.E. (Swampscott Unites, Respects and Embraces), who spread the post.
From there, Balliro said her email box lit up with hundreds of responses. She hooked up with a local printer, and added the word “native.” People were able to purchase and pick up the signs at her home. She’s sold the 250 she ordered and is directing others online to buy their own at northernsun.com.
“The point of this is to spark conversation, so I think in that sense, it’s been successful,” Balliro said. “It’s not a perfect sign. It’s not a perfect gesture. So, some of that conversation was around inclusion and exclusion.”
Balliro said some have felt that the sign should also say “white” to be inclusive, while others felt that it shouldn’t because the point was to underscore people who are particularly targeted at the moment. She felt the signs may be a risky gesture at first, and was not expecting the progressive response they received. She said one woman who didn’t have any lawn space wanted a sign for inside her home.
Balliro doesn’t want the focus to be on any one person for the success of the signs. She said she had an initiative, but every other person had the intention and it took a little bit of a catalyst to make something happen.
“There’s a sense that what we stand for, the very core of what many of us think is our national identity, which is inclusion and immigrant experience, and sort of open arms, global open arms is under siege, under threat right now,” she said. “So for that, I think this made people feel like at least we can state our philosophy and reaffirm our core belief even if it isn’t being demonstrated at the federal level. We can affirm it here at home and say this is the kind of home I want. This is the kind of neighborhood I want.”
Gayla Cawley can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @GaylaCawley