The Lady: No Place to Call Home : Statue of Liberty Copy an Orphan

This should have been a heartwarming story:

A grateful Taiwanese immigrant spends $50,000 for a 22-foot-tall, one-ton fiberglass replica of the Statue of Liberty.

The immigrant, a physician, has the statue shipped from his native country to El Monte, where he operates a medical clinic, for display in the 1986 Statue of Liberty Centennial.

Then someone from El Monte City Hall spots the statue, tracks down the owner and asks him if the city can borrow it for a municipal Fourth of July celebration.

Sure, Dr. Jing T. Wang says. In fact, you can have it. In a gesture of his appreciation for his new country, Wang donates the statue so everyone can share it.

Whoops. Cut the music. There’s a problem with the script.

The statue that is supposed to be shared with everybody has been seen by almost nobody since the Fourth of July celebration.

It’s sitting in El Monte’s public works yard.

The city hasn’t been able to find a place to put it.

Vandalism Feared

It first offered the statue to Arroyo High School for an area near the stadium, but the principal, worried that vandals would soon destroy the lady, talked the city out of that idea.

Then the city offered the statue to the sleek, modern Rio Hondo Municipal Court complex, but the judges there decided that the statue wouldn’t fit, both because of its size and because it’s more symbolic of immigration than justice.

To make matters worse, there’s a color problem.

Upon receiving the white statue from Wang, city officials decided to paint it green so it would more closely resemble the original. Unfortunately, instead of a weathered bronze effect, they got bright mint green.

Appreciates the U.S.

“We have a Statue of Liberty without a home,” said Mayor Don McMillan. “It is hard to find a spot where it fits in with the surrounding area. The statue is big and doesn’t fit in with a lot of things.”

Wang, a naturalized citizen who moved here from Taiwan in 1975 and operates a medical clinic in El Monte, said he donated the statue to the city “to show my appreciation for being here” after Grace Black, the City Council’s executive secretary, spotted it behind a vacant building, where Wang had stored it.

The city incorporated the borrowed statue into its 1986 Fourth of July celebration at Arroyo High’s football field.

After Arroyo High School said no thanks to the city’s offer of permanently basing the statue there, Black tried the Rio Hondo court.

“Residents thought the courthouse was a good idea and the statue would be visible there, since it would be at a main thoroughfare in the heart of the city,” Black said. “We do have a lot of aliens here, so I thought it would be appropriate.”

But Municipal Judge Rudolph Diaz, presiding judge of the courthouse, thought the statue was “inconsistent” with the courthouse atmosphere and suggested the city hadn’t looked hard enough for a proper location.

Searching for a Spot

The El Monte Parks and Recreation Commission is now preparing a list of all vacant city-owned parcels and will decide if any are suitable for the statue at a meeting on July 13. Officials hope to find a permanent home for the lady by Nov. 18, the city’s 75th birthday.

“The statue has to be visible,” said Brian Ogden, parks and recreation director, “but it also has to fit into the surroundings. We have to take the heights of buildings next to the site into consideration.”

That eliminates such possibilities as the one-story community center and City Hall complex, which the statue would dwarf.

The only thing certain now is that the statue will appear again on the Arroyo High football field on the Fourth of July.

And then it will, most likely, go back into hiding.

“It wouldn’t be bad just having the statue for the Fourth of July,” McMillan said, “except we would have to store it for the rest of the year.”