What is the best way to preserve local community histories? Chicana artists Yreina Cervántez and Alma López would probably point to murals. Indeed, we can regard such wall paintings as historical monuments as well as works of art. Many Chicana/o murals depict oft-ignored and overlooked histories of people of color. When these murals are destroyed, the histories embedded within them retreat into obscurity,” Guisela Latorre, Murales Rebeldes! L.A. Chicana/o Murals under Siege
Thanks to the East LA Walking Club and artist Andrea Ramirez, I immersed myself in the beautiful murals along the street formerly known as Brooklyn Avenue on a cloudy Sunday morning in early May.
The East LA Walking Club has been working with artist Andrea Ramirez to lead these mural walks, educating participants about history of these powerful works of Chicano art. Ramirez is compiling a much-needed self-guided mural map on her website that includes interviews with artists and other informative links: www.artemextica.com/muralwalk.
Ramirez’s mural map reminded me of the detailed map printed by Goez Studio in 1975. Fifty years ago, Goez Studio artists developed this cartographical work of art that documented the murals in Boyle Heights and East LA, now important artifact for city’s public art history. Last autumn, I used Google Maps to look up each mural address listed in this 50-year-old guide to see how many still existed. On-the-street research is still needed to complete this project, but my unscientific study figures that only 30% to 40% of these murals can still be found. Goez Studio Map courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.
On our walk, I was inspired by another Goez Studio work — the mural titled “La Vida Breve de Alfonso Fulano” (“The Short Life of John Doe”) on Brooklyn Avenue. In addition to the Goodyear Blimp, I noticed the freeway was painted to loom over this neighborhood festival. In his book Folklore of the Freeway, UCLA’s Eric Avila explained the ways that Chicano artists from LA’s Eastside often illustrate life in the shadows of the freeways.
In this 2014 book, Avila compared the different ways that Eastside and Westside artists depicted these monumental roadways in their art work in the later-half of the 20th century. The Westside was not carved up by these concrete behemoths to the same degree as the Eastside. I mean, there’s a reason that Goez Studio artists added these words to their 1975 map: “In Europe, all roads lead to Rome. In Southern California, all freeways lead to East Los Angeles.”
As Avila posits, artists way west of the 110 Freeway tended to paint/photograph these roadways from a distance, a “lofty perspective” that urban planner Jane Jacobs dubbed “the Olympian view.” Artists like Julius Shulman and Wayne Thiebaud photographed and painted freeways from this perspective, an angle that Avila suggested was “divorced from the social context of homes, streets, markets, sidewalks, pedestrians and even cars— a perspective that aggrandizes the freeway” (see Theibaud’s Freeway Curve, 1979). In contrast, the work of Chicano artists like David Botello (of Goez Studio) and Frank Romero often emphasized “the quotidian presence of the freeway and its prominence in the foreground or background of daily life” (see David Botello’s Wedding Photos–Hollenbeck Park, 1999).
It might surprise some that, when talking murals, I often turn to Avila’s book about freeways. Consider this an example of not judging a book by its cover, because Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City contains a number of insightful discussions about artists and their creative reactions to how freeways carved up their communities.
Another favorite mural resource, titled Murales Rebeldes! L.A. Chicana/o Murals under Siege, was co-published by La Plaza in 2018. I think about this book A LOT because we’re always unveiling, preserving and losing murals in Los Angeles. And, as the case studies show in ¡Murales Rebeldes!, saving Chicano murals was/is an uphill battle.
To add to the sisyphean task of preserving these ephemeral works of art, communities and artists must now contend with the horrific news about Cesar Chavez as his likeness dominates so much Los Angeles street art. Muralists who have spent years working to illuminate local history now have to decide if/how he will be erased from their murals’ history. We discussed this on our walk as two of the murals featured Chavez prominently. See the New York Times interview with artists Judy Baca and J.D. Estrada for a deeper dive on this topic.
Regardless of this recent (and painful) seismic shift in the Mexican American community, the region’s murals need local champions as Gustavo Arellano articulated in the afterword of ¡Murales Rebeldes!:
“Enough’s enough. It’s time we collectively care, collectively treasure Chicana/o murals across Southern California, the United States-anywhere and everywhere. Love your Wyland whales, your apolitical street art, your elementary-school pastorals, or the many walls depicting Southern California’s past through nostalgic, false pastels. But Chicana/o murals are an indelible part of our history, public documents of a time and place that is fast disappearing.”
And that’s what I loved about this East LA Walking Club’s mural walk, as it felt like we were all becoming better advocates for this incredible street art. It was a powerful opportunity to collectively pause and focus on these murals that can often blend into blurry streetscapes seen mostly through our car windows. The day’s walk was a reminder about the beauty of gathering with others IRL (as the kids say) to collectively marvel at these sidewalk masterpieces that we are lucky to have in the background of our daily lives.
For updates on future East LA Mural Walks:
Artist Andrea Ramirez on Instagram: @mextica
East LA Walking Club on Instagram: @eastla_walkclub
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