The Power of the Mural
As Avila notes, Chicano Park represents "one" community's struggle to "reclaim the space beneath the freeway and reintegrate it into the cultural fabric of one of California's barrios" (Avila 150). The representations and messages that these murals present have the capability to be transformed by the human imagination. The more exposure that people have to these incredible pieces of art the more history they can discover. The icons presented in these murals, like the Our Lady of Guadalupe and Cesar Chavez, are tools that allow conversations to form and ideas to travel from city to city. Furthermore, Avila mentions that the geographical placement of these murals, like painting them under the freeway, are tactics used by political activists because they understand the value of space (Avila 168). Space can offer community and it offers room for movement. It allows personal development and an avenue to learn and grow in. To add more to the conversation on murals, visit this link to read my blog post on Murals found in the city of East Los Angeles. I would also recommend Guisela Latorre’s “Walls of Empowerment: Chicana/o Indigenist Murals of California" to learn more about the political Chicana/o movement that California began to see in the mid-twentieth century. Her book provides examples of both contemporary artists and artists who led the Chicana/o art movement.
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Freeway Battles From Both Sides of the Coin by Javier Cienfuegos (19 November 2014)
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