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This article examines the Latino occupational tradition of adorning workplaces with murals featuring ludic, sentimental, and religious iconography. It explores the emergent and recurrent meanings of this collectively shared symbolism as it relates to humor, group remembrance, the expression of visual piety, vandalism, and municipal regulation. In particular, it focuses on how these artistic forms inspire the expression, negotiation, and renewal of individual and group identity through social interactions.
Keywords
AFS Ethnographic Thesaurus: Public art, ethnic identity, murals, symbolism, collective memory
Los Angeles has been hailed by some as the mural capital of the World. many, and probably the majority, of these works are latino murals. Thousands of ornately painted murals on the walls of overpasses, community centers, abandoned buildings, and retail establishments provide unmistakable visual testimonies of latin-American cultural presence. many of these works feature indigenous-cultural nationalist themes that emerged during the explosion of political-activist mural painting that was inspired by the chicano movement of the 1960s and 1970s.1 historic, patriotic, religious, and pre- columbian symbols of ethnic and national pride are commonplace, such as the Virgin of Guadalupe, emblems and colors from the mexican flag, and mesoamerican warriors and architecture. images of mexican revolutionaries and chicano political activists are also recurrent, including Pancho Villa, emiliano Zapata, and cesar chavez. Further references to social justice, political identity, and class struggle are also found with iconography addressing issues of uS imperialism, police brutality, gang violence, un- documented workers, and union struggles (holscher 1976; Goldman 1977; Simpson 1980; Arreola 1984; Goldman 1990:168-72; ybarra-Frausto 1990; Sanchez-tranqilino 1991; kim 1995; Delgado 1998:348-50; Dunitz 1998; latorre 2008).2
Alongside and intermixed with these community-based mural themes, there is a traditional repertoire of images increasingly found on businesses and commercial vehicles.3 These murals, painted primarily by self-employed, and often self-taught, artists from a variety of national/ethnic backgrounds, serve the pragmatic function of advertisement, but they are also powerful expressions of identity. As such, they are a key feature of the region's visual and social topography representing a cul- tural repertoire laden with social implications, personal meanings, and shared aes- thetic values.
Patrick Polk and i began to note the ubiquity of recurrent themes and motifs on latino businesses throughout greater l.A. while conducting research on urban ver- nacular traditions for...