“Mexicans were not supposed to have a history in the U.S, yet the Chicano generation instinctively recognized that it had a history or counter history that needed to be discovered” (Garcia, 3)
Youth from the Florencia barrio of South Central Los Angeles arrive at Belvedere Park for La Marcha Por La Justicia, on January 31, 1971 l Courtesy of UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
What was the Chicano Movement? And what does it have to do it with art? Well the most important thing to note here is that, art has to do with everything and not so much the other way around. People create things as a method of expression due to the things happening in their daily life. As our project focuses in on Latinx identity in murals, the Chicano movement is a big part of that impact, because that movement is the beginning of Mexican Americans seeking empowerment. It is a civil rights movement that sought to bring awareness of the disenfranchisement of Mexican Americans and people of Mexican descent.
The movement can be traced as far back as the Treaty of Hidalgo in 1848 which brokered peace between the US and the Mexican Republic. The Mexican-American border being redrawn is an outcome of this treaty, and due to this, many Mexicans suddenly became Americans overnight. For decades up until now racism, class struggles and a sense of lost identity plagued many Mexican Americans and their descendants.
Mexican American individuals have constantly struggled with this neither-Mexican-or-American mentality, and this is something many artists have channeled into their art. Art as a social movement is something that was very much present during the entirety of the Chicano movement. During the movement “a distinctive iconography came to symbolize the supposed unity and coherence of the modern Mexican nation-state and its history.” (McCaughan, 24) This iconography includes emblems that Mexican nations and Mexican Americans alike hold near and dear to their hearts such as the eagle devouring a snake while resting on top of a cactus–that snake is the very snake that is shown on the Mexican flag and the Virgin de Guadalupe.
The video below explains the historic feud that took place in 1934 between Mexican painter Diego Rivera and the Rockefeller family. Although there are no surviving photos of Rivera’s mural in the Rockefeller lobby, this shows how powerful the expression of art can be.
“In destroying my paintings the Rockefellers have committed an act of cultural vandalism.” – Diego Rivera in the New York Times.
The Chicano Movement contributed to lots of improvement in the lives of Mexican Americans and their descendants. However, it was only a starting point. Because of the commitment by the community to rally for change and to empower one another, lots of Latinx art has emerged, including the murals we have included in our project.
All art is powerful, and all art is created from a need to express. The murals we are looking at today showcase the struggles and hardships endured by the LatinX community in San Antonio’s Westside. This brief history is to hopefully help explain why art and murals as a whole need to be valued and appreciated as tokens of heritage and history.
