Week 7 Blog Post

Gonzalez’s Chicano and Chicana Art: A Critical Anthology on graffiti provided an inside look into the craft and offered an alternative perspective to this controversial topic. In the piece, Gonzalez declares graffiti as a form of art because it’s used for expression. In other words, artists create art for the same reason people do graffiti: to voice their thoughts and show their identity. Like Gonzalez pointed out, I perceived graffiti through a negative lens. In my eyes, graffiti was seen as vandalism and those who participated in it were considered thugs or lowlives. This perspective stems from my l;ack of awareness and society’s opinion on the matter. Now, I see graffiti in a new light. I no longer see graffiti as destructive or meaningless scribbles, but instead I consider it to be an unbashing display of power and self. Like Gonzalez mentioned, partaking in graffiti is about finding oneself and displaying one’s self esteem. In this way, they are demanding attention and proudly taking up space. Using graffiti to demand respect and announce one’s pride was unheard of for me. I love that Mexican Americans in Los Angeles found a sense of pride in writing in their name because it reassured their existence. It’s also interesting to see how graffiti has changed now that more people are receiving higher level education. Since I originally thought graffiti was done by criminals, I never considered that people with degrees would enjoy graffiti, but like Gonzalez mentioned, people who’ve majored in art, business, journalism, etc. love graffiti. In comparison to the 1900’s, graffiti today puts more of an emphasis on characters and backgrounds and is now featured in videos, magazines and clothes. It makes me happy to see how far graffiti has come and I’m excited to see how it’ll evolve within the next few years.