Chicanx Latinx Art and Artists: Week 7: Graffiti is Art

In the reading "Graffiti is Art", by Gonzalez describes graffiti is a language and is a way to describe your feelings and get ones voice heard. In some cities, language is the "main ingredient", therefore graffiti can be found in a lot of places. But, because graffiti is language, one can see conflict within different artists. Generally, graffiti is seen as something negative and as vandalism; in some places it can even be illegal. Some people can also relate fear to graffiti because they see it as tagging which is related to gangs. Then on the other hand, others look at it as art.

This makes a divide between what people feel or think when it comes to graffiti. For the anti-graffities, they believe that it is destructive and connect it to evil kids. In some places the punishment for graffiti is very high as they can be sent to jail, whipped, or even shot in Los Angeles. For the pro- graffiti individuals, they respect it and see it as "free art form". In Gonzalez's case, he has never done graffiti before, but when coming face to face with it in Los Angeles it has made him have a better understanding of his Latino history. This is because when looking at the graffiti in LA, the walls are filled with Latino history, through a form of art.

When reading this chapter, it really made me think about the way that I perceive graffiti because in the city that I live in, there is only graffiti every once in a while. When I do see it, it is not colorful pieces that are telling a story or a langue, it is usually a "gang tag" of some sort that gets covered up quickly. But when in LA or big cities, I have seen graffiti that I find amazing. Even when I do not get the message sometimes, it is still pretty to look at and it also makes me think of how much effort and work has been put into it because I know I could never do anything like that.