Week 7- "Space Power and Culture"-Graffiti and Visibility

Living in Los Angeles you see graffiti in many of the working-class communities. Living in East Los Angeles, I see both graffiti and murals. What I found interesting about the argument that was posed, by Marcos Sanchez-Traquilino, was that the two were and are not mutually exclusive. Something that I myself have thought of; that graffiti or “placas” and murals were two different things. Murals being the art and also political while graffiti not being political, however I did consider it an art form, but it was also where it was placed that determined for me whether it was art. But what was argued in the chapter was that one was interdependent on the other. The idea for murals came from graffiti. It was appropriated from graffiti. Before there was a political consciousness that erupted during the Chicano movement, there was graffiti that represented a community that were asking for the same visibility the Chicanos were during the Chicano movement. Even though the youth gang individuals did not articulate the message the same, they were also a part of a larger process that produces these street gangs. Their families and communities are oppressed, and excluded from opportunities and resources, therefore become invincible. Their graffiti is a form of protest, and outcry. Subconsciously asking for the same thing the people in the Chicano movement asked for. They created a space that they called theirs, and added their names, or identities to create visibility. As the writer mentioned, it is not to glorify the gang lifestyle, but one must understand the outside forces that causes gangs or ‘crime’. Gangs or crime is not inherent in the Chicano community, but it is created due to lack of visibility, so what ends up happening is people will find their own way to create visibility.