Thread: Mural sparks outcry from residents of L.A.'s Eastside

I can certainly think of more appropriate ways in which to spend almost $200,000 of tax dollars, especialy when LA is supposed to be in the midst of a "fiscal crisis."


By Hector Becerra, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 20, 2008
Everyone's an art critic when it comes to a $195,000 mural for the LAPD's new Hollenbeck station.

The tile mural was meant to depict a quaint Sunday in Boyle Heights. Many angry residents say it makes their neighborhood out to be a crime-ridden dump filled with fat women, stray dogs, beer-swilling men and illegal street vendors. And don't get them started about the piñata.

"There's no American flag. There seems to be a rule against that," said Rosalie Gurrola, born and raised in Boyle Heights, to rousing cheers and applause at a recent community meeting. "We need an American flag!"

The 4,000 tiles are glazed, fired and ready to be installed next month, but public outcry threatens to keep the artwork from ever going up.

The 100-foot mural by artist Sandow Birk has unwittingly tapped a raw nerve below the surface of a seemingly homogenous community, widely considered L.A.'s mothership of Mexican culture.

Residents complained about the unleashed dogs, about the "illegal" street vendors, about a man holding a can they guessed was beer. They complained about what wasn't shown -- historical figures, children reading books, more war veterans, positive images of cops -- and about what was.

"This one lady has clothes drying on bushes," said Vera Del Pozo, 56. "I've seen that in Mexico. Not here."

Boyle Heights is 95% Latino, but the debate about the mural underscores the fact that it is far from homogenous about politics, culture and even its own self-image. It's a neighborhood of roughly 90,000 people where new immigrants from Mexico live next to families who have been in L.A. for four generations. It was a key theater of the Chicano rights movement, has a large number of long-established gangs, but is also known for its conservative family values, a place one police officer called "a Mexican Mayberry."

"It's very contentious and dynamic in Boyle Heights," said Robert Jimenez, a 37-year-old former Marine and president of the Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council. "There's differences along linguistic lines and nationality. You have homeowner versus renter, English versus Spanish."

Jaime Regalado, a Cal State L.A. political science professor who lived in Boyle Heights as a boy, said debate about the mural has shined a light on division usually kept below the surface. "If you're taking about 90% of people having brown skin, then it's a homogenous community," he said. "But if you dig beneath the surface, there are differences about income and education. There are ideological differences. There are class differences."

The Los Angeles Police Department isn't thrilled about the mural either. In one scene, deep in the background of the mural, an officer stands behind a man next to a catering truck. The man's hands are raised above his head.

"Maybe they're asking him questions, and they're going to let him go," the artist said sheepishly.

But LAPD Capt. Blake Chow, commanding officer of the Hollenbeck station, isn't buying it. "I think it really kind of paints a dark picture of Hollenbeck, and Boyle Heights in particular," Chow said. "I got to tell you, I got assigned here last May . . . and this community has more pride than many other communities I've worked at."

Roland Silva, an artist and member of the Boyle Heights Historical Society, said some residents were overreacting to certain images.

"Street vendors? Oh my goodness. That's something that's been around forever," Silva, 57, said. "Might as well get the mariachis off the street."

"And those street vendors wouldn't be there if people weren't buying," Silva said.

Birk, 45, said he was stunned that he was even picked to do the large mural, mostly because he had expressed such a dim view of the LAPD -- both in his paintings and when he was interviewed by a city panel.

"I said the LAPD was one of the most dubious of the city branches," Birk said during a recent interview. "I was quite honest about it. I was surprised that I was chosen."

Birk based his idea for the mural on Diego Rivera's work "Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park." He included a skeletal character from that mural in the Boyle Heights mural; a woman selling items in her yard in Birk's mural was based on a famous Rivera painting of an indigenous woman selling armfuls of flowers in the street.

Both women had tightly woven braids. But even that image has become controversial.
http://<br /> <a href="http://www.l...0992.story</a>

There's a picture at the link:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... 0992.story

I posted the link again because the one above isn't working.

The tile mural was meant to depict a quaint Sunday in Boyle Heights. Many angry residents say it makes their neighborhood out to be a crime-ridden dump filled with fat women, stray dogs, beer-swilling men and illegal street vendors. And don't get them started about the piñata.

Why would Boyle Heights residents want to see what a typical day in Mexico looks like? THIS IS AMERICA - NOT MEXICO.

SEE- some cultures will never assimilate.