WEBVTT

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I think I'm about to sneeze.

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Scene six, take one.

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Go ahead and sneeze.

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We'll get an iCamera.

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So you liked the murals that depict a protest in the water.

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My favorite murals were the ones that depicted some kind of protest or expressed outrage.

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They expressed my feelings at the time about what was going on in the community.

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It made public the fact that there were a lot of things that were socially outrageous.

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That's what they were.

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For example, it still is one of my favorite ones.

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I was the one that displaced the banner of the Cesar Chavez Union workers.

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I was very much aware of the conditions under which migrant agricultural workers lived.

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One of my father's brothers was a migrant worker.

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They had never been able to get anywhere.

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I know that my family and families that lived around us supported the lettuce strikes and boycotts.

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Again, we had attempted to express to the city what was going on.

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The other thing that happened was we weren't getting public city services,

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like having our streets cleaned or our garbage picked up on a regular basis.

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The sidewalks were full of potholes and it was dangerous for kids to be on the sidewalks.

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Those things, again, there was a sense of outrage.

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The usual channels for communicating this were there, so murals provided a channel.

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If this was happening, someone was going to see it.

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Again, the size of the murals was very important.

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It had to be something big or someone big expressing this,

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which the artists were very good at capturing.

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If you could talk about the size, start with that, the size and why we had needed to be big.

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To a lot of us, the problems were gigantic in proportion.

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The size of the figures had to be gigantic in proportion to fight the problems in the community.

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Also, the size was important.

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Again, large figures could not be ignored in that sense, too.

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The coloring of the human figures also,

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which denoted a sense of determination with the dark browns and oranges and reds,

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and a sense of strength.

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That sense of we are determined to do something.

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Again, I'm visualizing at this point the figure in the mural called Si Se Puede,

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a very strong hand holding the banner.

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Again, the title of it, that yes, it can be done.

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It was an inspiring thing at the time.

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It was revolutionary, too, because everybody felt that no, you couldn't do anything.

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Things were going to stay the same.

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Again, the artists captured very well what was needed.

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If you could talk about how the murals helped to bring families together.

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The murals played an important role in opening up communication,

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not only in the community between families, but within families as well.

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For example, I know that in my own family and also those of friends,

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as we were getting over the shack of moving to such a different place,

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there was a lot of silence.

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I think the silence had to do with not finding words to express

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how the changes had affected us.

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As we started seeing these murals being painted and depicting figures that we were familiar with,

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we started talking about the past.

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We started talking about home, the old home.

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It was a neutral thing that we all could have our input,

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be it as basic as we like the colors of this or we don't like the colors,

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or as complicated about what does it all mean.

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I can see fragments of old symbols and new ones.

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It slowly, almost in a way that it could not be perceived,

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allowed us an avenue for communicating events, experiences, but also emotion,

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emotion about the past as well as the transition into the present.

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Scene 8, take 1.

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Get ready to...

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How the murals spark a process in you.

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From my own perspective,

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the variety of issues dealt with in the murals,

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not only in the Pilsen community but also in other parts of town,

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it also opened more of a social consciousness.

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I think that since I come from an extended family

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where you are socializing to being aware of other people's needs

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and the connectedness between people,

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the murals were sort of windows into other communities

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aside from the Pilsen community, aside from my own family.

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So there was the curiosity.

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It was sparked again.

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I read extensively in the newspapers and magazines about what was going on elsewhere.

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What was going on in California with the movement there,

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what was going on in other places in the United States, Mexico, Central America.

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Things like that.

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That combined with my going to a public university

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where people from all kinds of cultural backgrounds and nations came to learn,

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that sort of fostered and nurtured that sense of awareness about other people, other cultures, differences,

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but now no longer in a negative sense, rather as a very positive thing.

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Scene nine, take one.

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Some of the murals were on a certain level,

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the unconscious or even the dreams of the community.

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Dreams are very essential in the process of becoming the person one dreams of becoming.

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Oops.

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Well, we'll practice on this one.