Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Original Artists Work to Restore Chicano Park Murals

 Chicano Park muralists regroup to refresh their 40-year-old works. - Image by Bill Manson
Chicano Park muralists regroup to refresh their 40-year-old works.

Armando Nuñez is touching up a skeleton. “That first day,” he says, “I brought a half-gallon can of green bathroom paint. Everybody brought whatever they had. That’s how it was. We didn’t plan. We just started painting.”

He and I are standing amid blue scaffolding beside the wall of an I-5 ramp to the San Diego–Coronado Bridge on the last day of the repaint of this Chicano Park mural. This panel is where it all began, back in 1973, when Nuñez and other young Chicano artists started creating the first of 72 murals that have been painted on ramps and pillars under the bridge. Today they make up the largest collection of outdoor murals in the United States.

And after nearly 40 years, five of the original artists have come back to repaint this mural.

Chicano Park muralists Armando Nuñez and Guillermo Aranda recall the project’s 1973 beginnings.

“We were just a bunch of young artists, angry young men looking to establish our own identity,” Nuñez says.

That outburst of revolution-by-art didn’t happen in isolation. Barrio Logan had been mauled, first when the City relaxed zoning rules and allowed junkyards and metal shops to move in next to houses, and then when the state destroyed over 5000 barrio homes and businesses to make way for Interstate 5.

Sponsored
Sponsored

The final straw came on April 22, 1970. That day, a City College student named Mario Solis noticed bulldozers parked right next to the area the City had promised to turn into Barrio Logan’s first park. Instead, a California Highway Patrol station and parking lot were about to occupy the spot.

Solis ran through the barrio telling his neighbors. Soon they were forming human chains around the bulldozers. He told his professor of Chicano Studies, Gil Robledo. Robledo printed flyers. The word spread. Some started creating a park themselves. They planted cactus, flowers, trees.

But the pivotal moment came the next day, when Salvador Torres, an artist, said, “Hey, why don’t we cover the pillars supporting the freeway and bridge with beautiful paintings representing who we are?”

Torres is now called “the architect of the dream.”

But, then, three years passed. “I was 22,” says Nuñez. “Not much had happened. We needed to fight back more, start something meaningful. Somebody said, ‘It’s the third anniversary. Let’s just go and start painting.’”

Guillermo Aranda, the guy in his 60s repainting a ten-foot pyramid next to the skeletons, says he was instrumental in making this happen. Maybe 200 to 300 people turned up. “We just decided to go down, find a pillar, and start drawing, painting,” he says. “Some of us were good, others not so. Some just scrawled angry statements. I remember José Gómez, who had been a leader in the original 1970 takeover of the park, came down and he was mad. ‘You messed it up!’ he said. I said, ‘We’re just beginning.’ And I realized then, I had made a commitment. A big commitment.”

The main group painting this mural back then included Armando Nuñez, Guillermo Aranda, Salvador Barajas, Victor Ochoa, Guillermo Rosette, Arturo Romano, and Ernesto Paul, all young artists involved with Toltecas en Aztlán, an artists’ group at the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park, which paid for the paint.

How did they decide what to paint? Aranda stands in front of one of the first scenes he painted. It depicts skeletons wearing Spanish helmets, one skeleton-soldier roasting a baby in the fires of a volcano, next to a jaguar, Tezcatlipoca, Lord of Darkness. Near that is the Great Pyramid of Cholula, where Cortés and his Tlaxcalan allies massacred 3000 Cholula citizens and burned the city in October 1519.

“This is history,” says Aranda.

Are all these beautiful, bright images basically angry protest paintings?

Mujer Cosmica

“No,” he says. “I realize now, more and more, these are paintings of love. This repainting has been an incredible experience. It brings back the excitement and fear we had to conquer, to go through what we went through, challenging the authorities. But anger? After the first two or three years, I realized that anger was what had driven me. When I was 18, I went to jail for stealing tires. When I got out, I realized I needed to make a break. So I joined the Air Force. It opened doors to the bigger world but also to a harsh racism I’d never felt before.

“So I was still angry when this happened. But, eventually, you start to feel the effects of anger on your psyche. I didn’t want that. I realized I still had to act, to fight for Chicano culture and respect, but as an act of love.”

Has the next generation been as interested?

“Young Chicano people? They know nothing,” he says. “They’re not interested in how they came to be. Technology gives them a detachment. Their only real relationships are with their friends online, which makes me more determined to preserve and document all this.”

Five of the seven friends who started this painting 40 years ago are here today. They and others are working on 18 of the 72 murals that most need restoring. Caltrans, once the enemy, has shepherded the $1.6 million state grant to pay for the restoration costs.

For that, everybody here is quick to credit Caltrans’ Martin D. Rosen. According to Guillermo Aranda, it’s only because Rosen wrote the grant back in 1999 and then stayed on the project until the money finally became available in 2011 that this $1.6 million restoration has been possible.

The guys line up along the scaffolding for a group photo. It’s about 11:00 in the morning, getting hot. Salvador Barajas is telling me about the technical manual for the restoration of the murals that he helped compile when a young Anglo guy wearing a construction helmet comes up, tentatively. Nathan Bellamy. He’s working on the nearby Mercado shopping center and apartments.

“Was wondering if I could help you guys with your painting?” he says. “I do airbrush art.”

Barajas is taken aback for a moment. Then he says, “Sure. Of course. Uh, first you’ll have to find out about us, our story, our history, if you want to help tell it. But, hey, welcome. There are plenty of pylons left to paint.” ■

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

East Village Tree Lighting & Holiday Market, Holiday Gondola Cruise

Events November 30-December 4, 2024
 Chicano Park muralists regroup to refresh their 40-year-old works. - Image by Bill Manson
Chicano Park muralists regroup to refresh their 40-year-old works.

Armando Nuñez is touching up a skeleton. “That first day,” he says, “I brought a half-gallon can of green bathroom paint. Everybody brought whatever they had. That’s how it was. We didn’t plan. We just started painting.”

He and I are standing amid blue scaffolding beside the wall of an I-5 ramp to the San Diego–Coronado Bridge on the last day of the repaint of this Chicano Park mural. This panel is where it all began, back in 1973, when Nuñez and other young Chicano artists started creating the first of 72 murals that have been painted on ramps and pillars under the bridge. Today they make up the largest collection of outdoor murals in the United States.

And after nearly 40 years, five of the original artists have come back to repaint this mural.

Chicano Park muralists Armando Nuñez and Guillermo Aranda recall the project’s 1973 beginnings.

“We were just a bunch of young artists, angry young men looking to establish our own identity,” Nuñez says.

That outburst of revolution-by-art didn’t happen in isolation. Barrio Logan had been mauled, first when the City relaxed zoning rules and allowed junkyards and metal shops to move in next to houses, and then when the state destroyed over 5000 barrio homes and businesses to make way for Interstate 5.

Sponsored
Sponsored

The final straw came on April 22, 1970. That day, a City College student named Mario Solis noticed bulldozers parked right next to the area the City had promised to turn into Barrio Logan’s first park. Instead, a California Highway Patrol station and parking lot were about to occupy the spot.

Solis ran through the barrio telling his neighbors. Soon they were forming human chains around the bulldozers. He told his professor of Chicano Studies, Gil Robledo. Robledo printed flyers. The word spread. Some started creating a park themselves. They planted cactus, flowers, trees.

But the pivotal moment came the next day, when Salvador Torres, an artist, said, “Hey, why don’t we cover the pillars supporting the freeway and bridge with beautiful paintings representing who we are?”

Torres is now called “the architect of the dream.”

But, then, three years passed. “I was 22,” says Nuñez. “Not much had happened. We needed to fight back more, start something meaningful. Somebody said, ‘It’s the third anniversary. Let’s just go and start painting.’”

Guillermo Aranda, the guy in his 60s repainting a ten-foot pyramid next to the skeletons, says he was instrumental in making this happen. Maybe 200 to 300 people turned up. “We just decided to go down, find a pillar, and start drawing, painting,” he says. “Some of us were good, others not so. Some just scrawled angry statements. I remember José Gómez, who had been a leader in the original 1970 takeover of the park, came down and he was mad. ‘You messed it up!’ he said. I said, ‘We’re just beginning.’ And I realized then, I had made a commitment. A big commitment.”

The main group painting this mural back then included Armando Nuñez, Guillermo Aranda, Salvador Barajas, Victor Ochoa, Guillermo Rosette, Arturo Romano, and Ernesto Paul, all young artists involved with Toltecas en Aztlán, an artists’ group at the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park, which paid for the paint.

How did they decide what to paint? Aranda stands in front of one of the first scenes he painted. It depicts skeletons wearing Spanish helmets, one skeleton-soldier roasting a baby in the fires of a volcano, next to a jaguar, Tezcatlipoca, Lord of Darkness. Near that is the Great Pyramid of Cholula, where Cortés and his Tlaxcalan allies massacred 3000 Cholula citizens and burned the city in October 1519.

“This is history,” says Aranda.

Are all these beautiful, bright images basically angry protest paintings?

Mujer Cosmica

“No,” he says. “I realize now, more and more, these are paintings of love. This repainting has been an incredible experience. It brings back the excitement and fear we had to conquer, to go through what we went through, challenging the authorities. But anger? After the first two or three years, I realized that anger was what had driven me. When I was 18, I went to jail for stealing tires. When I got out, I realized I needed to make a break. So I joined the Air Force. It opened doors to the bigger world but also to a harsh racism I’d never felt before.

“So I was still angry when this happened. But, eventually, you start to feel the effects of anger on your psyche. I didn’t want that. I realized I still had to act, to fight for Chicano culture and respect, but as an act of love.”

Has the next generation been as interested?

“Young Chicano people? They know nothing,” he says. “They’re not interested in how they came to be. Technology gives them a detachment. Their only real relationships are with their friends online, which makes me more determined to preserve and document all this.”

Five of the seven friends who started this painting 40 years ago are here today. They and others are working on 18 of the 72 murals that most need restoring. Caltrans, once the enemy, has shepherded the $1.6 million state grant to pay for the restoration costs.

For that, everybody here is quick to credit Caltrans’ Martin D. Rosen. According to Guillermo Aranda, it’s only because Rosen wrote the grant back in 1999 and then stayed on the project until the money finally became available in 2011 that this $1.6 million restoration has been possible.

The guys line up along the scaffolding for a group photo. It’s about 11:00 in the morning, getting hot. Salvador Barajas is telling me about the technical manual for the restoration of the murals that he helped compile when a young Anglo guy wearing a construction helmet comes up, tentatively. Nathan Bellamy. He’s working on the nearby Mercado shopping center and apartments.

“Was wondering if I could help you guys with your painting?” he says. “I do airbrush art.”

Barajas is taken aback for a moment. Then he says, “Sure. Of course. Uh, first you’ll have to find out about us, our story, our history, if you want to help tell it. But, hey, welcome. There are plenty of pylons left to paint.” ■

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

San Diego Reader 2024 Holiday Guide – like none other

Candle-making, tree lighting, pajama jam
Next Article

Aaron Bleiweiss: has guitar, has traveled

Seattle native takes Twists and Turns to assemble local all-stars
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader