For the past decade, efforts to help restore the Civic Center Dr. “La Raza” murals made by Chicano youth in the 90s seemed fruitless.
First it was the foundation of the wall that needed to be repaired. Any sort of restoration would make the bricks topple.
Or the water damage from years of humidity was making the paint fall off.
Or the cost to fix the mural would cost over tens of thousands of dollars.
[Read: Are Santa Ana’s Historic Murals Doomed to Fade Into History?]
So, civically active residents turned to city hall.
Another dead end.
The city would not get involved because they said the wall was “private.”
But the community leaders, artists and residents never gave up.
Their perseverance prompted the city of Santa Ana and local councilman Johnathan Hernandez, who partly campaigned on saving the mural, to investigate further, only to discover that the wall was public.
“We eventually fought and we proved that these walls are public property, and we had the city fix these walls at no cost to the residents,” said Hernandez during his remarks Saturday at the unveiling.
“We had the city install gutters to protect the walls so that they could never deteriorate again from rain. We fought to make sure that our neighbors knew that their government works for them, regardless of if the city is not willing to accept our stories, we’re here and we’re not going anywhere.”
The doors finally opened.
The Artesia Pilar Neighborhood applied for a city art grant and got it approved.
With the additional funds from community donations, the mural restoration was now on track to be saved.
“When you want something done right, it does take time and effort and consistency,” said Lucinda Solorzano, a former MeChA student and board member of the Artesia Pilar Neighborhood Association.
“We are a rich community with murals,” added Solorzano during her speech at the unveiling.
For people like Alicia Rojas, who has spent the last years rescuing Santa Ana murals with Roger Reyes from the Santa Ana Artist(a) Coalition and MuralColors, this was a moment of enlightenment.
[Read here: The Science Behind Saving Murals]
“This tells you that, we, residents, people of the community can be experts on what we need,” said Rojas, who experienced pushback when pitching the restoration project to the city because the wall was then considered private.
“I just can’t believe we are finally here,” said Gilly Rodarte, who did the calligraphy of the “La Raza” mural in 1991.
“These murals will probably be here longer than me,” said Roger Montenegro, the artist responsible for the lowrider car in the mural, popularly referred to as bombs.
“At one point, it felt like it wouldn’t happen,” said Steve Martinez, who drew Lady Santa Ana, “But here we are.”
The wall is inspiring the organizers to continue to save the Chicano murals that are in Santa Ana.
“La Raza Murals” was the ground zero for art activists like the Santa Ana Artist(a) Coalition to organize and streamline a process to partner with the city to save the arts in Santa Ana.
“We are celebrating with the community the seven years of hard work to fundraise and how to restore a mural,” said Debra Russell, an arts and culture commissioner in Santa Ana, who wants the city leadership to have a better understanding of how to save public art in Santa Ana.
Chicano Roots
For Jorge “Georgie” Ruiz, the organizer behind the murals, being Chicano in the 90’s, involved a lot of grassroots organizing.
A MeChA student, Ruiz was no muralist, but was in charge of designing the posters for the student club meetings.
Ruiz knew what he wanted to see in his neighborhood.
He was also inspired by the other murals in the neighborhood made in the 70s by local Chicana muralist, Marina Aguilera, and Alonzo Whitney along with other Chicano youth.
[Read here: An ‘Original Chicano Barrio’ in Santa Ana Gets a New Mural and Pocket Park]
“I saw those murals in the 70s. There were murals there before ours in the 90s,” said Ruiz in an interview with Voice of OC.
“That was the reason why I chose that wall.”
So with his dream of an art project and permission from then city manager, he got to painting.
“When I joined MeChA, I started feeling an identity of who I really am, you know, in the barrio, El Salvador Park,” said Ruiz.
“You know who I am as an American citizen, and we have this identity, and that was, for me, important.”
So, school children, local artists and active residents like Jaime Varella, Gilly Rodarte, Steve Martinez, Roger Montenegro got to working with Ruiz to make the murals that spoke to that vision.
Neighbors also contributed to the mural by providing the artists with leftover house paint stored in their garages.
“You know, the colors on the mural chose us,” recounted Ruiz, “It was truly a community effort.”
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