Title: American Family . About the Family. The Art of the Mural | PBS
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Content: African-American, Thai, Chinese, Jewish and women’s murals began to appear on the streets of Los Angeles. Before long, community murals began to attract media attention and documentation. Murals began to tackle larger issues of police brutality, border crossings, drug addiction, gang warfare, and other difficulties of a life of poverty and exclusion. Early in the movement, space was freely available and uncontested. If you had the paint and the time, the wall and the message were yours. In this environment, the movement flourished. As the movement progressed, common themes emerged, variations on those themes developed, and our stories began to crystallize. We consciously avoided Western European aesthetics, instead privileging Chicano popular culture, religious iconography, Mexican calendars, tattoos, street writing, whatever could better and more accurately portray our direct life-experience. We did not even look closely at Mexico City, an influence far-removed from the Diaspora of the Southwest. In this way, we were able to create a unique and specific art form that spoke to our own lived experience in the barrios and inner cities of Los Angeles.