Lost Murals
Based on Chapter 11 in East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte and South El Monte Arts Posse’s “East of East” archive
Text and archival material curated by Allison Koehler
"When it comes down to it, we all have this need to live, need to express ourselves, need to make a mark in the word, of being here, of who we are." Ron Reeder
Southern California is home to a rich history of muralism. These public works claim space, preserve and reclaim a history that is excluded and distorted within the dominant narrative, and assert a sense of identity and pride within marginalized communities. By being public facing, however, murals are vulnerable to natural and social deleterious forces. Age and weathering take their toll, while preservation and restoration efforts are often incomplete and selectively funded. More direct erasure of murals in the form of whitewashing and censorship have roots that tie back to the beginnings of the muralism movement in greater Los Angeles.
In 1932, the Plaza Art Center commissioned David Alfaro Siqueiros to paint a mural featuring a tropical bounty of palm trees, fruit, and contented people. Siqueiros, however, believed the proposed subject matter was at odds with the contemporaneous social and political violence perpetrated against people of color and the mass deportations of Mexican Americans living in Los Angeles. Instead, Siqueiros created America Tropical: Oprimida y Destrozada por los Imperialismos, depicting the crucifixion of an indigenous man among Mayan ruins with an American bald eagle looking on above. City officials immediately ordered the whitewashing of the mural for its controversial and presumed anti-American themes.
Forty years later, however, as the Chicano movement took roots in Southern California, the whitewash began to peel, revealing the original mural below. The imagery in Siqueiros’ seminal mural resonated with artist Ron Reeder who led a 1977 muralism program for Valle Lindo High School students in South El Monte.
The program, funded by a grant through the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), was part of a brief rise in publicly funded mural projects in greater El Monte that tapped into the larger socio-political Chicano awakening. The murals have all since been destroyed, but their legacy lives in newspaper clippings, personal photo collections, and a rare 16mm film. Below are stills from Hugh J. Triffet’s 1975 untitled video commemorating South El Monte’s All-America City Award for 1974-1975.
To learn more about Ron Reeder’s experience in leading the summer muralism program, you can listen to this clip of his oral history interview with Nick Juravich here and watch a 10-minute documentary directed by El Monte local Anthony Solorzano (below).
On this tour will visit the sites of some of these lost artworks, as well as the site of a proposed mural so offensive to government officials that it incited a city-wide ban on all public art.
Time-lapse video of Fernando Corona and Alonso Delgadillo’s recent mural collaboration with SEMAP.
Our tour will also shed light upon the lasting legacy of muralism in El Monte, and the deep resonance that Siquerios’ work still holds today.
Lastly, SEMAP, Fernando Corona, Alonso Delgadillo, and more than a dozen volunteers painted a new mural inspired by the lost murals of El Monte and South El Monte.
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