"Que Viva Barrio Logan" mural at Diego & Son Printing

A few weekends ago, we were too early for Cafe Virtuoso...

so to kill time, I asked Bert if we could drive around Barrio Logan to check out a particular set of murals...

This was it...the paintings are located on Diego YSon Printing on the northeast corner of National Ave and Evans.  The artist is Mario "Torero" Acevedo, a well known local artists whose work is all over San Diego. Years ago, he had his famous "Eyes of Picasso" downtown but it was torn down to make way for Horton Plaza (this was pre-1985). He had other versions of the "Eyes", including one that I remember in what is now known as East Village. I believe I have a photo of that somewhere in my old photos albums. That got painted over several times. Another version is at SDSU's art department.  Of course, I didn't know all this info that particular morning. I just wanted to admire the messages of social justice on the walls.

The view across the street. These walls are facing west.

As you can see, this was was painted prior to the November elections, referencing opposition to Props C & D. If you are registered to vote in the city of San Diego, you would have seen Prop C on the ballot. Since we live in Chula Vista, we couldn't vote on Prop C which was to build a new stadium for the shitty Chargers. Well, that sure didn't pass.  I would've voted a big fat NO for that. Prop D was also soundly rejected by San Diego voters, which, if approved, would have had a sales tax increase.

"No to Gentrification".  This issue is very much on the minds of the folks who live in Barrio Logan. Many of the city's central core neighborhoods are being gentrified. A prime example being North Park.



On the north side facing wall, there is  a recent tribute to the four victims who died at the Raza motorcycle rally when a car with a drunk driver flew off the Coronado bridge and landed in Chicano Park. Their names were husband and wife, Cruz and Annamarie Contreras of Chandler, AZ and Christopher Banks and Francine Jimenez of Hacienda Heights, CA.  Such an awful tragedy.

Bob Marley and a Mexican farm worker:



A mural in support of opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline, an issue that's been in the news for the past several months.

The farm worker is depicted holding the short handled hoe (aka 'cortito' in Spanish) a farming implement that is now banned. From the 1920's up to the 1940's, the majority of farm laborers on the West Coast were Filipinos who were recruited from the Ilocos Norte region of the Philippines. Laborers used the short handled hoe to cultivate the fields. This kind of back breaking work was called 'stoop labor'. There is a series of Depression era photographs by famed photographer, Dorothea Lange  depicting Filipino farm workers in the Salinas Valley.

Through the Bracero program implemented in  1942, Mexican workers were brought in to work the fields, and address the so called  "labor shortage:(as if the whites wanted to do this). They also worked for less pay than the Filipinos. Another example of the government pitting ethnic groups against each other.   The short handled hoe symbolized the sacrifice, blood, sweat and tears that the farm workers experienced.  Prolonged use of the tool during a full day's work caused major physical damage to the worker's bodies as they toiled in the hot sun.  The tool was banned in California in 1975 but was still being used on farms for hand weeding. Handweeding was finally banned in 2004 in California per Cal-OSHA.

Lastly, folk singer Bob Dylan, who was recently awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

More info on some of the topics shown on this wall:

Short handled hoe:


Standing Rock:


Chicano park tragedy, October 2016
Article: "4 dead as pickup plunges off Coronado Bridge, lands in Chicano Park" SD Union Tribune, Oct 15 2016

+ News video:


Plus a newsclip the next day identifying the victims, who were memorialized in this new mural


Article:
"New Barrio Logan mural honors four lost lives" Cool San Diego Sights, Nov 8, 2016

Murals @ Diego & Son Printing
2104 National Ave (corner of National and Evans)
San Diego, CA 92113

www.diegoandson.com

I'm glad we were able to see and appreciate the mural up close. It seems more valuable to me to learn more by viewing it up close and personal. I didn't realize until a few weeks later that this is the same artist who painted several well known murals throughout San Diego. I will be exploring more of his artwork during the winter break, along with the art of Gloria Muriel (aka "Glow").