The reduction of space for the traditions of indigenous women and children–and those of their descendants–whose footsteps have grazed and raised land here for generations, as our ancestors have done across the American continent for millennia, is a desecration.
To push them away from their home(s), and their businesses and livelihoods, is to push the land itself from its roots. To reduce them into objects is less than human; it is to reduce life itself. ‘Don’t forget: These are Tongva lands.’
Each figure in this mural is based on a real person, present and living among pueblos and reservations throughout Los Angeles, California, Sonsonate, El Salvador, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, Oaxaca, Mexico, and more.
It is because of them that we’re here.
J.T.
[…] this same forward-mindedness, or respect for both present and future, is what many of the movements against gentrification in cities like Los Angeles are also centered around: to resist displacement for the sake of chic […]
[…] are the LAND, not by choice nor by pomp, but because our blood’s RAISED land here millenniums before 1492.And if there’s one thing our blood knows: It’s that we didn’t lose lives on our […]