The Great Wall of Los Angeles: Bridging Divides and Mitigating Cultural Erasure

In 1976 prominent Chicana muralist Judith F. Baca began directing the creation of The Great Wall of Los Angeles, a half-mile-long mural in California. Baca, dozens of artists, and hundreds of youths aged 13–21 worked to recover and present a series of multi-ethnic narratives that had been omitted from mainstream histories available at the time. This article illuminates the ways that the Great Wall of Los Angeles's counter-hegemonic narrative comes into conflict with the grand narratives of its time by making visible the webs of oppression that were developed throughout the nation's history and which impacted a variety of ethnic groups. This article explores Baca's identity as a facilitator capable of crossing boundaries and bridging different ethnic, social, and economic groups. I argue that Baca's identity as a "bridge person" allowed her the knowledge to package radical mural content in ways consistent with mainstream goals for educational reform.