Visual Solidarity with Central America: An Interview with Maestra Muralista Juana Alicia

The atrocities committ ed in Salvadoran, Guatemalan, and Nicaraguan civil wars triggered the creation of numerous transnational solidarity organizations across the United States during the 1970s and '80s. The San Francisco Bay Area became an important destination for Central Americans fleeing these brutal civil wars, and the Mission District, a predominantly Latinx neighborhood, was the epicenter of Latinx art-activism in solidarity with Central America. The historical left ist politics and antiwar movements of San Francisco made it a city that welcomed Central American immigrants and rejected US intervention in the Central American conflicts. As Cary Cordova argues, "left ist politics of San Francisco have dominated the construction of Latino art in the Bay Area."¹ Thus, the art-activism that arose from San Francisco during this timeframe opposed the hegemonic foreign policies the Ronald Reagan administration placed on revolutionary efforts in Central America. Posters and murals became necessary art forms that raised awareness about the Central American civil wars while simultaneously enunciating a Central American presence in the barrio. In response to the political turbulence generated by the Central American civil wars, Anglo-American, Chicanx, Central American, and other Latinx artists living in San Francisco supported revolutionary efforts for liberation by creating antiwar art.

This interview focuses on the artwork Juana Alicia dedicated to the Central American solidarity movement during the 1980s and '90s depicting Central American narratives in the Mission District. Informed by local San Francisco residents, and the influx of Central Americans to the city, Alicia reflects on her purpose for creating artworks that speak to Central Americans.

Juana Alicia is a renowned Chicana maestra muralista who has painted murals in the San Francisco Bay Area for over thirty-five years. Many of Alicia's murals focus on themes of social justice, climate change, antiwar movements, indigeneity, and feminist art, adorning walls in the San Francisco Bay Area and abroad. Alicia was born in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in Detroit, Michigan. Having been raised in the Midwest, she was unaware of Latinx identities and cultures outside of the Mexican American and Puerto Rican contexts. She moved to California in the early 1970s and learned about the Central American conflicts as a student at the University of California, Santa Cruz and by way of living in San Francisco's Mission District. Alicia was also profoundly shaped by the United Farm Workers Union. Coincidentally, Alicia's early labor picking lettuce for Interharvest (a United Fruit–owned company) in the fields of Salinas was interlinked with the US-owned investment in Central America. In the early twentieth century, the United Fruit company exploited several countries in Central America, the Caribbean, and South America to reap massive financial wealth from the banana trade.

Another event that shaped Alicia's solidarity with the liberation movements of Central America was the creation of PLACA murals directed by Patricia Rodríguez and Ray Patlán. During the summer of 1984, thirty-six PLACA artists painted twenty-seven murals in Balmy Alley that conveyed a dual theme: peace in Central America and the celebration of Central American culture. The artists picked the Spanish word "placa" because of its multiple meanings; it can stand for a license plate, police, a call-sign, a nickname, and leaving a graffiti tag. Namely, the artists chose PLACA because they wanted to leave their mark on Balmy Alley by adding twenty-seven murals in one alley, permanently changing the space, identity, and character of the Mission District. PLACA murals redefined Balmy Alley and demonstrated how the strategic placement of murals in public space could help advance the political project against US intervention in Central America. Consequently, the creation of the PLACA murals provided a sustained production of Central American murals that continues to this day, transforming the Mission District's streets into an ongoing canvas. Alicia's original contribution to PLACA, Te oímos Guatemala, was painted in 1985, and in 1996 replaced with Una ley inmoral nadie tiene que cumplirla, dedicated to Salvadoran martyr and saint Archbishop Óscar A. Romero, who was assassinated by a death squad...