And Now.. Some News From "The Town I Live In"

A City Councilman's Insensitive Recommendation About Murals in the Southern California City of Fullerton, California Touches Off A Heated Debate

By Allen Bacon
Editor
Bosco

Recently my hometown of Fullerton made the news and talk shows over some comments by one of our City Council members, Shawn Nelson, who I will from this point on refer to as Ozzie Nelson. That's because Ozzie apparently believes...by his actions anyway...that our town would be better off looking like the America depicted in such 50's television shows as Ozzie and Harriet and Leave It to Beaver.

Ozzie recently proposed, in response to reports of increased gang activity and violence in our town that the city remove some beautiful murals painted by Latino artists thirty years ago. The murals depict Southern California culture under the words "The Town I Live In" ( a reference from the classic Midniters tune) with a classic automobile, beautiful young ladies in sombreros and fedoras, beautiful Latinas through the years, a finely dressed Pachuco....and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Ozzie called the murals "crap" which should be removed immediately. Oh, Ozzie apologized this week...he had to...he's up for re-election.

This reminds me of the time when some painters who were busy painting the walls of Fullerton High School's Plummer Auditorium one summer apparently did not understand the significance of the beautiful art fresca on the walls depicting Mexico and California history and painted over them. The art was preserved a few years back. The analogy is not lost on me...sometime we get so busy trying to spruce up the place we get rid of things that should not be taken away....like murals depicting history and culture.

The ironic thing about Ozzie's knee-jerk reaction is this happens at a time when our wonderful Southern California Mexican-American artists are being celebrated for their contributions. There is a huge show at LACMA called "Phantom Sightings" which does just that. And Cheech Marin just put out his wonderful Chicano art in an exhibit down the road in Anaheim.

Fortunately, I think cooler heads are going to prevail. Sharon Quirk, another city council member, is organizing people to see what the community really wants. Unlike Ozzie, Sharon and I have gone through the same Fullerton schools....Richman Elementary, Nicholas Jr. High, Fullerton High School, Fullerton College and Cal State Fullerton. I don't pretend to speak for Sharon, but I was proud to grow up in Fullerton and I was proud to go to school and live not too far from where the mural was painted....in other words we understand the culture and the history of our town unlike Ozzie who is apparently using his job as a stepping stone to higher politics.

Actually, what we should be doing is getting ready for the 30th anniversary of the murals by getting some artists young and old...the original artists and the new up and comers, from the neighborhood working on touching up the murals and restoring them to their original luster. And we should have a big party next year and wear zoot suits and bring in the beautiful lowrider cars and the Midniters will play along with Xatlan and Jorge Luna and Arturo Arpero ....Just a thought.

Photo Credits: Sal Rojas and www.brownpride.com