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Mission Muralismo was an artistic movement that brought awareness of issues relevant to residents of San Francisco, particularly those of Latin American decent. The Mission became a canvas and a gallery for muralists to speak out about injustices and social issues around their city, the country and the world. Latin American muralists voiced their cries for international attention and aimed to create awareness for the social and political problems of Latin America through the murals they painted.

The movement was headed by the people but a large part of their inspiration came from artists like Diego Rivera and

History

Muralismo’s beginning is often attributed to the WPA, which aimed to encourage people to use their skills and come together to create public works like buildings with great architecture, art, dramas, media, etc. One man who is given a lot of credit to the muralismo movement is Diego Rivera, a highly controversial mural painter who loved to tell stories and bring attention to things important to him through his art. In the 1930s Rivera, as well as other muralists like David Alfaro Siquieros and José Clemente Orozco, were commissioned to create murals by the WPA. These international artists are often given credit for the global messages painted in the mission district.

However, before it came to the United States, it began as a growing sign of nationalist pride before the Mexican revolution in 1910.  The president of Mexico at the time, Porfirio Díaz, was extremely encouraging of art pieces being created to represent what it meant to be Mexican, because at that time there was still a lot of “Spanish colonial and European influences” that made Mexico want to set themselves apart.  One artist named Gerardo Murillo was a strong fighter for Mexicanidad, which promoted a proud feeling of nationality and identity that highlighted their indigenous roots. This feeling of nationalist pride strongly influenced the chicano movement and the chicano art movement.

Beyond Mexican muralists in the 1930s to the 1960s, there was a growing population of Central American refugees escaping political turbulence and civil war in the 1970s, some of whom found a home in the Mission District. Many of them were Nicaraguan artists and poets. They, as a community, made it a goal to build a solidarity movement with the Nicaraguan struggle. For them the struggle to liberate Nicaragua from Somoza’s regime continued in the Mission District. The Nicaraguans who came from that struggle created a movement from the barrio, showing a strong sense of solidarity for the Sandinista struggle in Nicaragua by setting up offices for the Sandinista Front and spreading the word on the uprising. Much of this outcry and uproar encouraged the poets and artists to do their part in a way that they knew how.

Response

Although the murals exist in the Mission District and in Nicaragua, more notable movements like the United States’ government support for the Contra War, the effort to establish a counter military movement to combat and overthrow the Sandinista government, suppress the artistic movement.^[6] Mission Muralismo and its influence on the Nicaraguan solidarity struggle is imperative to understand how the politics and atmosphere of political turbulence affected the barrios in Nicaragua and the barrios created in the United States as a result of the conflict. The murals serve as a voice for the barrio, one of the many tools used to make concerns vocal and visible to their communities in Nicaragua and in their new American home

See Also

• Balmy Alley
• San Francisco Street Art
• Graffiti Art
• Diego Rivera