vISUAL ENCLOSURES: ONE PYLON IN CHICANO PARK

Chicano Park is a 7.4-acre public common and National Historic Landmark in San Diego’s neighborhood of Barrio Logan. In April of 1970 the park was created through a community occupation of a plot of land under the newly build Coronado Bridge that connects mainland San Diego to the resort town of Coronado. The most iconic feature of the park are  the 89 murals that adorn the highway pylons that uphold Highway 75. This paper provides a visual analysis of one pylon in Chicano Park that hold two murals, both created in 1975 and restored in 2012 by artists affiliated with an artist collective called the Royal Chicano Air Force. The two murals held within this pylon are Leyes: La Familia and Women Who Hold Up Half the Sky that this paper argues are representative of the debate over signification of the sign, “Chicano” and whether “Chicano” in “Chicano Park” continues to represent a generative space for cultural and political practice.