A happier wall

E. Harlem kids’ mural celebates ‘love’ & immigs

THEY’RE painting a difference.

East Harlem students teamed up with a legendary street artist to create a 60-foot mural celebrating diversity and protesting President Trump’s immigration policies.

The artwork was set to be hung outside their school Monday night.

Hundreds of neighborhood kids enrolled with the East Harlem Tutorial Program’s afterschool classes worked on the “Build Love” mural with street muralist Manny Vega at the East Harlem Community Education Center.

The colorful mural, which is currently in the Community Education Center’s gym being assembled, depicts the flags of Mexico, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and several of the largely Muslim countries included in President Trump’s travel ban list.

Program Executive Director Jeff Ginsberg said the mural is meant to deliver a message of inclusion at a time when the administration views Muslims with suspicion and vows to build a wall on the Mexican border. “We can’t support our students if we don’t support who they are and where they’re from,” Ginsberg said. “We’re celebrating that New York City is an immigrant city.”

Vega, 61, is known for his public artworks, including a mosaic he designed for a subway station at 110th St. and Lexington Ave., and another he created for the Pregones Theater in the Bronx.

The veteran artist designed the mural at Ginsberg’s urging in January, soon after Trump issued his order temporarily blocking all refugees and banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Vega then spent a week inviting over 200 East Harlem students — mostly from immigrant families — to help finish the mural at his workspace at East Harlem Community Education Center’s gym. “Instead of anxiety and fear, we are being proactive,” he said. “It’s important for people to feel that they have a voice.”

The mural, 60 feet tall by 14 feet wide, will be attached to the side of Community Education Center’s Second Ave. building.

“It was life-changing, to be able to make a difference like that,” said Angeli Jagdeo, 17, a senior at Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics High School whose parents immigrated from Guyana.