ARTISTS AND STUDENTS UNVEIL NEW MURAL HONORING KUMEYAAY
Local artists and youth on Friday unveiled a 22-foot-tall mural at MAAC Community Charter School in Chula Vista that honors Indigenous land and what it meant to Native people before the establishment of the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
“It touches my heart to see this,” said Stanley Ralph Rodriguez from the Santa Ysabel Band of the Iipay Nation and director of Kumeyaay Community College. “Our people are on both sides of the border. There’s 12 Kumeyaay reservations here in San Diego, another 46 in Baja (California).”
The 22-foot-by-22-foot mural was painted on an exterior wall of the school facing Quintard Street. It depicts a Native man and woman dancing on Indigenous land as the sun sets behind a mountain range. Between the couple is a large snake that, in Kumeyaay culture, represents knowledge, said Rodriguez.
With the help of MAAC students and Kumeyaay tribal elders, artists Hector Villegas and Gabriel Romo completed the large art piece over the
course of two weeks. Villegas is a first-generation Chicano with Indigenous Cora and Huichol roots who owns the Logan Heights-based Galeria 1904 and Mexikota Art Studio. He has three murals in Chicano Park. Based in Sacramento, Romo draws inspiration from pre-Hispanic concepts and other Indigenous and spiritual traditions of his northern Mexican lineage.
“One of the things that I would like to say about this project that I’m really thankful for is that we don’t acknowledge the Native people
of this land enough here in this county and this is a beautiful mural doing so,” said Villegas.
Tommy Ramirez, director of MAAC Community Charter School, said in a statement that MAAC’s curriculum teaches students “how to improve our community while honoring our roots, our familias, and ourselves ...”
Blue Shield of California provided $17,000 to assist with supplies and funds for the muralists, MAAC officials said.