This content was created by Gina Leon. The last update was by Taylor Robertson.

This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

Great Wall Institute: The Process of the Great Wall of Los Angeles Main Menu Research of the Decades Research 1960s Illustration Development Illustration Development Playlists of the Decades Playlists Great Wall Institute - Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC)

Artists working at Self Help Graphics in East LA during the 1970s (Self Help Graphics and Art).

1 People working at Self Help Graphics in East LA during the 1970s (Self Help Graphics and Art). The evolution SHG’s focus on printmaking as its core discipline grew throughout the 1970s and by 1979 the programs became increasingly experimental, in the printmaking studio and in other media, including music and performance art. During the 1980s, SHG earned its reputation as a locus for the emerging Chicano and Latino artists and cultural movements. Sister Karen passed away in 1997 and facilities and financial management continued to impart the organization’s health during the twenty-first century. A significant revival has been in process since 2007, including a major relocation from the former headquarters on Cesar Chavez Avenue to a new location in Boyle Heights, adjacent to downtown Los Angeles. https://www.selfhelpgraphics.com/history.

This page has paths:

From Organizing to Organizations (The Women's Building, The Crenshaw Women's Center, SPARC...) Gina Leon
Contents of this path:
1. Feminist Health Movement From its earliest days in the 1960s, the women's liberation movement focused on abortion and women's right to control their bodies. Some of the more radical groups engaged in underground abortion clinics, most notably in Chicago; others, like the Boston's Women's Health Collective began writing/publishing projects; and organizations like NOW formed Task Forces to work on the issue of reproductive rights. In fact, it was in NOW that leaders of the feminist health movement, Carol Downer and Lorraine Rothman, first became active and initially demonstrated gynecological self-examination. And while Downer and Rothman went on to open the first Feminist Women's Health Center at the Crenshaw Women's Center, other women, like Vi Verreaux worked at and opened more conventionally structured, service-oriented clinics for women. This series is comprised of interviews with these three women. The long interviews with Downer and Rothman document the evolution and expansion of their work, and although the much shorter interview with Verreaux barely touches on her clinic work, it does provides a glimpse into a service-oriented, community-based clinic.
2. The Crenshaw Women’s Center The CRENSHAW WOMEN’S CENTER was the first women’s center in Los Angeles and was a ground-breaking facility serving women in a variety of capacities. It housed the nation’s first women’s clinic, Women’s Self-Help One, and was the site of The Great Yogurt Conspiracy. In three action-packed years, the Crenshaw Women’s Center generated an enormous amount of energy, pivotal change, and several firsts for the Women’s Rights Movement and second-wave feminism in Los Angeles and the nation. A Historic-Cultural Monument (HCM) application was prepared and submitted to the city of Los Angeles by Kate Eggert and Krisy Gosney.
3. 1973 - 1991 The Woman’s Building
4. Kids participate in a print making workshop at Self Help Graphics, 1973.
5. Artists working at Self Help Graphics in East LA during the 1970s (Self Help Graphics and Art). People working at Self Help Graphics in East LA during the 1970s (Self Help Graphics and Art). The evolution SHG’s focus on printmaking as its core discipline grew throughout the 1970s and by 1979 the programs became increasingly experimental, in the printmaking studio and in other media, including music and performance art. During the 1980s, SHG earned its reputation as a locus for the emerging Chicano and Latino artists and cultural movements. Sister Karen passed away in 1997 and facilities and financial management continued to impart the organization’s health during the twenty-first century. A significant revival has been in process since 2007, including a major relocation from the former headquarters on Cesar Chavez Avenue to a new location in Boyle Heights, adjacent to downtown Los Angeles. https://www.selfhelpgraphics.com/history.
6. 1973 Self Help Graphics 3 Established in the wake of the 1970 Chicano Moratorium, Self Help Graphics & Art (1973–present), quickly became an invaluable community art center and site for the production and promotion of Chicanx and Latinx art. Founded by Sister Karen Boccalero, a Franciscan nun and student of Sister Corita Kent, along with artists Carlos Bueno, Antonio Ibáñez, and Frank Hernández in an East LA garage, Self Help Graphics understood art production as a social practice, and sought to fortify the local community through arts education and art-making that celebrated Chicanx identities and experiences.
7. 1973 Self Help Graphics 4
8. 1976 Self Help Graphics Día de los Muertos 1 In the 1970s, a procession of floats traveled from Evergreen Cemetery to Self-Help Graphics in Boyle Heights on Día de los Muertos. The first public Día de los Muertos celebration in LA was held nearly 50 years ago at Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights. Up until then, observance was a largely private tradition with Indigenous roots in Mexico. Ofrendas, or altars, were constructed inside the home. Public participation in the holiday largely stems from the art and activism ignited by the 1970 Chicano Moratorium and movement for civil rights.
9. 1976 Self Help Graphics Día de los Muertos 2
10. Day of the Dead ’77 Procession, Self-Help Graphics, November 1977.
11. 1977 Self Help Graphics Día de los Muertos 2 Day of the Dead ’77, Self-Help Graphics, November 1977. Beginning in 1973, the trio of founders and affiliated artists partnered to redeploy the Mexican Día de Muertos for their neighborhoods in East Los Angeles. A Catholic and Indigenous Mexican celebration of the dead, Día de Muertos is traditionally celebrated on November 2, although preparations begin the week before when celebrants prepare and gather decorations, mementos, specific foods, and flowers, and construct altars of remembrance at the cemetery or in their homes.
12. A float designed for Día de Los Muertos by Leo Limon processes down Brooklyn Avenue, November 1977.

This page is referenced by:

Mural Movement and Establishment of SPARC Emerging in the 1960s and 70s, the Chicano art movement was deeply intertwined with the broader Chicano civil rights movement. This artistic renaissance sought to reclaim cultural identity, challenge racial stereotypes, and confront social injustices faced by Mexican-American communities. Printmaking played a pivotal role as a form of political art, allowing artists to produce works efficiently and inexpensively that broadcasted activist messaging and spread cultural pride. Self Help Graphics and Art (SHG) was the epicenter of political printmaking, its original location on Cesar Chavez and Gage depicted here bearing a portrait honoring Sister Karen Boccalero, who co-founded the organization in 1970. As part of the work artists engaged to reclaim spiritual and artistic heritage, SHG was also partially responsible for bringing the Dia de los Muertos tradition to Los Angeles, with street processions, ofrendas and celebrations, they established a US tradition that continues to thrive and expand in the US today. A calavera in the style of José Guadalupe Posada, a renowned Mexican printmaker and illustrator from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, is depicted at the head of the procession. Posada's calaveras deeply influenced the imagery of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), inspiring Chicano artists and printmakers.

Murals were another important expression of the Chicano art movement. They transformed public spaces into vibrant canvases that celebrated Mexican-American heritage and addressed pressing social issues. Neighborhoods like East Los Angeles, Boyle Heights, and Highland Park became hubs for this artistic revolution. The legacy of Mexican muralists like David Alfaro Siqueiros, who is portrayed in front of his controversial mural América Tropical that resurfaced as a symbol of resistance, inspired Chicano artists to develop their own visual and aesthetic language.

From highways to housing projects, murals played an essential part in the development of community values, pride, and social change. Estrada Courts, a housing project in Boyle Heights, is internationally recognized and respected for its vibrant collection of Chicano murals painted throughout the decade. Reflecting the Chicano barrio culture, spiritual traditions that integrate Mesoamerican and catholic imagery, and protest statements linked to civil rights era demands, the mural clusters established a profoundly unique iconography evocative of both its socio-political context and formal aesthetic qualities.

This movement inspired Judith F. Baca’s monumental project, The Great Wall of Los Angeles, a historic cultural landmark, narrating the rich history of California's ethnic communities. The Great Wall of LA began in 1974 when the Army Corps of Engineers approached Judith F. Baca to create a mural in the Tujunga Flood Control Channel in the San Fernando Valley. Spanning several summers, the project employed over 400 youth from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and involved artists, oral historians, ethnographers, scholars, and community members. Baca also co-founded SPARC (Social and Public Art Resource Center), an organization that championed the creation of dozens of murals across Los Angeles, employing countless artists and honoring the city's diverse communities through monuments of memory.

In San Diego, Chicano Park serves as another iconic testament to the mural art tradition. The historic Mexican neighborhood of Barrio Logan was cut off from ocean access by the construction of Interstate 5 and the San-Diego Coronado Bridge in the 1960s. In 1970, the city of San Diego made plans to construct a CHP patrol station under the Coronado Bridge. The community occupied the land of the proposed site, peacefully protesting and planting trees to claim the land. The city backed off after the twelve-day occupation and agreed that the land would be made into a park. Mural painting on the concrete supports began in 1973, and new murals have been added ever since.

In the mural, this rich legacy of Chicano/a/x art making is shown with a large portrait of David Alfaro Siqueiros in front of his mural América Tropical. Behind América Tropical are a few murals from Estrada Courts, which sit on the banks of the Tujunga Wash above Judy Baca and her youth team painting the Great Wall of LA. Downtown LA, East LA, the San Fernando Valley, and Barrio Logan all come together to highlight the Chicano/a/x world of Southern California in the 1970s. On the opposite bank of the Tjunga Wash, Self Help Graphics is holding their annual Día de los Muertos celebration next to the printmakers’ original building, which has the portrait of Sister Karen Boccalero imposed onto it. The section ends with a few murals from Chicano Park.

Sources:

CSUN. “Murals in Los Angeles.” CSUN University Library, May 07, 2024. https://library.csun.edu/sca/peek-stacks/murals.
Fuentes, Ed. “The Mural is the New Chicano.” PBS, November 15, 2011. https://www.pbssocal.org/history-society/the-mural-is-the-new-chicano.
Gunckel, Colin. Self Help Graphics & Art: Art in the Heart of East Los Angeles. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press, 2014. https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780895511546/self-help-graphics-and-art/.
Scott, Adrian. “Estrada Courts: Painted at the height of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, the Estrada Courts murals enlivened the 1942 garden apartment complex.” LA Conservancy. Accessed July 21, 2025. https://www.laconservancy.org/locations/estrada-courts.
SPARC. “Great Wall of Los Angeles.” Social and Public Art Resource Center. Accessed July 21, 2025. https://sparcinla.org/programs/the-great-wall-mural-los-angeles/.
USC. “Robin Dunitz Slides of Los Angeles Murals, 1925-2002.” USC Libraries, Accessed July 21, 2025. https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/asset-management/2A3BF1O04E1?&WS=SearchResults.