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Great Wall Institute: The Process of the Great Wall of Los Angeles

Senator Maria Elena Durazo

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In the 1970s and 1980s, the predominantly Spanish-speaking membership of Local 11 fought for fuller participation in their union against a largely Anglo leadership. In 1989, María Elena Durazo became the first Latina to lead a major Los Angeles union. She began reorienting the local towards greater membership participation and a more assertive stance with employers. Since then, Local 11 merged with locals in Santa Monica, Long Beach, and Orange County, and in 2016, with Local 631 in Arizona.
Located at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex Cafeteria - At the request of Maria Elena Durazo, of the AFL-CIO collaborated with the UCLA Labor Center, Professors Kent Wong and Janna Shaddock Hernandez, the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex (MCLC) High School Students, and UCLA/SPARC DIGITAL MURAL LAB under Prof. Baca’s direction produced a new 18ft x 28ft digital mural for permanent placement in the downtown LA school with a 56% drop out rate. The work, sponsored by the Miguel Contreras Foundation, is installed in the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex cafeteria. Both UCLA students and MCLC high school students were assigned to create a mural in a 20 week period that commemorates the legacy of labor leader Miguel Contreras while visually representing the issues affecting the students of the Center, who come from neighborhoods with many conditions that impede high school graduation.