mexican american

The Whitewashing of the Most Visceral Mural of the Chicano Movement

Remembering Roberto Chavez’s L.A. Landmark

In 1974, artist Roberto Chavez painted a 200-by-30-foot mural called The Path to Knowledge and the False University at East Los Angeles College, where he was a professor of Chicano studies. The mural featured surrealist pyramids, large cubist-inspired faces, military tanks, weapons of war, and even a self-portrait of Chavez painting amidst symbols representing the struggles and choices of college students. The mural spread out like an ancient Mesoamerican codex across the upper wall of the Ingalls Auditorium, now known as the Edison Center for the Arts. It displayed …

by Sybil Venegas |

Read More

Morrissey’s Ranchera-esque Sound

The Manchester Singer’s Intense Emotions Win Over a New Generation of Fans in East L.A.

by Javier Cabral |

My lifelong devotion to punk rock started with my first backyard gig in Boyle Heights at age 12, which eventually led to me playing guitar in the band Bad Influence …

Mick Jagger, Lowriders, and Men in Suits

Images From L.A. Photographer Ricardo Valverde’s First Retrospective Invite You to Slow Down, Look, and Look Again

Some photographs emphasize the camera’s unflinching eye through a stark and straightforward perspective. The layered, scratched, burned, and painted photographs of the late L.A. artist Ricardo Valverde—whose first retrospective is …

Jesse Gomez

The Tattoo-Sporting, Motorcycle-Riding, Princeton-Educated Restaurateur Who’s Bringing Mexican Back

by Sarah Rothbard |

Most of what I know about the restaurant business I learned from Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain’s 2000 tell-all memoir of his life as a high-end restaurant chef, Kitchen Confidential, was rife …

Are Mexicans the Most Successful Immigrant Group in the U.S.?

The American Dream Doesn’t Just Belong to Those With the Most Money and the Fanciest Degrees. It Also Belongs to the Strivers Who Achieve More Than the Generation Before Them.

by Jennifer Lee |

The narrative of the American Dream is one of upward mobility, but there are some stories of mobility we prize above others.

Who is more successful: a Mexican-American whose parents …

A Piece of Home in a Lost Mural

by Daniel Hernandez |

Last summer I went on a bit of fact-finding mission to little National City, just across the municipal border from San Diego’s south side. Every summer and school break when …


By continuing to use our website, you agree to our privacy and cookie policy.

✕

Get More Zócalo

No paywall. No ads. No partisan hacks. Ideas journalism with a head and a heart.

You may opt out or contact us anytime.

×