The Mission: Shanti Moreano Freire

The Mission has been a cultural hub for Central and South American immigrants where they have formed a community celebrating their culture. With the rise in gentrification and Silicon Valley moving into San Francisco the Mission neighborhood is changing rapidly displacing the people who helped build it and the ones who keep it alive. Gentrification fits into the Western need for purification making perfect spaces that are whiter and cleaner. In this project I want to convey Latinx Resiliance through music.

Music and dance are part of Latinx and Hispanic culture and can be used as a creative medium to speak out for their rights and tell their stories. For example, Joe Arroyo was an Afro-Latinx from Colombia who has a salsa that is dynamic and filled with trumpets and piano telling his audience about a slave story. He says “I want to tell my brothers and sister a little bit of black history, of our history. An African marraige, slaves of a Spanish man. He was abusive and one day he hit the black woman. It was then, her black husband revealed himself, a handsome black man. He took his vengence for his love and you can still hear him saying “Don’t hit my wife”. For the project I want to create three panels that have figures drawn on them that express the lyrics of the song I will be using.

My goal for this project is to take lyrics from Calle 13’s song Latinoamerica and pair drawn images to give the Mission community a visual sense of support. When walking through the mission murals are abundant and give a clear narrative of the things happening. Often times a sense of accomplishment and pride can be difficult to see because of the constant fighting day to day of immigrants becomes normalized. Much like a mural I want these visual panels to be for the Latinx/Chincax as a reminder of their strength and hardwork.