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East Side Stories

Freeways and Their Portraits in Chicano Los Angeles

This essay considers the prominence of freeways in the work of three Chicano artists, each of whom grew up in East Los Angeles, a barrio community of mostly Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans, and the site of seven intersecting freeways, all built during the 1950s and 1960s. After their participation in the Chicano Movement during the 1970s, Frank Romero, Carlos Almaraz, and David Botello matured as individual artists and produced striking scenes of life in Chicano Los Angeles. In considering the parallels between the placement of the freeway in their art and the historical placement of freeways in East Los Angeles, this essay reviews the history of highway construction in East Los Angeles as a necessary context for understanding the distinct cultural imagery of the East Los Angeles barrio.

KEYWORDS Chicano art, highway construction, East Los Angeles, barrio