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Pedro Flores

Professor Batty

English 101

20 February 2018

Is Violence your first Choice?

Living most of my life in Los Angeles I have seen many murals and there are reason

why Communities let people paint these murals. It can be because it is a historical event, or

someone expressing their feelings or opinions because pictures can say more than words.

“The Quetzalcoatl Mural Project” located in Highland Park painted on December 20, 1996

by Anthony Ortega can show there are people that fought for immigrants to be treated

equally. Although many people believe that violence solves injustice, Anthony Ortega

argues that peaceful activities are more effective protests through the "Quetzalcoatl mural"

by the use of colors, the symbolism of Cesar Chavez, and the place each character was

place in the mural.

In the mural the painter Anthony Ortega shows a lot of colors for example red, blue,

purple, green, yellow, brown, and pink. The mural that I choose also has a man with a red

shirt holding some grapes and looking forward, and behind the man’s shoulder there is

some corn on both of his sides. On top of him there are two men and in the middle there is

a lady. The first guy the left who is Emiliano Zapata that is wearing tan clothes is holding

corn on both of his hands. The lady and the other man look like they were soldiers because

the lady is carrying a weapon on her back and the guy has a bullets vest around his chest.

Within the mural there is also another man with a hat and white clothes with a red

bandanna around his neck, two other girls are present in the mural with both staring at a

river that has a lot of land that is green on the both sides of the river. On the left side of the
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mural we see a guy that's dressed like a bird and has a shield. Next to him there is a circle

and inside the circle with a lot of figures and in the middle there is a face.

Colors play a very important role in our lives, whether we realize it or not. They

have the ability to affect our emotions, and moods in a way that few other things can. The

author creates a story that connects all of the characters that are in the mural by using colors

that have the same significance as some parts in his life. Cesar Chavez is wearing a red

shirt, and he is holding purple grapes. According to Meaning of Color the color red

represents determination, and purple can depict creativity. Determination and creativity

relate to Cesar Chavez because of the way he fought for farmer’s rights which include

better working conditions and higher wage and the ability to unionize which helped him

achieve the goals he had for all the farm workers.

Cesar Chavez learned about justice or rather injustice early in his life; he is known

as a person that did not like to use violence in his protest and demonstrations with the UFW

organization. He was the founder of the UFW (United Farm Workers) that helped the

farmers to be treated equally, get better payments, and to have health care. One of the

reasons why Cesar Chavez helped the farming community was because most of his family

worked as field laborers and as a little kid he also had to work to help his family. According

to The Cesar Chavez Story is giving us more information about what he did in order to

keep violence out of the protest he had with the UFW organization. The quote states that

“Cesar was willing to sacrifice his own life so that the union would continue and that

violence was not used. Cesar fasted many times. In 1968 Cesar went on water only, 25 day

fast. He repeated the fast in 1972 for 24 days, and again in 1988, this time for 36 days"(The

Story of Cesar Chavez). This illustrates hunger strikes was a big part for him and all the

farmers because they thought they could win without violence. Cesar thought differently
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because by hunger striking he would purify his body of any negative energy so that would

have the mind set of not using violence. The use of non-violence was effective to Cesar

Chaves because instead of his organization fighting with other people, instead the way they

would protest would be by not go to work and stay outside the farms telling people to not

buy the products because they were not treated fairly and the earnings of the owners of the

farms started to go down.

The way each of the characters were place in this mural play a big part mostly

because Cesar Chaves is the one that stands out the most compare to Emiliano Zapata and

the other two revolutionaries that are next to him. In this mural it shows how the painter is

putting people that believed more in violence in the back. For example Zapata and the other

two revolutionaries are in the back and do not stand out a lot because they believed that by

fighting and killing others for their rights was the way to fix any problem. What I believe

what the painter is trying to tell us is that non-violence shows a better reflection of someone

when it come to a protest or fixing any problem that is why the painter put Cesar Chaves as

an example and made him stand out more in mural because he did not like any type of

violence in his protest with the UFW organization.

Although many people think that violence can solve any type of problem and they

think that by physical contact or verbally can fix the problem. I argue that non-violence is a

better way of fixing a problem because there are people that do not know how to control

their actions and it can get to the point that it can end with someone's life and it can cause a

lot of damage to any person. Anthony Ortega the painter of this mural lost one of his

friends due to an unnecessary a street fight. According to the Quetzalcoatl Mural Project is

giving us more information on why the painter painted the mural. The quote shows that

“Daniel Robles, who was killed by unnecessary street violence on July 2, 1995… [One of
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goals Daniel had was] to paint a series of murals and educate others about their cultural

heritage and historical contributions made by Mexican-Americans in the areas of

art”(Quetzalcoatl Mural Project). In addition what made Anthony paint this mural was

because that was one of the things his friend wanted to do and that gave him the chance to

express himself by showing that violence is not the right thing to do. Another thing that

helped him show non-violence on his mural was the characters he uses and how he made

the characters that use non-violence stand out more than the ones that use violence he put

them in a smaller shape.

Overall there are still people out in the word that think violence is the best way to

fix any problem; but I believe that violence is for people that do not know how to talk to

another person and fix the problem they had or they just don’t know to control their actions.

People should be able to control their actions instead of always wanting to get into a fight,

because is not that hard to talk to someone to solve an issue. It is much better to talk to

someone and fix the problem by talking then by getting into physical contact that can end in

a tragedy.
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Works Cited

“Meaning of Colors in Color Psychology.” Empowered By Color, www.empower-yourself-

with-color-psychology.com/meaning-of-colors.html.

“Quetzalcoatl Mural Project Organized by Anthony Ortega.” Gofundme.com,

www.gofundme.com/php2htac.

“The Story of Cesar Chavez.” UFW, ufw.org/research/history/story-cesar-chavez/.