univisionnews:

Ramiro Gomez’s L.A. street art gives us something to think about

By EBONY MONTENEGRO

It’s Banksy’s public “guerilla” art with a touch of Diego Rivera’s social realism on the streets of Beverly Hills. With that in mind you can begin to understand artist Ramiro Gomez’s vision.

In a recent interview with Jorge Rivas of Colorlines.com, the Los Angeles native spoke about his work.

Gomez creates cardboard cut-out paintings of labor workers and peppers them on the lawns and homes throughout affluent Beverly Hills. As a nanny, artist Gomez wants more than anything to spur conversation around “illegal immigrants,” and draw attention to the headlines about the Arizona and Alabama  legislatures’ immigration rulings.

To see more from Gomez, check out his blog.

univisionnews:

20 years later, children of the L.A. Riots remember the chaos

By JORGE RIVAS

Throughout the past month I’ve seen hundreds of news stories on the L.A. Riots and almost every single one of them was published by someone who experienced the events of 1992 as an adult. But we haven’t heard anything from the perspective of children who lived through the civil unrest and remember the chaos.

I was 9 years old and living just a mile away from the intersection of Normadie and Florence where Reginald Denny was pulled out of a trailer and brutally beaten. I was only a child, but to this day have vivid memories of the events that took place and know that there were thousands like me who had stories to share.

Throughout the past month I’ve been meeting with men and women my age — the children that experienced the L.A. Riots — and recording their stories. Above is one video that is part of the series I made for Colorlines.com.  Edson was ten in 1992. He remembers his cousins and siblings clinging on to the men in the family as they left to protect their store from looting.

Visit Colorlines.com/1992 to see full series “Two Decades Later, Children of the L.A. Riots Share Memories.”

This article is cross-posted from Colorlines.com, where Jorge Rivas is Multimedia Editor / Pop Culture Blogger .

(via two-real)