The Mission Lands by Barbara Desiderato

The Mission Lands

SF, California, USA

Font: Titillium Web (Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino, 2008) Page size: mm 297x210 Grid system: 6 columns, mm 5 gutter

Someone called my name you know,

I turned around to see it was midnight in the

Mission

and the bells were not for me Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter, Mission in the Rain (1976)

The Mission Lands

37.76°N 122.42°W

The Mission District is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California originally known as “the Mission lands” meaning the lands belonging to the Mission San Francisco de Asis. This mission, San Francisco’s oldest standing building, is still located in the northwest area of the neighborhood.

of the time created community based arts organizations that were reflective of the Latino aesthetic and cultural traditions. Among those, the Mission’s Galería de la Raza, founded by local artists active in El Movimiento (the Chicano civil rights movement), is a nationally recognized arts organization, also founded during this time of cultural renaissance in the Mission, in 1971.

The Mission is often warmer and sunnier than other parts of San Francisco. The Mission’s geographical location insulates it from the fog and wind from the west. This phenomenon becomes apparent to visitors who walk downhill from 24th Street in the west from Noe Valley (where clouds from Twin Peaks in the west tend to accumulate on foggy days) towards Mission Street in the east, partly because Noe Valley is on higher ground whereas the Inner Mission is at a lower elevation.

Due to the existing cultural attractions, formerly less expensive housing, the Mission is a magnet for young people. An independent arts community also arose and, since the 1990s, the area has been home to the Mission School art movement. Many studios, galleries, performance spaces, and public art projects are located in the Mission including the oldest, alternative, notfor-profit art space in the city of San Francisco, Intersection for the Arts.

Numerous Latino artistic and cultural institutions are based in the Mission. These organizations were founded during the social and cultural renaissance of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Latino community artists and activists

Poets, musicians, emcees, and other artists still sometimes gather on the southwest corner of the 16th and Mission intersection to perform.

Native Peoples and Spanish Colonization

Coyote, Hummingbird, and Eagle Prior to the arrival of Spanish missionaries, the area which now includes the Mission District was inhabited by the Ohlone people who populated much of the San Francisco bay area. The Yelamu Indians inhabited the region for over 2,000 years. Spanish missionaries arrived in the area during the late 18th century. They found these people living in two villages on Mission Creek. It was here that a Spanish priest named Father Francisco Palรณu founded Mission San Francisco de Asis on June 29, 1776. The Mission was moved from the shore of Laguna Dolores to its current location in 1783. Franciscan friars are reported to have used Ohlone slave labor to complete the Mission in 1791. This period marked the beginning of the end of the Yelamu culture. The Indian population at Mission Dolores dropped from 400 to 50 between 1833 and 1841.

Ohlone mythology stories mention that the world was entirely covered in water, apart from a single peak, Pico Blanco near Big Sur on which Coyote, Hummingbird, and Eagle stood.

Chicana and Chicano Art: ProtestArte Public art that represents the community’s history & culture Throughout the Mission, walls and fences are decorated with murals initiated by the Chicano Art Mural Movement of the 1970s and inspired by the traditional Mexican paintings made famous by Diego Rivera. Some of the most significant murals are now located on Balmy and Clarion Alley. Many of these murals have been painted or supported by the Precita Eyes muralist organization. The organization evolved from a community mural workshop in which the participants designed and painted the portable mural “Masks of God, Soul of Man” for the Bernal Heights Library. The name of the organization comes from the fact that most of the muralists were from Precita Valley. Precita is a diminutive form of the Spanish word ‘presa,’ which means dam; the word ‘Precita’ means little dam. The ‘Eyes’ in the name are what we perceive the visual world with, our own eyes. After the first mural, the group of artists continued to be interested in creating

El Movimiento was a sociopolitical movement by

Mexican-Americans

organizing into a unified voice to create change for their people

Murals are an expression of the culture of the neighborhood

murals. They completed two major mural commissions and several more portable. Many of these murals have been painted or supported by the Precita Eyes muralist organization. The organization evolved from a community mural workshop in which the participants designed and painted the portable mural “Masks of God, Soul of Man” for the Bernal Heights Library. The name of the organization comes from the fact that most of the muralists were from Precita Valley. Precita is a diminutive form of the Spanish word ‘presa,’ which means dam; the word ‘Precita’ means little dam. The ‘Eyes’ in the name are what we perceive the visual world with, our own eyes. As of 2007, Precita Eyes had supported nearly 100 murals in the Mission neighborhood. Muralist Juana Alicia Montoya said “In the 1960s and ‘70s, the Mission District became the cultural heart of the Chicano movement in California...And the murals were an integral part of that movement, as was theater and poetry”. In the book Chicana and Chicano Art: ProtestArte you can read “Arts organizations such as Precita Eyes continue to support Chicano muralism’s original objective: to create public art that authentically represents a community’s history and culture.” 11

MaestraPeace

Painted by seven women artists including, Juana Alicia, Miranda Bergman, Edythe Boone, Susan Kelk Cervantes (co-founder of Precita Eyes Muralists Association), Meera Desai, Yvonne Littleton and Irene Perez along with their helpers and volunteers in 1994, the mural titled MaestraPeace covers both the outside of The Women’s Building as well as the interior entrance hall and stairway. It features images of feminine icons from history and fiction, and the names of more than six hundreds women written in calligraphy. According to the San Francisco Women’s Center, “This spectacular mural is a culmination of a multi-cultural, multi-generation collaboration of seven women artists, and a colorful work of art that sings to our community.”

In the late 1970s the Valencia Street corridor had a lively punk nightlife.

The former fire station on 16th Street, called the Compound, sported what was commonly referred to as “the punk mall”, an establishment that catered to punk style and culture. On South Van Ness, Target Video and Damage magazine were located in a three-story warehouse. The neighborhood was dubbed “the New Bohemia” by the San Francisco Chronicle in 1995.

New Bohemia

The former Hamms brewery was converted to a punk living and rehearsal building, by all popularly known as The Vats.

The World Upside Down Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a stra-a-a-nge world weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re living here Where fat buzzards perch on trees

Alejandro Murguía: the voice of La Misión Murguía was named San Francisco Poet Laureate in 2012. “It’s like John Steinbeck writing about Cannery Row,” he says. “His sense of telling stories about the everyday people of California; that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m not ‘documenting’ the Mission. I just write about it because it’s home... And it’s the people that make it home.” Murguía writes love poems, but none for the police.

The Missionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history is inextricably linked to displacement and struggle is at the heart - el CorazĂłn - of the Mission.

“I think 24th Street will be a protected, cultural corridor. The sidewalks are too narrow now, yes? But it will become a pedestrian walkway.” Murguía pauses, as if laying it all out in his mind.”

It will be this vibrant artery of bookstores, print shops, publishing houses.

The Mission’s history is inextricably linked to displacement. From the indigenous Raymaytush tribe dislodged from land here, to the Mexican residents of a barrio disrupted by the Bay Bridge and emptied into the Mission, to the exiled revolutionaries who found refuge on 24th Street, Murguía sees struggle at the heart - el Corazón - of the Mission. “I have three kids, and two of them are young men,” says Mission resident. Her family has owned a home in the neighborhood for generations. “My sons, they are 24 and 20. They’re good boys, like he was.” She gestures to the screen where home videos of Alejandro Nieto have just played. The 28-year-old was shoot dead by the San Francisco Police Department. “I worry for the one day, the one interaction with police, the one misunderstanding. It’s terrifying to be a mother of a young man of color in the Mission.”

i joined the spray-paint visionary setting fire to the word and I knew this was the last call

â&#x20AC;Ś

and we were going to stay angry and we were not ever leaving not ever leaving

Alejandro MurguĂa

Since 1970s, poets, musicians, emcees, and other artists still gather on the southwest corner of the 16th and Mission intersection to perform.