Fillipinotown Has Something To Say

Historic Filipinotown is an unassuming neighborhood that stretches from the outskirts of the rustle and scramble of downtown LA to the beginnings of Echo Park. It is a community that is lively, vibrant, but often driven through. The first thing one typically hears when speaking on Filipino Town is ,"Where is that again?" or " I've never hear of that place" despite the large sign that welcomes drivers into fillipino town upon entering from downtown (See figure A).

This signage is named "Talang Gabay: Our Guiding Star" and is a multilane sign that stretches over 30 feet tall and spans over 82 feet wide. This Signage was erected in 2022 and is a staunch reminder of the often overlooked history of Filipino Americans in Los Angeles. The area was dubbed “Historic Filipinotown” in 2002 and later the City of Los Angeles commissioned artists Eliseo Art Silva and Celestino Geronimo Jr. to create a sign to commemorate an area with little cultural visibility other than a namesake. The signage includes symbols of filipino heritage such as the hibiscus flower, the Sarimanok bird, and nautical motifs to symbolize safe passage and honoring of traditional filipino motifs. The sign is an excellent showcase of filipino heritage and showcases reverence for cultural history in a neighborhood with rapidly changing demographics. Filipinotown is unfortunately a stones throw away from Echo Park, and with comes the gentrification and cultural erasure we’ve seen in that neighborhood. Public Art works like this harken back to the people who built the communities that gentrification agents find desirable, this is Historic Filipinotown, and thus must be honored for what it means for the culture. This sign is a demand for cultural visibility and it is one that is done with elegance, reverence for the past, and one that will stand the test of time.

Figure A, Historic Filipinotown Sign

A trip underneath the bridge that Filipinotown sign welcomes drivers to is another significant work of public ar that has unfortunately seen brighter days. The La Offrenda Mural is a piece painted by Yreina Cervantez in 1989, depicting Dolores Huerta alongside Latin American refugees and farmworkers. It honors the everyday people who shaped the landscape of the Los Angeles we know today and the stories they carried with them. It depicts a moment of Chicano history that is inexplicably intertwined with Filipino and Los Angeles history as a whole. As the neighborhoods in Los Angeles are increasingly gentrified, pieces like this stand to remind the community what it should stand for. These are the people who built these communities, they deserve to be remembered with grace. Unfortunately, this mural is repeatedly hit by graffiti and vandalized time and time again, disrespecting a piece that deserves to stand proudly after all these years. There is an ongoing restoration effort to preserve this piece, with teams of conservationists routinely maintaining the surface of the artwork. The piece is protected by a coating of MuralShield, which allows graffiti to be removed without harming the painting underneath. The restoration effort for this piece shows how the community is committed to preserving history and how we choose to remember those who came before by enshrining their efforts to uplift and adorn the community.

La Ofrenda Mural Currently Vandalized

La Ofrenda Mural Unpainted

Graffiti stands as Historic Filipinotowns biggest artwork of all. It stretched all over the bridge that greets visitors, speckling the walls, signs, and buildings that make up this great neighborhood. I personally am a huge advocate for graffiti, I feel it is the heart and soul of a community, and if people feel strongly enough about a place to adorn it, it deserves to be celebrated as the cultural hub that it is. The streets surrounding the entrance to Filipino town are littered with bright, bold pieces that capture the eye. Most are unwelcomed additions to surrounding businesses and city infrastructure, but are nonetheless striking visual representations of a living city. These graffiti writers show that people live here, and that there are enough eyes on this part of town to warrant getting their names up.

Front of the old Bob Baker Marionte Theater
(OZZY Tag)

Side of the old Bob Baker Marionte Theater
(WBS Tag)

Underneath of bridge that leads to Filipino Town Sign
(MTA Tag)

The Graffiti of this neighborhood captures the area as it is today. It gives voice to the people willing to take the city's visual language into their own hands. Areas like this are carved up by private equity that desecrates historic neighborhoods. Graffiti allows to the people to speak. With a landscape that is constantly changing like the one here in Filipinotown, those voices need to be heard. Walls can be buffed, but people cannot. Filipino town is a large melting pot that is in the process of changing. Grafitti, speaks to this change, it isn't a permanent monument, and that's the point. It speaks to the fluid nature of the neighborhood and shows that this is a place that has the capacity to change, but will never be forgotten.

Further down Glendale is a hidden gem that speaks to the heart of Filipino town. A place formerly known as the ,"Creepy Stairs" is now a native wildlife hub that boasts a running fountain. The Hifi Stairs is a community ran public space that transformed an ordinary hillside staircase into an urban oasis. These stairs are now a third space that host plants, a community book box, and seating to enjoy the wonderful views of Filipino town. This place was built to have community members stop and stay rather than just pass through. The Hifi Stairs shows Filipino town's commitment to community led constructs that thrive off of the work of local artists, gardeners, and craftsmen that have all worked together to create a space that directly benefits the community. This space is home to annual cook offs where people from all around the community are invited to come and enjoy the space. This space goes to show how neglected infrastructure can serve as a site of community building, fostering a sense of place through devoted work to a cause. This area is both park and artwork, it has countless reclaimed pieces of furniture and garden installations that reflect the do it yourself nature of the hilside park. I love this place and its often the first spot I show people, I feel the love every time I set foot in the park and it reminds me of the beauty of community.

The entrance to Historic Filipinotown is home to a high density hub of public art works that speak to a neighborhood that is very much alive. In a neighborhood where a multigenerational home can sit next to the newest hipster concrete slab coffee shop, this is bound to be a plethora of expression through art. Pieces like the Ofrenda or the Filipinotown sign speak to the past. It speaks to the people that have remained in this space and have raised families that aren't going anywhere. These pieces inspire pride and showcase a past that deserves to be remembered. The graffiti and the hillside park speak to the future, and the possible clash of old vs new. Where the hillside park took an abandoned plot of public land and transformed it into a vessel of community, the graffiti that stretches far and wide oftentimes hits a place that doesn't deserve to be covered up. For every wondrous display of artistic line and form found in a work of graffiti, there is a tag covers a mural. Sometimes in changing the landscape we hit something that might not mean something to one person, but might mean the world to another. Just graffiti can get out of hand, so can the altering of the community through gentrification. This project made me face my community head on. For every wonderful piece of work that inspires hope, there is a mural for a hipster coffee chain. For every family led business that has stimulated the local economy, there is private equity business firms that fund fine dining restaurants that serve no one but those pass through Filipinotown. The entrance to Filipinotown is more than a point on a map, it is a living archive of those who built this place, and will continue to build what this place will become, for better, or worse.