“In a city where these youth are marginalised, ostracized, and invisibilized, graffiti is a way for them to become visible,” Illescas said. But graffiti allows Black and Latino young men to transform these areas into spaces of congregation and empowerment. Some of the most popular graffiti yards in Los Angeles are abandoned spaces in communities of color that neither the economy nor the city has been willing to invest in, he says. In fact, now, as a doctoral candidate in Latin American and Latino Studies, his dissertation research has taken him back to Los Angeles, where he gathered insights from current and former graffiti writers about how their work connects with concepts of art, identity, culture, and space.įor those who create it, graffiti is an expression of identity and an outlet for creativity, social connection, and achievement, according to Illescas’s research. He has since given it up, but he never lost his initial sense of curiosity and admiration. Illescas became a graffiti writer himself, for a time. And, eventually, he started writing back.
Little by little, he began to understand the meanings behind some of these messages.
They were written on walls and scrawled daringly across billboards. In his urban environment, he found himself surrounded by beautiful, cryptic messages.
He had migrated to the city with his mother and brother from Ecuador in the 1990s as part of a large Latin American diaspora. Ismael Illescas grew up admiring the graffiti around his neighborhood in Los Angeles.
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