Walking her six-year-old son to school on Wednesday, Sandra Sandoval stopped, alarmed, by the graffiti on a mural outside La Gallinita market on 24th street. Vandalism is common, but this was different, she said. The tag read: “White Power.”
“I cried and was so angry to wake up to this!” Sandoval wrote in an email adding that she was born and raised here, but had never seen anything like that and it was the second time this week she saw the tag. The first was near the McDonald’s on 24th Street – only that one also included a swastika.
Cindy De Losa, a store manager at Precita Eyes Mural Arts Center on 24th Street, said the new mural at 24th and South Van Ness of a beloved radio hostess Chata Gutierrez who died of cancer was also tagged with the supremacist message.
“The scaffold isn’t even down, and they tagged it,” she said.
“I’ve been here since 1975. Everything has happened,” said Salvador Vasquez, the owner of La Gallinita, referring to the constant stream of graffiti on his building. “But to put it directly on a mural – it’s the first time I’ve seen that.”
The mural showing Juan Diego receiving a miracle from the Virgin of Guadalupe has evaded vandalism because of its religious nature, he said.
After they noticed it this morning, Vasquez said a Precita Eyes volunteer came and washed off the graffiti, although some black marks remain.
“I hope that it was only once,” said Vasquez. If it happens again, he said, he might have to install a camera — although for many businesses, said De Losa, that solution is too costly.
Fred Alvarado, who also works at Precita Eyes, said that the tags appeared amateurish.
“It could be a juvenile attempt to voice out identity and deal with whatever non-privilege or privilege they have,” he said.
I saw her tagging a BART station. Latina in a wheelchair. I guess that explains the low height of her tag on the La Gallinta mural. I snapped a photo of her in action. She gave me a smirk, like she knows she is getting everyone heated up, and is laughing at us. The BART attendant called BART police, but I had to go and don’t know what happened to her after that.
I got my low rider mural on 24th and Folsom (exactly 1 block away from this beautiful mural) tagged on by a hate crime that read, “white power” also. After thinking that this tagger is a big white dude with a shaved head… We just Found out that she is in a wheelchair! She looks Caucasian/Latino and she’s about 30 years old. She also hit most of the murals in the mission with “white power”… Wth? It’s a hate crime. Federal crime.
I’ve seen this tag in the Excelsior recently. One is on a “live life love” mural on Mission near Geneva & another is on a fire hydrant a little further down the street.
Yes ; my name is Laura Campos aka ” Alien love ” Mission muralist ; I have painted over 40 murals in SF I also painted the mural at ” La Gallinita” on 24 th and Harrison ” Juan Diego y la Virgen ” it was a gift for the neighborhood , I put it up the night before her Bday Dic 12,, I’m very disappointed with all the destruction going on in the neighborhood ; buildings on fire , racist tags , cops killing black and brown people , what is going on in Amerikkka aren’t you supposed to move forward ??
I’m presently working on mural projects in Europe .. Sending lots of healing light and LOVE to the Mission..