"And The Earth Did Not Swallow Them Mural"
© 2015 Precita Eyes Muralists

12’ x 12’, acrylic
Mural Director: Fred Alvarado, Suaro Cervantes, Marina Perez- Wong, Max Allbee
Location: The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

Description

“And The Earth Did Not Swallow Them” is the title of a temporary mural painted at the James T Gallery in the City University of New York’s Graduate Center. The title is lifted from Tomas Rivera’s book entitled Ey No Se Lo Trago La Tierra”. The book tells the tale of an immigrant farm working family in the 1950’s United States. While the book dealt with the issues and concerns of that time, the book’s title and story reminds one that although marginalized and almost forgotten, the memories live on or like a saying coming out of Mexico in 2014 regarding the disappearance of 43 student teachers in Ayotzinapa, they tried to bury us but they did not know that we were seeds. This holds true to victims of police terror, displacement, and genocide in San Francisco, New York, and the world. Through our activism and search for justice the memories of past injustices serve as fuel for contemporary and future generations in the fight for balance, equity, justice, and the decolonization of the mind and body. The iconography of the mural, starting from the top to the bottom, is made up of portraits of Trayvon Martin and Alex Nieto, two of the many victims of police violence in the United States. Trayvon and Alex are holding their arms up as a reference to the popular protest movements of Black Lives Matter, Brown Lives Matter, and All Lives Matter. A b-girl holding a breakdancing pose on the top of the turtle shows hope in creativity and freedom of expression. On either side of the turtle, architecture and signs playfully engage the issue of gentrification effecting neighborhoods on the East and West coast. The central image of the mural, a turtle, is a symbol of Earth and specifically North America, a reference to The term Turtle Island, universally used as a name for North America by it’s Native people. The turtle is a symbol of the Earth living, moving, breathing and supporting, a reminder of the connectedness of the living planet and our effects on it. ”Presente” is included as a word play on a popular chant remembering those who have passed, as in “Those we have lost are Present”. The mural includes an indigenous women from Guatemala riding a bicycle rigged up with a people powered blender and record player. She is a symbol of the intrinsic and necessary force of femininity, healthy living, and love, an attempt at providing solutions to our movement forward. A movement of solidarity that includes the memories of our ancestors and the present day inclusion of our great, wonderful, and diverse cultures.