Mural Background

"Historic Filipinotown"

Off the 101 freeway, nestled between Temple Street and Beverly Boulevard, lies roughly twenty blocks of Los Angeles called “Historic Filipinotown.” In this neighborhood, there is a Jollibee (a popular Filipino fast-food chain)—among taco trucks, tamale joints, and American grills—a Korean market, a public high school, and St. Columban Catholic Church. If you’re driving too fast down the main boulevard, you might miss, arguably, the most Filipino establishment in Historic Filipinotown: Unidad Park and the “Gintong Kasaysayan, Gintong Panama” mural. In English, the mural is officially titled, “Filipino Americans: A Glorious History, A Golden Legacy.” The mural depicts thousands of years of key events on US and Philippine soil—from wars and labor strikes, to award ceremonies and celebrated authorships—with the Pacific Ocean as a geographic mediator. Spanning a wall 20 feet high and 145 feet long, the “Gintong Kasaysayan, Gintong Pamana” mural is the first ever memorial to honor the Filipino American farmworkers and the largest Filipino mural in the United States.

A space that invites recollection is Unidad Park and the “Glorious History, Golden Legacy” mural. Opened as a community space in 1995, Unidad Park consists of a playground and seating areas, set against the mural. [This slide gives you an idea of Filipinotown’s demographics, which we can return to if anyone is interested later.] To contextualize its immediate audience and accessibility, we can note that the mural’s primary audiences are Historic Filipinotown’s community groups. Far from major LA locals, the park is most used by the neighborhood council, the festival committee, and local nonprofit organizations such as PWC and SIPA. The space also hosts Pilipino Cultural Nights—stage performances featuring dance and music—making the space home to an ongoing cultural form. Even though the mural was featured at renowned American museums—the Smithsonian and the LACMA, for example—it was a challenge to find scholarly criticism of Silva’s piece. Outside of its physical space, information about the mural, its significance, artistry, and history, is limited.

But looking at the mural in person, one is struck by its expansiveness—its size and ambitious project—as it spans from 5000 BC to the present. Reading the mural left to right, the narrative begins on the islands. The events and figures overlap, creating an imbricated chronology. On the far left, among the rice terraces of the Cordilleras, is Lapu Lapu, a chief who resisted early colonization (c.1540). Then, martyred nationalist José Rizal (c.1890), superimposed over a pre-Spanish, Visayan pot. Transitioning to American soil, the mural features a Manila Galleon—a transpacific trade ship that carried goods between China, the Philippines, and Mexico during Spanish rule (date). Below the oceanic space, are farm workers toiling in fields and to their right, the Bataan Death March of World War II. Hereafter, the faces become more plentiful: labor movement activists Vera Cruz and Itliong, Olympic gold medalist Victoria Manalo Draves, actor and singer Lea Salonga, and even beloved runner up on Season 11 of American Idol, Jessica Sanchez.