👀 Finding Hope in Minnesota's Murals

When my mother-in-law died and we had to empty her apartment, I was tempted to commit public theft. As I piled things on the sidewalk waiting for the movers, I spotted a gorgeous piece of sculpture—a little dented, clearly abandoned. It was a fiberglass Linus Van Pelt wearing a sarape instead of his iconic blanket and a big, chipped sombrero. I measured the piece and determined it was too big to fit into the U-Haul container. Sadly, I left it to find its luck, knowing I would never see it again.

Following Charles Schulz's passing in 2000, a heartwarming tribute unfolded across the Twin Cities, with over 100 larger-than-life sculptures of his beloved characters gracing the cityscape. In my late mother-in-law's West Side neighborhood, the Peanuts characters sport sombreros as a nod to the area's vibrant Mexican community.

Mexican and Mexican American migration to the Midwest dates to the 1920s and 1930s, when laborers moved north to work on sugar beet farms. Over time, they set down roots in Minnesota communities—particularly St. Paul's West Side, which offered jobs in meatpacking and the railroad industry.

Inspired by the Chicano movement in the 1960s, many artists spoke to business owners and decorated the walls of the neighborhood. Colorful murals painted by people who decided to portray themselves, to affirm their presence. "A mural has to live in a place and with a people, and it has to be a smoking mirror to their existence," says artist Jimmy Longoria in this interview.

There's a mural outside the Boca Chica, restaurant that always strikes me as powerful and emblematic. It stands out for its gray, dramatic color palette. It depicts a tragic fight between a conquistador on a horse and an Eagle Warrior, each pushing their spear into the other, causing tremendous damage. The image is a variation of Jorge González Camarena's mural at Mexico's National Museum of History, The Fusion of Two Cultures.

I couldn't find the name of the artist who painted Boca Chica's mural, but the message still resonates universally: the clash of cultures is bloody and atrocious. It's an imbalance of power and forces, a fight for assertion and survival. But as painful as it is, we're the result of that fight. And we have our say on its outcome.

Do we want our walls to divide us, or to carry our stories of struggle and resilience?