After asking around about some unusual places to go visit, I heard about a place called the Tujunga Wash and the Great Wall of L.A. It was described to me as this old painting ‘they’ put up to keep kids from painting graffiti on the concrete, but kind of cool if you had the time. It didn’t sound very interesting at first, so I continued searching for something different. After a while, though, I realized that no one else had mentioned this place, so I decided to take a look. At my earliest opportunity, I journeyed to the San Fernando Valley where the Great Wall is located. As I got close, I noticed that the neighborhoods I was passing seemed to have a high level of ethnic diversity as I saw symbols from a number of different cultures and skin tones of a variety of colors everywhere I looked. I guess this surprised me because I had been thinking of the Great Wall of China, which was built to prevent ethnic mixing. Then I arrived at the wash that divides the neighborhoods and was surprised by what I found.
The wash is a manmade watershed control channel. For half a mile along the concrete of this semi-underground channel, there is a series of paintings side by side. All of these paintings seem to tell the story of a different part of history and focus on a minority group. Small little parks are located all along the entire length of the mural, giving people biking and walking trails for better exercise. These parks are great because they give people a reason to stop and look at the mural and perhaps understand a little bit more about what they’re trying to say. Since a lot of the images are complex, driving by and taking a quick glimpse is not sufficient for full appreciation. The first time I went there, the mural was nearly deserted, even though it was a sunny day. There was a mother and a small child walking along with one of the pathways and a guy riding a bike passed by me once. Both of them didn’t seem to pay any attention to the paintings on the wall. I thought this was a shame because I was able to learn a lot about California’s history just sitting there looking at one small section.
The panel I looked at the first time seemed to be telling me about Japanese people in California during wartime. I could see a dead tree, a broken-down automobile, a row of drab military-type poor housing with a watchtower leaning over it and a small group of people who are Japanese. It is obvious to me that the whole picture is intended to be taking place in the California desert, so this is something that once happened in this state. As I studied this picture, I gained a sense of what had happened. Instead of the growing life that trees usually represent, this picture had a dead tree, which meant that the Japanese were not able to grow their families and all their treasures had been taken away. I could see them piled up in the corner, far away from the people who had nothing. Nothing is growing, which means this was a bad time for all of America, but especially for these Japanese people. The wrecked car showed that everything had been broken, all the machines had stopped and America was broken. The bad housing made me think of military shelters and concentration camps. This impression was stronger when I noticed how the watchtower leaned over them like they were in a prison and had to be kept in line. There are warning signs posted that indicate they are very dangerous people and they must stay in place or they will be severely punished, but the people do not look very bad. There is a woman holding a very young child, an older woman, a young man holding a handkerchief to his nose and another man who is apparently a businessman. Old women and women with children are not usually considered dangerous in any way. The young man holding the handkerchief to his nose might be dangerous, but he seems somewhat weak in this position. The handkerchief could also be trying to tell me that this place does not smell so good. Businessmen are usually not fighters, they are negotiators. This panel ends with an unfriendly red color in the desert sky background dotted by large white stars which fades into blue and white stripes, which is a re-colored version of the American flag. These stripes then merge into the legs of Japanese soldiers saluting me as their audience as they fly over the California mountains and off to war. I understood very well that the fighting men of the Japanese American prisoners were actually all going off to fight the war for their country that was putting their relatives in prison. Then I saw the label for the painting that said it was about Japanese Internment Camps. When I came home, I looked it up and learned that much of what I thought about the painting just by looking at it as a historical fact.
This Great Wall, therefore, had a great fascination for me and I went back a second time. There were not many people there this time, but this was not surprising because it was cold and it had been raining. I realized that the last time I had seen the painting, it was covered with dust and dirt because the colors seemed brighter even though the sky was darker. Again, though, the people didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the paintings, just going about their own business. This time, I studied a panel that was labeled “The Development of Suburbia.” It starts with the picture of a big woman in a jumpsuit being sucked into a TV. She has dropped a big wrench trying to escape but she is almost halfway in already and she looks like she’s going to lose. I thought about women being sucked into the movies and this kind of made sense, but I decided to study the picture for more meaning. Behind the TV set, there is a perfect family and a steady line of moving vans coming into the picture from a faraway city. The perfect family is white with a mom, a dad, an older boy and a younger girl. The two girls have blonde hair, just like the movies always made them, and the two boys have dark hair. They are all dressed well in suits and dresses to show that they have money and possessions. So after the war was over, the working woman was sucked into the TV and made into a blonde woman living with her family in isolation on the very outskirts of the city. They were separated from the rest of the people, the people of color, by a deep ditch that kept the poor people away. The poor people can be seen moving in broken cars and trucks and on feet into the cities, led by the stretched-out promise of the American flag and tempted by what they see on their way. I thought about the way everyone seems to be trapped by what the TV tells us now and thought that this panel was probably very true as well.
Although most people seemed to pay almost no attention to this long painting, it is a shame because it has a lot to teach someone who just takes the time to look. The paintings are amazing by themselves and the feeling you get when you stand there is as if you are surrounded by culture. This is stronger if you notice the diversity of the neighborhoods. But the parks and pathways make it seem as if this would be a perfect place to hold special events and to celebrate the day. Some people may feel afraid to visit it because it is not somewhere they have been before, but my two visits were not dangerous. I was able to sit on a bench and just look at the paintings in as much time as I wanted. It is interesting to learn about the history of a place and this was more interesting because it was like a picture puzzle. I had to understand what the pictures were telling me and then I could understand the history of the people. The sad thing is thinking of how many people pass by this valuable landmark and don’t even notice it being there. It becomes covered with sand and pollution and is allowed to fade in the sun and still, no one takes an interest. It is important that more people see this treasure for what it is before it is washed away.