The Closing Of Whittier Blvd Analysis

During the 20th-century, police brutality played a significant role in historical events from the Civil Rights Movement to both Los Angeles riots. Like with most cultural historic moments, art comes about to express the thoughts and tell the stories of those who otherwise might not have a voice. Artist Frank Romero was one of those people who used art to create a voice for himself by painting on a canvas to murals across Los Angeles—and sparking what would be the Chicano movement. Growing up in East Los Angeles, Frank Romero was front and center to countless civil rights violations by the Los Angeles Police Department(LAPD), one being the violation of over a hundred thousand people—mainly Chicano—in his painting “The Closing of Whittier Blvd”

(1984), which depicts the repressive crackdown on “cruising”— driving around aimlessly for fun with a group of friends—that had become a part of Chicano culture, by closing Whittier Boulevard a main street in East Los Angeles around the time of the Watts riots and into the 1970s. The LAPD’s actions were not only legally questionable, they were another attempt at repression of the Chicano community and movement that—among other groups of ethnic and racial minorities communities— has a long history of conflict, in this situation it was by making the Chicano people the Prisoners of their neighborhoods and the LAPD the Prison Guard.
Frank Romero’s “The Closing of Whittier Blvd” was a snapshot of how the Latino people were treated by the LAPD.

The years of injustices at the LAPD came to a head-on August 29, 1970, during an anti-Vietnam war protest went from a peaceful assembly of the Latino community until a disturbance made the LAPD spring into action to “keep the peace” — through violent means, according to Edward J. Escobar by employing tactics to like “... [charging] the crowd, shooting tear gas, and beating fleeing demonstrators with nightsticks.” (Escobar Par 2), to make crowds disperse which — unsurprisingly — caused panic which induced chaos. Up until the police had overreacted to a peaceful demonstration of civil disobedience and gathering of Chicanos against the government’s actions in Vietnam, there was nothing illegal being done, the only offense the protestors had committed was going against the government. Once the dust settled, police had arrested over one hundred people, forty people injured, and three lay dead or dying. One of the dead was Ruben Salazar (Escobar Par 2). Salazar was journalist killed by a tear gas canister was made a martyr who died at the hands of the LAPD because of his history of giving voices to the more vocal critics of the police. His death was used by Mexican-American activists who referred to themselves as Chicanos. The Chicano movement was in its infancy but was quickly growing because the tension between the LAPD and the Latino community was no longer one sided, the Chicano side was now organizing to fight for their rights, but the LAPD being the authority still had the upper-hand. According to Edward Escobar the LAPD engaged in intimidation tactics, investigations, and smear tactics to undermine the movement, but is was to no avail (Escobar Par 5). There did not result in a single successful prosecution of a major Chicano movement figure (Escobar Par 27). The police not only suppressed the Chicano community by trying the bring down the full power of

the law on the blooming Chicano Movement, and they could not stop the movement because the facts of the situation were that the
movement was not only not a criminal movement nor was founded on a false premise with insidious motives, it was the push back that was necessary. The effects of these fostered an actual adversarial relationship between the police and the Chicano people, that created an environment that wouldn’t allow an injustice like “The Closing of Whittier Blvd”, that may have gone unseen had it not been for people like Frank Romero who took it upon himself to document these events with art to paint a picture worth a thousand words.
In the “The Closing of Whittier Blvd.” Frank Romero’s artistic style leaves the observer with, as Josef Woodard called it “a palpable impression of joy, flamboyance and intensity” (Woodard Par 4). Romero’s art on the surface is usually positive in tone with his use of bright colored cityscapes, cars, and backgrounds; however, in “The Closing of Whittier Blvd”, there are details in the drawings of the cars that make them cool looking cars — which is part of his style; however, he deviated a bit from his usual style, he drew the neighborhood pitch black, using only headlights, streetlights, and the movie theater in the background as the only sources of light. The use of the competing forces of vibrant colored civilian vehicles with dark and muddy colored police officers’ paints makes the Chicanos — or rather, the cars positively because the people are waiting patiently in their cars, while giving the officer a bit more ominous by making the officers uniform and faceless — almost dehumanizing the officers. It makes the officers look like the sole aggressors, and the “actual people” are just in their cars waiting patiently waiting to pass but are being stopped by the figure in the middle of them.
While the tone of the painting is set by Romero’s choice of color and detail, the message is delivered by the thing in the middle of the both parties: an officer on horseback with a lance. Josef Woodard wrote in the Los Angeles Times of the painting, “A brace of policemen keeping out pesky would-be cruisers in "The Closing of Whittier Blvd." look like the Gestapo, a seriocomic approach. Elsewhere, freeway traffic is viewed as a big, happy, kinetic mess” (Woodard Par 15). Romero’s image of a police officer on horseback in the center of the painting holding a lance is the loudest use of imagery in the painting, it delivers Romero’s feelings about the situation to the observer. The imagery is reminiscent of the prototypical hero riding in on his mighty steed to save the needy and disenfranchised, but in this painting, use of it seems to be used to depict the absurdity of the crackdown because of the “deceptive-casualness”, as Woodard called it in the same piece, an officer on a horse with lance is the only thing that jumps off the canvas (Woodard par #). The cars being stopped by a border could be dismissed as cops just closing a street because there might have been a car accident —or maybe they’re filming a movie- put into proper context with the police officer on a horse it plants the seed of skepticism. The image references the Mexican-American war with “An officer on horseback holds a spear, a reference to conquistadors” according to Scarlet Cheng in an LA times piece (Cheng Par 22). Another inference that could be made of the imagery is that it is reminiscent of the current state of Mexican-American immigration and relations from the Chicanos trying to enjoy themselves—or going towards something better if you will—without hurting anyone, but being stopped by police on a border with one heroic cop that has creeped into their territory and deemed himself ruler of the land. So, the image is charged with symbolism that depicts the history of the Latino community as well as with their ancestors to relate the injustice that is occurring with the historical conflict to draw parallels in the mind of the observer, so they could understand his stories and experiences.
Frank Romero art is largely based on his experiences growing up in a minority community and Chicano culture. He a member of a group of artists named “Los Four”, who are known as the people responsible for helping push the Chicano movement forward and into the mainstream with their art and activism. Romero’s collection of artwork is about of range of issues and topics, but the one central theme that he has tied into it all is the struggle of Chicano people and their culture. From the Mexican mythology to Chicano car culture all the way to the LAPD tensions that have historically existed in communities like the one he grew up in. He went through a series of phases in his focuses, the LAPD tensions with L.A. communities being a major one. The Chicano movement was born out of the divide created by authorities by the mistreatment of Latinos in the area. Growing up in East Los Angeles Frank Romero was no stranger to police brutality, he even went so far as to say, “That’s part of life in L.A., this threat of police brutality” (Cheng Par 23). He lived through the death of Ruben Salazar and depicted it in an eponymously titled painting, and the growth of the Chicano movement proceeding it. He lived through the actual closing of Whittier Blvd. Frank Romero saw firsthand the way police treated Chicanos in the area. Romero even said in an interview with Scarlett Cheng that “I’m a Historian, in that funny kind of way” (Cheng Par 30). His passion for Mexican-American culture part-in-parcel with his firsthand experience gives him a unique perspective that could have otherwise been missed without his art or the influence it brought him. His artwork manifested itself as a force of resistance against the Chicano repression by the police by writing —what probably would have been—the untold story of the Chicano people.
Frank Romero’s “The Closing of Whittier Blvd” gives the observer a snapshot into living in East Los Angeles through the prism of police brutality and attempt at repression that propels the Chicano movement forward with the death of Ruben Salazar. Romero uses his — at the time— already established style along with the imagery of the officer on horse with a lance to draw imagery to several possible references including the Conquistadors and the prototypical hero come into town on his mighty steed to rescue the disenfranchised, only in this case he does not use it an archetype to set up the hero of the story, he uses it in an ironic sense to point out the idiocy and barbarity of the situations. Frank Romero’s experiences living in the communities afflicted by these problems and as a leader of the Chicano movement, give him and his artwork a unique perspective that shows the illegality and immoral nature of Chicano repression by the LAPD.