His César Chávez murals have been Eastside landmarks for decades

The side of the Maravilla Meat Market in East Los Angeles serves as muralist J.D. “Zender” Estrada’s own “little museum,” he said —  a collection of his life’s work as a Chicano artist.  

On one side, the 2004 mural “Homage to Mexican Masters” depicts various Mexican artists from the early to mid-20th century gathered around a table. Around the corner, his 1995 piece “Raza Adelante” honors the Chicano movement, featuring Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, a female Brown Beret, various Aztec motifs, and a heroic-looking César Chávez, leading the way with a candle.

For years, Estrada has maintained the murals himself, restoring damage from weather and graffiti. But recent sexual abuse allegations against Chávez have forced him to reflect on how movements and the people associated with them are memorialized. 

“If you look at the murals in context, most of the murals have a lot to do with culture and struggle and resistance,” Estrada said. 

The Chávez figure, he noted, was part of a larger narrative. It was commissioned by the Cesar Chavez Foundation in 1994, the same day that Brooklyn Avenue was renamed Cesar E. Chavez Avenue, to highlight the Chicano movement and its ties to the Eastside.

Following the New York Times investigation involving Chávez, public officials across LA County sprang into action, calling for changes to public landmarks, parks, street names and holidays that honor the labor leader. Across the state, some Chávez murals have been swiftly covered or painted over and statues have been removed. 

Estrada, however, said any changes should be collaborative and handled with care to preserve the artwork’s original intent and resolve the scars left behind by Chávez’s tarnished legacy. 

How are murals protected?

In addition to the mural at Maravilla Meat Market in unincorporated East LA, Estrada created several across the Eastside for the Cesar Chavez Foundation, though many have since been erased or painted over.

In Boyle Heights, within the city of Los Angeles, his 1994 mural “Rescate” remains on the corner of East Cesar Chavez Avenue at North Evergreen Avenue, depicting Chávez carrying a group of people while holding a United Farm Workers flag.

The side of the Maravilla Meat Market in East Los Angeles serves as muralist J.D. “Zender” Estrada’s own “little museum,” he said — a collection of his life’s work as a Chicano artist.

“Rescate” is considered a Vintage Original Art Mural (VAM) under the City of Los Angeles’s 2013 Mural Ordinance, which lifted a 2002 ban on murals on private property. The ordinance gave artists the ability to register their previous works and apply to create new ones. Any mural created before October 12, 2013, was automatically protected under the ordinance.

The ordinance directs that any major change to a registered mural must first be approved by the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs, even if it is submitted by the artist themselves, Estrada said.

Most of his works, even those not located in the city, are protected under the Visual Artists’ Rights Act (VARA), a federal law that grants artists certain rights over their work regardless of who owns it. Those changes, like touch-ups over time or restorations after they are vandalized, come out of his own pocket, Estrada said. 

Both the city and the county are exploring ways to assess changes to public property that bears the name or image of Chávez following the investigation, but those efforts do not include either of Estrada’s murals, which are located on private businesses.

At the county level, the LA County Board of Supervisors approved a motion Tuesday “to develop a community-driven process to review and rename County assets that currently bear Chavez’s name,” including civic artwork, or artwork located on county property. A report is due within 21 days.

In a statement to Boyle Heights Beat, the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs said it could not comment on legal questions but said murals on private property may be protected under state and federal law.

 “For murals on City property, the Department is determining its next steps to address any changes,” said Gabriel Cifarelli, public information director. 

Estrada said he has been in contact with both the Supervisor Hilda Solis and Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s offices to propose changes to his artworks that preserve their original intent and hopes that the offices will work with him to provide the resources he needs. 

Working together to find resolve 

As the public continues to grapple with the allegations of sexual abuse against Chávez and his legacy as a leader of the farmworkers movement, some say the work that he and other leaders did to secure rights and fair working conditions for farmworkers will live beyond his image.

Standing in front of Estrada’s “Rescate” mural last week, Anabel Meza, said it’s important to not see historical figures as “black and white.”

“It’s common to have these heroic or noble people that have fought for really good causes but they also have dark sides to them, because they are human,” Meza said. “We need to step away from glorifying or putting them on pedestals.”

Last week, the Maravilla Meat Market took to Instagram to share a message with the community. 

“Speaking up takes courage, and those voices deserve to be heard and taken seriously,” the post reads. 

“Our murals are not random images. They are custom, commissioned works that represent history, culture, struggle, and identity,” the post continues, acknowledging that as a small business, changing or removing a mural of that scale requires time and money but they expressed their commitment to working with Estrada to determine its future.

“We will never ask an artist to redo work for free. His work matters. His time matters. His livelihood matters,” the post reads.

Estrada said the murals were painted to last for decades and function as historical landmarks. Altering them properly would require thousands of dollars and the same quality materials used originally.  

Restoration, he said, is not as simple as painting over a face and should continue to highlight Mexican-American culture and the voices of the farmworkers movement that were ignored.

“I would love to include the Filipinos that were all part of the struggle,” Estrada said, referring to the Filipino farmworkers who initiated the historic 1965 Delano grape strike, a movement later widely associated with Chávez and the United Farm Workers. 

Estrada said he would like to work with officials to restore the murals he has painted across the region in a meaningful way.  

He pointed to a Spanish saying: “No hay mal que por bien no venga.” 

“You can always get something positive out of a negative situation,” Estrada said. “Let this be something that we can learn from.”

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