Mauricio E. Ramírez
Mauricio E. Ramírez
Mauricio E. Ramírez is a Salvadoran American artist and scholar based in San Francisco. His creative writing projects explore identity, memory, and diaspora within the Salvadoran American experience. His writing appears or is forthcoming in About Place Journal, Public Books, ARTnews, Cool Beans Lit, El Tecolote, the SF MOMA, as well as in the journals Latin American and Latinx Visual Studies, Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures, and Latino Studies. You can find his work at: Mauricioeramirez.com
Graffiti Werewolves
I arrive at the graffiti paint shop I had researched online. Not really knowing why I was there but I was looking for more than just paint, I wanted to connect with other writers and understand the Chilean graffiti scene. A study abroad program allowed me to infiltrate La Pontificia Universidad Católica as a Visual Art student in 2011. By the second week I was already looking to satisfy my urge to paint the streets, some would call this vandalism, but I prefer to see it as art. The days opened wide with nothing to do. Classes waited in the distant August. The city became my classroom.
Graffiti speaks in every city; it speaks in tongues of style. At the counter, the shop owner listened while I spoke of home, of days painting on day spots across San Francisco. Two Chilean boys entered like a breeze that knew the way, giving handshakes to the owner. They were picking their colors talking about the day spot they are about to hit. The owner glanced at me, then them, then back again. He said, “ellos van a ir a pintar.” We chatted, and I told them I was Latino from North America, specifically San Francisco, California. I made a point of sharing that my parents are from El Salvador. That seemed to click more, and I think it helped them understand why my Spanish did not sound as awkward as many other U.S. Americans they had met. One nodded slowly, like he was remembering something. But the other guy smiled like we had always
known each other and said, “Me llamo Iván. Oye, vamos a pintar, ¿te animai a venir con nosotros?” I said yes without knowing where exactly we were going. We walked away into the streets of Santiago. I kept talking to Iván, who was tall, lanky, and a pale skinned dude with thick, black rimmed glasses. He told me he studied abroad in Boston because he had family out there. Said he had met some U.S. Latinos in Boston once, but their eyes glazed over when he spoke. His accent in Spanish and English made them pull away. It seemed he didn’t care much for his time abroad. He said the winter in Boston is too cold. And it never snows here in Santiago, except for that one time.
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I overlaid fresh artwork on an abandoned graffiti-covered wall near the Río Mapocho, painting my character “Señor Frijol” alongside other Chilean writers. Señor Frijol first appeared in the pages of my high school planner, a sketch I made as a joke that gradually grew into different permutations. Growing up, everyone seemed to have a graffiti cartoon character, so I chose one that felt symbolically Latin American. His round body reflects the color of the earth, and his oversized mustache came to symbolize wisdom. I asked myself, what could be more Latin American than a humble bean? As time progressed, I realized the bean is somewhat universal, since beans are a staple food across the Americas and much of the world, often paired with rice as the foundation of daily meals. Friends like to remind me that Señor Frijol resembles Mr. Potato Head, and he does, only without shoes, ears, lips, or a nose.
The writer beside me started painting a quirky figure of his own. It was a shadowy cartoon character, in black and white, wearing a bandana over its face. Its two hands were raised, one holding a Molotov cocktail and the other flipping a middle finger. The rest of the writers were painting their names in abstract letters; they had different styles I was not used to. As we ended the session, one of them sparked up a fat joint of the Mary Jane. Deep down I wanted to smoke too but had no idea what they were smoking, what if it was more than just Mary Jane? What if it was laced with something else? I knew better.
We finished painting. We walked away. About ten deep, all a bit high except for me. The sun was setting, and darkness was settling in.
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We transformed without thinking, as if the night itself cast a spell upon all of us. Like werewolves stirred by the silver moon, we answered the other side of graffiti. Once artists, creating burners with flair, we had shed that skin off. Now, we moved in shadows, as taggers, bombers, vandals. The electric city breathing, we were shinning, poetry in motion as we took over the streets at night. Tags painted up and down each block. Until… the carabineros zipped by in their pickup truck. Maybe they smelled the paint. Maybe they caught a glance of me ducking and painting. Maybe they caught sight of the paint mist bouncing off the walls with their headlights. One Chilean shouted “stop painting, walk, act normal.” I looked back; he put his arm around his girlfriend. His eyes pointed forward. I looked ahead and realized the carabineros hit the gas in reverse and were now headed towards us with their warning lights flashing but no sirens. Within a split second I heeded his suggestion, I put the spray paint in my black plastic bag and hoped the carabineros would not hear the cans rattle. I just kept walking, didn’t look at them, eyes forward acting like nothing had happened, like I did not just leave my tag on that wall. While in reverse time slowed down. I thought “this is it.” I kept walking nervous inside, but my face was stone cold looking forward. They kept driving, passed us in reverse. Was this real? It felt surreal, did they not just see me tagging. A sigh of relief, my tense body relaxed. However, pumped with adrenaline, ice running through my veins. Getting arrested for tagging was not an option for I would be kicked out the country and expelled from the University of California.
In reverse, they carabineros were gunning it toward the others. The bigger half of the wolfpack, still a block away and blind to what was coming.
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I waited with the Chilean couple on the corner. The rest of the crew came back, their eyes still carrying the freight of what had almost happened, they were shook. They said the carabineros threatened to take their IDs but for some reason, they didn’t. They gave them a sharp and cold warning. What they said to get out of that predicament, I will never know. Whatever it was, it spared them from the wrath the carabineros were feared for. I just stood there thinking what if they saw my Chilean cedula ID which clearly stated “Extranjero” on it.
A foreigner under foreign stars, I was a little lost, but not afraid. I had been in dicey situations before. The Chileans pointed me toward La Plaza de Armas station, and I followed the city’s veins underground. Eventually, the train carried me back to Providencia, back to the quiet room of my host family, who had recently shared with me that they also liked the music of Victor Jara. I smelled like spray paint, but no one noticed me enter. I had tucked the spray paint in my black Columbia jacket. I walked slow as I entered to make sure the spray cans wouldn’t rattle. The night closed behind me like a soft door, and I slept knowing I had made it home after almost getting caught. That night I dreamed I was flying across Santiago.