On the Season 2 finale of SGV Weekly, we dive into “A People’s Seal of El Monte.” This gave students and residents in Monte the chance to design their own seal, “not for the city, but for all those who identify with the region and are inspired by El Monte’s history," according to project organizers SEMAP. The group has been a consistent voice against celebrating El Monte’s pioneer narrative for some time.
Could it inspire people to make their own community based artworks? To answer that, we went to Alfred Mendoza’s ethnic studies class at Mountain View High School to see what his students would put in an El Monte Seal. These students spend just a few weeks out of one semester of ethnic studies reading SEMAP’s history book, East of East.
With help from printmaker Daniel Gonzalez, we use this artwork as a jumping off point to talk about how people of color could reshape El Monte’s future.
John Brantingham was a driving force behind Mt San Antonio College’s creative writing club for decades. If you went to SAC in the last...
Very few SoCal punk bands are legendary on the level that Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s Gun Club is. And of course, legends can be misleading....
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