Advocacy: Making Cultural Connections

Thanks to a grant from the Missouri Arts Council, Lebanon High School’s Latin American heritage mural began as a community conversation in 2022. Muralists Linda Spencer and Roberto Regalado worked with students on a mural that exploress Latin American heritage as it connects to our region and town. Linda and Roberto, formerly from Los Angeles, have lived in southwest Missouri for over twenty-five years. Their work can be found in numerous public spaces across the country.

The idea for the mural came from class of 2023 senior Leslie G., who stated, “I wanted to show our cultures...because of our influence and the peoples’ ways. This is a dream come true…I want to leave a mark behind at Lebanon High School.”

Planning the Mural
Photos and ideas were gathered for the artists to create a preliminary sketch in February 2023. Linda and Roberto proposed a mural with a border of fifty-eight Masonite tile panel insets, allowing students and community members to contribute images to the design. The mural itself would be a 25 x 8' (7.5 x 2.5 m) canvas stretched over panel substrate, designed to be moved in case the schoolʼs remodeling plans affect that space in the future.

Latin American Imagery
Most of the imagery was selected with the input of students, former students, and community members with direct ties to Latin American cultures. In the center of the mural is the Aztec calendar overlaid with a map of North and South America. Salto Angel Falls in Venezuela hovers to the upper left, near a vision of the Nazca hummingbird lines from Peru. On the upper-right, red macaws play past the Cotopaxi Volcano rising above the Ecuadorian city of Iglesia Matriz de Sangolquí, and Argentine football superstar Lionel Messi winds up for a kick in the foreground.

Personal Stories
Lebanon’s Harvest Church is portrayed on the right side of the mural near three locally recognizable figures: Lebanon High School parents Arturo and Charity Lopez and Francisca Vasquez. These three lead their church community, which boasts a Spanish-speaking population large enough to hold dual-language services. In February, the congregation celebrated twenty-five years of the Spanish ministry with a public tamale festival; Francisca’s recipe won the championship. Arturo’s stories of growing up in the village of Las Adjuntas, San Luis Potosi, in Central Mexico, were so varied that we sent tiles home with his son for the family to paint.

In the lower left corner is the beloved figure of Maria Stone. Born in Costa Rica, Maria ran a catering business out of the county library and Route 66 Museum. She smiles at eye level with the viewer, wearing a colorful apron bearing the message mi casa es su casa. She was tragically killed in a car accident in 2019. Her son, Peter, shared that Maria was selflessly devoted to her faith, family, and the community. “She was known as the jefé, a.k.a. the boss, and everyone respected her for taking charge in everything she was a part of. She loved teaching others the importance of cooking and passing along different parts of her heritage.” Mariaʼs seventeen-year-old nephew, Isaac, helped the artists paint the figure. The family, including Isaac and his seven-year-old niece, Bristol, contributed three tiles to the border.

Learning from the Artists
As the mural progressed, students blocked in imagery or worked on tiles. Each day brought new lessons in technique and stories of Roberto’s childhood in Chalchuapa, El Salvador. The El Tazumal Mayan ruins are painted just to the left of the center. Roberto used to climb to the top with friends, and sometimes they found broken ceramic pots or figures dating back to ancient times. We had four after-school tile painting workshops followed by a presentation on Linda and Roberto’s careers as professional artists.

Community-Wide Celebration
The ribbon-cutting for the mural took place on April 25th, with students, faculty, media, and community members in attendance. The Vasquez family provided tamales, and the Lopez family brought traditional fruit drinks. Linda and Roberto created a playlist to set the mood, and Eric Adams and his photojournalism students played a video of interviews and a time-lapse of the mural’s creation.

Student artists shared what they learned in the painting of the mural and the many tiles that form the colorful border. Leslie G. cut the ribbon stretched by Bristol and her cousin Abby.

QR codes connected to interviews with the artists and students involved in the mural’s creation, along with a spreadsheet extrapolating the imagery, will be added at the end of this summer, creating an interactive learning resource.