As part of renaming Cesar Chavez Park in Pomona, renowned artist Paul Botello visited the park and shared with community people and activists how he has been transforming the murals there to preserve the history of the farmworkers’ movement, to continue to tell the broader story of farmworkers’ exploitation, the many victories won through union organizing, and the efforts that continue today for improved working conditions in the fields. Paul painted the five murals at the park in the early 2000s when the park was developed.

Paul Botello has been a public artist for over 37 years and has painted more than 50 murals. After earning his BA and MFA at UCLA, he traveled to Berlin, Germany in 1994 where he collaborated on a giant mural titled “Global Chessboard.” In 1997, he was a visiting professor at Pitzer College in Claremont and painted murals, alongside students, at the college, at Vina Danks school, and at the Pomona Day Labor Center. His murals, both in the Los Angeles region and abroad, focus on social issues that our communities are facing and the movements that emerged in the past and in the present to overcome historical systemic oppression.