Santa Ana is preparing to make an important decision about its cultural future.
The city is considering a comprehensive Public Art and Preservation Policy that would finally establish how murals, sculptures, and monuments across our parks and public spaces are protected and maintained. For a city with one of the richest mural traditions in Southern California, this policy represents a historic opportunity.
But it is also long overdue.
For many artists and residents, the urgency of this moment goes back decades. In the late 1990s, a concrete relief mural created by Sergio O’Cadiz at the Santa Ana City Hall complex was partially destroyed during city construction, with nary an apology or financial recompense to the famed artist. The incident raised a fundamental question that still resonates today: who is responsible for protecting public art once it becomes part of the public landscape?
The destruction of that mural exposed a problem cities across the country still face: Public art is celebrated when it is unveiled but often forgotten when buildings are renovated, infrastructure changes, or political priorities shift.
Without clear policies, even culturally significant works can disappear.
Santa Ana now has the chance to ensure that history does not repeat itself.
Learning to see the murals
For many of us who grew up in Orange County, the importance of these murals was not always obvious.
I remember learning about them as a young person reading Gustavo Arellano during his OC Weekly years. His reporting documented the disappearance and whitewashing of Chicano murals across Orange County and challenged communities to recognize their cultural value.
One widely read article, Enough’s Enough: It’s Time to Save Orange County’s Chicano Murals, warned that murals documenting Latino history were quietly disappearing throughout the region.
For many young artists and residents, those articles helped us understand that the murals around us were more than neighborhood landmarks. They were a fragile archive of community history that needed not just preservation but love.
When murals become history books
Santa Ana’s murals are not decoration.
They are historical records.
Across the city—especially in public parks—murals tell stories about migration, labor, culture, and resistance. Many were created collaboratively with youth and residents. Others were painted by artists whose work has become foundational to Santa Ana’s cultural identity.
Among them is Emigdio Vasquez, widely known as the Godfather of Chicano art, whose work from the 1970s to the 2000s documented the everyday lives of working-class Mexican-American communities with striking realism.
His murals —including the iconic 1987 mural Chicano Gothic—captures the dignity and complexity of farm workers in Orange County.
Yet even beloved works like this have faced moments of uncertainty. Recent discussions surrounding redevelopment at Memorial Park revealed how easily a landmark mural like Chicano Gothic could have been lost or relocated without a clear preservation framework.
A strong public art policy would help prevent those kinds of crises by establishing guidelines for conservation, documentation, and artist consultation.
Community action has already made a difference
The movement to protect Santa Ana’s murals has been driven not only by institutions but by artists and residents themselves.
The Santa Ana Community Artist(a) Coalition has worked for years to advocate for mural preservation, organize restoration projects, and bring attention to the cultural significance of public art across the city.
These community efforts helped bring renewed attention to historic works like the La Raza murals on Civic Center Drive, which were restored and unveiled again in 2024 after years of organizing and collaboration between artists, residents, and the city.
The restoration demonstrated that when artists, community members, and city leaders work together, public art can be preserved rather than erased.
Artists have rights
Preserving public art also means recognizing that artists have legal rights.
Federal and state laws—including the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) and the California Art Preservation Act (CAPA)—protect artists from the destruction or alteration of significant works without proper consultation.
But laws alone cannot protect murals.
Cities must create systems for documenting artworks, consulting artists, funding conservation, and planning for long-term stewardship.
Santa Ana’s proposed policy could finally provide that framework by establishing clear guidelines for how the City commissions, documents, maintains, and preserves public artworks, while outlining processes for artist consultation, conservation, and long-term stewardship of murals, sculptures, and monuments across city parks and public spaces.
A national debate about monuments
The timing of this policy is significant.
Across the United States, cultural storytelling in public space has become deeply contested.
While some states are dismantling Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs that support underrepresented histories, others are actively pushing to reinstall monuments honoring Confederate leaders or figures tied to systems of oppression.
These debates reveal something important:
Public art is never neutral.
Monuments and murals tell us whose stories matter.
Santa Ana’s murals tell a different story.
They celebrate immigrant families, workers, cultural traditions, and neighborhood histories rarely represented in traditional monuments.
Protecting these works is not just about art.
It is about protecting the histories that mainstream institutions have often overlooked.
A chance to lead
Santa Ana already possesses something remarkable: one of the largest concentrations of Chicano murals in Southern California, many located in city parks where community life unfolds.
With the right policies in place, Santa Ana could become the mural capital of California.
More than that, the city could become a living open-air museum, where art exists not just inside institutions but throughout neighborhoods, parks, and public streets.
Cities like Philadelphia and Mexico City have shown how murals can transform communities, attract cultural tourism, and support local artists.
Santa Ana already has the artists and the murals.
What it needs now is the policy framework to protect them.
A public art trust fund
One promising proposal is the creation of a Public Art Trust Fund to support restoration, conservation, plaques, educational materials, and digital archives documenting Santa Ana’s mural history.
Murals are not permanent unless cities invest in their care.
A trust fund would ensure that Santa Ana treats public art as a civic asset rather than an afterthought.
A call to action
Public art reflects the soul of a city.
Santa Ana’s murals were created by generations of artists who believed their community deserved to see itself reflected in public space.
Now it is up to the city—and its residents—to protect that legacy.
By adopting a strong Public Art and Preservation Policy and supporting it with funding, documentation, and artist protections, Santa Ana can ensure that its murals remain visible for generations to come.
Santa Ana has the chance to lead.
Not only by preserving its past—but by becoming California’s open-air museum of community memory.
As a teenager newly arrived from Colombia, I remember seeing these murals and realizing that the stories on the walls also held space for families like mine. They reminded me that the history of this city is still being written by many immigrant communities, not just one. I still believe Santa Ana can continue saying yes to those stories. Sí se puede.
The public can help shape the policy
A PDF draft of the proposed Public Art Policy is currently available for public review.
Community members have an opportunity to provide feedback and help shape the policy before it moves forward.
Residents can submit comments or suggestions about the draft policy by emailing:
TLe5@santa-ana.org
BZurita@santa-ana.org
ecomment@santa-ana.org
Public feedback submitted now will help shape how the policy is finalized before moving forward to City Council.
Community members can also participate in person at the upcoming Arts & Culture Commission meeting, where the draft policy will be discussed:
Thursday, March 19 at 5:30 PM
City Hall – Council Chambers
20 Civic Center Plaza
Santa Ana, CA 92701
Residents are encouraged to attend and share their input as the Commission reviews the proposed Public Art Policy.
Parking will be validated.
Alicia Rojas is an award winning multidisciplinary artist based in Santa Ana whose work explores migration, memory, and community storytelling through sculpture, installation, and public art. She is co-founder of the Santa Ana Community Artist(a) Coalition and works at the intersection of art, civic engagement, and cultural preservation.
Website
https://www.alicia-rojas.com/
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