Youth Uses a Brush to Uncover Latino Experience

Ask 18-year-old Raul Alvizo of Oceanside what it means to be Latino and chances are he’ll be lost for words.

But he can show you well enough--with an airbrush, a pencil or a crayon. Alvizo is an aspiring artist whose drawings and airbrushed renderings speak both to the past and present of the Latino experience.

They include religious images of churches and holy men, historical themes of long-lost Indian cultures, all mixed with a dose of modern street life--jail scenes and decked-out home boys doing the downtown strut.

Alvizo’s own life could be considered a sketch of one of his works.

When he was 12, his mother decided to take the Los Angeles-born youth, along with his two sisters and four brothers, back to the Mexican state of Jalisco for four years to establish a better feel for their roots.

Though it prolonged his conventional schooling, the journey proved to be a learning experience for the inner-city youth. It colored his work as an artist and provided his start.

“A teacher back there asked kids what they wanted to be, and most said doctors and lawyers,” Alvizo recalled. “I said that was too hard. I wanted to be an artist, to draw and create.”

Sophomore Is One Step Closer

Today, the Oceanside High School sophomore is one step closer to showing everyone he means business. He was recently announced as one of three grand-prize winners in McDonald’s restaurant’s Hispanic Heritage Art Contest.

His pencil and crayon sketch, titled “The Time,” was chosen from 3,500 works nationwide as the best expression of the concept “What My Hispanic Heritage Means to Me” for seventh- to ninth-graders.

Next week, his piece will be among 48 contest semifinalists and grand-prize winners to be displayed at the Barnsdall Art Park-Junior Arts Center in Los Angeles, as part of a nationwide tour that begins in November. Raul also gets to go to Los Angeles, and will receive a plaque this week from his neighborhood McDonald’s.

“The contest is a way to help kids identify with their Hispanic heritage through art,” said McDonald’s Corp. spokeswoman Susan Bergen in Chicago. “We think it’s gotten some kids excited about being Hispanic and given them an outlet to express that.

“It’s more than just coloring something and putting it up in their classroom. You wouldn’t believe the color, emotion and feelings expressed in

these works--to think that a first- or seventh-grader did this.”

Alvizo describes his prize-winning entry as a figure of a half-church, half-Aztec temple flying a Mexican flag, with a modern street character looking up in approval.

“Mexican people are very religious, that’s why I drew that,” he said. “And the Aztec culture is part of that heritage. But Hispanics in the U. S. are like home boys, bad dudes, so I drew one of those to show how we are today.”

His impression caught the eye of two Latino artists in Los Angeles who judged the contests.

“It was rendered really well; there was lots of interpretive symbolism in the piece,” said Patssi Valdez, whose work made up the first Hispanic art show to tour Europe. “It was one of the stronger pieces that had Latino imagery in it.”

Doubles as Baby-Sitter

Alvizo has done much of his work while doubling as baby-sitter for his younger siblings. His studio is makeshift--usually the living room couch with a kitchen chair on which to prop his sketch pad. Often, MTV blares nearby.

He heard of the contest when his 9-year-old brother, Josue, brought home an announcement from school.

“He said, ‘Look, Raul, you should try this.’ ”

Two weeks later, Alvizo had his piece finished.

He likes Picasso, especially the artist’s drawings of revolution.

His own work, Alvizo said, attempts to capture the feeling of living an inner-city life without male supervision, as he and many of his friends must do. Alvizo is being raised by a single parent; his mother, Isabel, works in a bullet factory in Oceanside.

‘Hard to Be Hispanic’

Last year, Alvizo won fourth place in an art contest at the Del Mar Fair for a drawing of a tiger--to illustrate the strength of Latinos--and a jail cell--to represent more modern problems.

“Today, it’s hard to be Hispanic,” he said. “All my friends have problems--their parents don’t give much attention to their work or their lives. They all have too many kids, so when you try to progress, they can’t help you enough.”

But that won’t stop Alvizo--because this 18-year-old thinks big. That is evident in the intensity in his furrowed brow.

After he saved to buy an airbrush, friends swamped him with requests for T-shirt art--Gothic drawings and racy sports cars.

They have suggested a project to paint a wall mural in downtown Oceanside, he said. And, when Alvizo mentions a new magazine he and a friend would like to start for Latinos in Carlsbad and Oceanside, he smiles shyly.

“That’s just the beginning,” he said. “From there, it could grow and grow.”

Ample Inspiration

For now, though, when he’s not in school, Alvizo will be looking for a part-time job to save enough money for more art supplies. One day, he’d like to rent a garage and start a studio.

Meanwhile, life in Oceanside for an underprivileged Latino teen is providing ample inspiration. Though he belongs to no gang, Alvizo said, he was struck in the head by a gang member with a baseball bat six weeks ago. He plans to put that experience into art.

Who knows? With continued encouragement from teachers and family members, Alvizo’s images could one day become synonymous with the Latino condition for millions of his countrymen.

Even today, he has his proteges.

“I’m proud of my brother,” said 16-year-old Marla. “Now our younger brothers draw, too.

“They’re pretty good. They always follow the stuff Raul does.”