Las paredes hablan en El Barrio: mestizo signs and semiosis (original) (raw)

By focusing on two different squares of blocks in the traditional Latino NYC community of El Barrio/East Harlem in NYC, this article shows ways in which the commu nity goes beyond the language of traditional public signs and resists the English-only of official signs. Because English and/or Spanish are insufficient to transmit messages in a community that is undergoing change and whose Latino population is made up of people of different national origins, race, class, and language, murals in this community serve as mestizo signs. The article shows how murals offer a multimodal alternative, building translanguaging spaces in which words and images that emerge from different cultural, socio-historical and political practices blend to release Latino voices. The article also discusses the intersection of the murals with other more traditional signs in the two bloques, pointing to the different role that Spanish and English takes on, as it adapts to the context and the message.