ABSTRACT
The presence of Chicanx gang placasos (graffiti) in California remains a salient feature of subaltern communities that experience historical oppression, super-criminalization, and gentrification. Subaltern theory of art explains that although gang members may not have structural power, they maintain a counter-discourse through graffiti art. Findings stem from a triangulated methodology: field research, semi-structured open-ended in-person, and telephone interviews with former-Chicanx gang members, former Chicanx graffiti artists, and gang-involved Chicanx individuals in California. This inquiry found that the social construction of neighborhoods and cholx placasos promotes social identity while promoting street-level politics. Also, cholx placasos represent a street-level and subaltern aesthetic that gets super-criminalized by agents of social control while promoting solidarity bonds among gang members in the barrio. Finally, Cholx placaso resistance promotes street-level praxis, street-level consciousness, and hidden barrio aesthetics. This study emphasizes how Chicanx gang members in California socially construct the meaning of their social identities and community through their placasos and the construction of them through the process of super-criminalization and stigmatization by agents of social control.
