Cal Poly professor works to add Latino representation to English building murals

Building 22, the English building on Cal Poly campus, is unique. Its hallways, home to many English classes, are painted with the faces and words of literary notoriety. The likes of Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, and Gregory Chaucer are displayed prominently for students and professors alike to appreciate. 

To Ethan Powers, who teaches English 134 and 145 at Cal Poly, these large-scale murals are a path to representation. 

Powers was one of many who received a grant through Cal Poly’s HSI Mini-Grant Initiative. With the money he received from the HSI Mini-Grant, Powers sought to paint a series of murals in the English building. While the murals in building 22 highlight an assortment of authors, Powers noticed a lack of Latino and Hispanic representation. 

In his murals, Powers wants to emphasize a variety of voices from Latino and Hispanic backgrounds. The artists he chose — Pablo Neruda, Gabby Rivera and Sandra Cisneros — span a wide range of identities, eras and mediums. 

“I know a lot of my students come from that background,” Powers said. “They walk down those halls, they literally look at those empty places that can be filled with positive imagery, and we have the means to do it.” 

Powers has been teaching GE classes to primarily freshmen for the past five years, one year as a grad student and four years as a full time lecturer. Because of this glimpse into the demographics of the freshman class, Powers saw a need for representation where it was due. 

“I do work in what I consider a very privileged position as a faculty member,” Powers said. “I see everyone.” 

Along with Latino and Hispanic authors, Powers also wanted to highlight the importance of translated works within the English discipline. 

“I don’t even think close to a third of what I work with is actually written in English first,” Powers said. 

Powers’s passion from this project comes not only from his background as an artist but also having attended Cal State University Channel Islands as an undergraduate student. 

Cal State Channel Islands is an HSI designated institution, something Cal Poly is working towards achieving. Having grown up in California, Powers was used to seeing Hispanic and Latino culture reflected around him, and Channel Islands was no different. 

“I know who I am, I know my identity,” Powers said. “I want to flip the script, so seeing how Channel Islands worked, where they encourage it… the culture is everywhere. The murals are around, the food is around… that’s part of knowing your student base and making them feel like they’re part of the experience.” 

Powers draws from his experience at Cal State Channel Islands, where the culture of the school was reflected broadly, when thinking about his project at Cal Poly. 

Powers considers himself lucky to have attended an HSI. Now he finds himself at Cal Poly, a university trying to achieve their own HSI designation. 

“We really do lack the physical visual representation,” Powers said. 

While Cal Poly does have the Latinx/e Center for Academic Success and Achievement, or La CASA, Powers continues to see the lack of representation across campus. 

Currently, Powers has not yet received approval of a location to paint his mural nor has he been able to use any of the money allocated to him through the HSI Mini-Grant. 

“They have not approved any possible location,” Powers said. “Even when I have asked for alternatives outside, I have not at least been offered a spot, yeah, outright.” 

With his budget, Powers has just enough to cover the painting supplies for the mural. Labor for the mural is not a factor in this project, as Powers planned to paint the mural himself. 

“I have the means to paint at night. I was going to be there even painting, working on it,” Powers said. “So if you walk through, you can stop me. It creates conversation topics with my students, to even tell them to spread word of mouth.” 

Powers has been met with administrative hurdles while trying to complete his project. Instead of a mural inside the English building, Powers was offered an alternative of working on an art installation in the English building. However, purchasing canvases or metal sheets to paint on is outside of Powers’s budget. 

“They want to put, like, a fixture, that’s a metal fixture up, mount it to the wall, so that I could paint on it and it could come off,” Powers said. “None of those are murals, those are paintings. And they’re not quite hearing the disconnect there that a mural is large scale, and paintings are usually, like three feet maybe big.” 

When Powers envisioned his mural, he envisioned something akin to what is already present in the English building, large-scale murals that span the wall space. To create an installation, buy the canvases or metal to paint upon and then mount, simply is not in his budget. 

“And I’ve asked if we can’t do it in the English building, is there a location outside? Is there a space on campus I can use? Is there someone I can talk to? And currently I have not heard back,” Powers said.