A Chicano kid grows up with walls of many kinds around him. When somebody is born into that situation there are several things he can do. He can ignore the walls, and sink into apathy. Or he can become violent and try to blow up the walls. But there is a third way, a way that people have used for centuries. And that is to perform a kind of ritual magic to neutralize the force of the walls by decorating them with signs, symbols, and art. Chicano street writers choose this third way.

Gusmano Cesaretti, Street Writers: A Guided Tour of Chicano Graffiti, 1975 (via zeram)