Little Saigon, San Diego
Greetings from Little Saigon in San Diego. We met The Boulevard BIA two years prior in 2016. They were the ones that helped us get the wall for the Greetings from San Diego mural in North Park. They invited us back to paint our third postcard style mural in one of our favorite cities on the west coast. We arrived in late January 2018 with welcoming warm temperatures in sunny So-Cal. The Boulevard hooked us up with parking at Fair at 44 and passes to the YMCA across the street to be able to use the showers/gym.
Before painting, we got acquainted with Little Saigon. We learned this area was designated an official district a few short years ago in City Heights, San Diego. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, people fled to this specific area, now owning and operating about 70% of the businesses today. We met the owner of Sin Lee Market where The Boulevard got us a wall to paint. They allowed us to block off parking with barricades in this high traffic area due to their booming business.
Victor began painting and that's when we started to recognize the iconic rice hats were actually not that cliché in this neighborhood. Women would sit outside the market wearing them, selling lotus leaf sticky rice known as bánh chưng. Throughout the few days working there, we ate at the famous Pho Hoa restaurant and got one too many Vietnamese coffees and egg rolls across the street at A-Chau.
While the area has a big Vietnamese population, it’s also an Asian community in general. Since Victor is an Asian street artist, he’s always happy to help out a community with similar roots! The yellow paint for the background we used was very bright and eye catching. We were inspired by their original flag color and also wanted something to make you look twice when driving down El Cajon.
True public art takes the immediate community into account. At first, we added diacritical marks above the “Little Saigon” letters. It was done for design aesthetics, but we did not take into account how it would be pronounced since it wasn’t a Vietnamese word. However, we quickly realized from some local feedback that it didn’t make sense for pronunciation. As a result, we quickly removed them from the mural. Hopefully, this shows the locals that they have the power to change their neighborhood even when it comes to public art.
We took the last round of photos of the completed mural, and we both felt truly honored to be part of the revitalization of this community. Little Saigon is a gem in San Diego that not many people know about, and we created a bright welcome sign to hopefully change that.
Press:
There San Diego - Completion Of “Greetings” Mural Kicks Off The Little Saigon Public Art Project
Pacific - New street mural kicks off larger art project in City Heights
Kpbs - San Diego’s Little Saigon Cultural District Gets Some Fresh Branding
Times of San Diego - Mural in San Diego’s ‘Little Saigon’ Kicks Off Public Arts Project
Letter Guide:
S — Lotus flower
A — Dragon
I — Dragon
G — Pagoda
O — Pho
N — Bicyclist
Year: 2018
Mural Size: 12'H x 20'W
Location: 4665 El Cajon Blvd, San Diego, CA 92115