Navigating Brownsville’s Controversial Murals
Story by Nina Alegre
Edited by Abigail Vela
Editor’s Note: Originally posted on February 19, this article was edited on February 24 to include new sources.
Murals are a great way to turn empty, no-color buildings into something that can bring the community together. Splashes of color can be born out of an artist’s brush or aerosol can. What was once a simple white wall becomes an artist’s canvas, where they can portray their ideas in a way that few people can.
Opportunities for creating murals are often limited, but the streets of Downtown Brownsville have seen many diverse public artworks. Some of these murals have received support from the community, while others have received backlash for not representing the city of Brownsville well enough.
Brownsville’s Murals: From Beauty to Controversy
The mural art of Brownsville often features beautiful natural scenery, butterflies, the atmosphere of the city, and plants recognized in Mexican culture, such as the nopal and the cactus.
A dandelion-colored mural titled “Unidad y Alegria” by artist Cecilia Sierra (she/her) was made with the local community of Brownsville in mind. The mural was a collaboration between Trucha and “come dream. come build (cdcb),” a non-profit community development organization. Sierra was enlisted to lead the project. Through design workshops and collaboration with a painting team, cdcb’s latest mural was completed in 2024.
Sierra’s mural is not the only artwork that has created a sense of colorful harmony within the streets of Downtown Brownsville.
Five years ago, in 2020, Josie Del Castillo, an artist born and raised in Brownsville, painted her first mural, “Bike Riding in Brownsville,” located on 6th Street across the police station. The mural incorporates elements of Mexican culture and Brownsville, with a bike with “956” and “Brownsville, TX” written on it. Del Castillo’s mural is rich in color and doesn’t utilize SpaceX symbols or imagery. Instead, a Mexican blanket works as the background, which evokes a sense of warmth and nostalgia for many people who grew up staying cozy around their house with a similar blanket, famous in Mexican textiles.
Del Castillo is a painter who draws inspiration from her cultural background. In 2023, she posted a mural proposal she had designed, which focuses on the beauty of Brownsville as a city that allows immigrants to have access to a better life. Although Del Castillo’s design wasn’t nominated, it was well-received online. It shouldn’t have to be hard to imagine a future where this type of artwork that uplifts the real people of the 956 should take priority over paintings of astronauts and space.
But sadly, we aren’t there yet, and the city prefers to spend large amounts of money catering to outsiders instead of focusing on the talent already present in Brownsville.
Back in 2021, Teddy Kelly’s pink “BTX” mural led many Brownsville residents to comment on the artist’s background, as Kelly was not from the Valley but from L.A., and also because of the $20,000 the City of Brownsville paid the artist, which the Musk Foundation funded. This was seen as unfair to artists from the Valley who could’ve received that money instead.
In 2022, Bekah Hinojosa was accused of defacing the pink “BTX” mural. Hinojosa was released after 26 hours of being held unjustly by Brownsville police, who abused their power and caused Hinojosa severe emotional distress.
This month, Hinojosa shared an update on her situation, commenting that she’s still facing a Class C misdemeanor for allegedly tagging the pink “BTX” mural. It’s been three years since the police arrested her, and she’s still waiting for a court trial.
Deny, Defend, Depose: A Defaced Mural
The pink “BTX” mural on East 11th and East Levee Street is not the only one to have been defaced.
On February 4, Valley Central posted a story stating that the “Boca Chica To Mars” mural featuring Elon Musk’s face by local artist Alexandro Gonzalez-Hernandez was spraypainted with the words “deny, defend, depose” along with an anarchist symbol.
The Musk sympathizing artist quickly removed the writing and added a message about Luigi Mangione, the shooter of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Collective and Creative Resistance in the Valley
However, a collective in the Valley and some artists in Brownsville shared their opinions on the incident.
Boltcutter Collective, a queer anarchist collective, said, “Although the action may seem small in the grand scale of resistance, it’s a great sign that folks in occupied Somi S’ek are not afraid to express themselves even after the city crackdown on the tagging of a separate, just as ugly, mural. These murals are symbols of a future that does not belong to us, a worshiped illusion of domination for colonizers who exploit the land and its communities.”
Two Brownsville artists also commented on what occurred to the Elon Musk mural outside of Los Elizondos.
Nansi Guevara (she/her), an illustrator and textile/rasquache artist who moved to Brownsville nine years ago, commented, “It’s hard for me to ignore this entire event, and I think it is worthwhile to unpack it. This painting has been an assault to my heart and my spirit when I go downtown.”
Guevara further expressed, “The person who painted this, I cannot call him an artist. I believe in Nina Simone’s words when she talks of the duty of an artist, and because this person does not fit this definition, I do not consider him an artist.”
Cecilia Sierra gave her opinion on SpaceX murals, “The space murals to me so far have been an act of rebranding, not just for the city, but also [for] the community. They’re trying to recreate an identity that’s more desirable for outsiders to identify with. By outsiders, I mean people who work for SpaceX or are SpaceX supporters. Instead of highlighting the people from the area, the locals, the natives.”
Sierra discussed the recent Elon Musk mural incident and also referred to Hinojosa’s case, “When it was first defaced, I was surprised someone actually did it because I feel like there’s some people who wanted to, but don’t want to be arrested and […] disrespected on the media, the way Bekah Hinojosa was.”
Sierra continued, showing her support for the community in expressing themselves, “I guess it’s an early sign of people resisting and taking action instead of standing on the sidelines. I hope to see more of it in different ways.”
