One Fence at a Time

Graffiti is everywhere. You see it scrawled on public and private spaces across the cityscape, but Luis Aguilar is doing his small part to remove it one fence at a time.

Aguilar is a community coordinator for the Southwest Key Program in San Benito.

The Cameron County Learning Center Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program takes in youth who have had disciplinary problems and attempts to reestablish a positive relationship among students, schools and families.

For his part, Aguilar takes youth out into the community. His mission is to stem the tide of graffiti that is blight in neighborhoods in Brownsville.

On Saturday, Aguilar took a group of 15 kids to paint a residential fence on McKenzie Road. Local gangs had repeatedly tagged the fence, like many in the area.

Homeowners do fight back, painting over the tags, but the gangs aren’t easily deterred. Eventually people give in to frustration and feeling helpless to do anything to prevent future tags from appearing.

That’s where Aguilar steps in.

His students are in many ways seeking redemption, and painting murals over graffiti helps out and contributes something attractive to the community, Aguilar said.

Convincing teenagers is one thing, convincing homeowners who have grown jaded by repeated attacks on their property, usually by teenagers, is sometimes a tough sell.

“I always get the same reaction,” Aguilar said of homeowners. “They want to know why, and what good it will do.”

With nothing to lose most are willing to give Aguilar’s crew a chance.

The program also counts on support from community businesses, such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot, H-E-B and C&C Wings.

“These are kids that haven’t gotten a lot of positive feedback,” Aguilar said. “Painting the murals makes them feel good about themselves.”

In the past he painted over the graffiti, like homeowners. It almost never lasted.

“The gangs have left us messages before,” he said. “They write things like ‘you can’t stop us’.”

They are right about one thing, Aguilar said, simply painting over a tag isn’t very effective at stopping graffiti. Sort of like a fresh canvas, an inviting prospect for gangs.

That’s when he started having his crew paint murals.

If there is one thing that can be said in favor of the gangs, according to Aguilar, it’s that they respect others’ artwork, especially if it is religious.

In the more than two years he’s been painting murals, he has yet to see tags spoil their work.

On Saturday, the Southwest Key crew painted a garden scene on one side of the fence and a religious scene on the other.

“It gives them a sense of pride and accomplishment,” he said. “It doesn’t even matter if they can’t paint. When they drive by that wall with their parents or friends it builds their confidence.”