“Immigration is Beautiful” Mural in Wichita Defaced With “KKK Is Beautiful, Wetback” Graffiti

Feb 13, 2014
12:59 PM

Armando Minjarez is an immigrant activist and artist from Wichita, Kansas. Earlier this morning, he tweeted out the following:

The tweet included this image:

BgXeucGCcAABA8C

Via @aminjarez

The graffiti sprayed on the mural changed the mural’s text to read, “KKK is beautiful, wetback.” When we tweeted Armando for more details, he tweeted the following:

Armando also shared a larger image of the mural. The word “welfare” also appears.

migration

Via @aminjarez

The original mural can be seen on the Twitter page of @LatinoLeadersKS:

LALeaders

This is a developing story. Buzzfeed just published additional details. Here is what was reported:

Minjarez says he and the students had spoken about how there could be pushback to this public display of their realities and he said the students are not discouraged.

“They’re not discouraged but they’re certainly pissed off,” he said. Minjarez said the timing of the defacement of the mural coincides with the first meeting of Army of Artists, the complete group of artists who will decide and commit to the next pieces of public artwork. He said his internal goal is at least 8 more projects. “Whatever public art they want to create; a concert, a rap battle, an installation.”

He said this ugly episode will only invigorate the artists.

“We’re bringing to light the reality we live with everyday, we can choose to act like racism isn’t out there but it is.”