A community mural that has been a fixture in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles since 2005 has been defaced, reports Reappropriate.
Graffiti vandals tagged the bottom half of the mural apparently with spray paint. Rafu Shimpo reports large black panels currently cover the defacement which is so poorly done it is difficult to read.
“I’m so upset,” Brian Kito, a business owner in Little Tokyo, told Rafu Shimpo. “To go over someone else’s artwork is a taboo thing. They are low life, low class.”
The mural entitled Home is Little Tokyo, is the work of Tony Osumi, Sergio Diaz and Jorge Diaz, and project managers Nancy Kikuchi and Takao Suzuki.
“The mural is symbolic, inclusive, and broad, and it is reflective of the history of our neighborhood,” said Kristin Fukushima, Managing Director of the Little Tokyo Community Council, to Reappropriate. “It tells our story in the ways that we want to tell our own story and our own history.”
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