Lucia Medina has owned the Highland Park Florist Shop for the last 21 years. After coming to Highland Park with her husband from Mexico, she took an interest in the shop and decided to buy it. Unfortunately, graffiti was a problem for this area. Lucia said she doesn’t like the graffiti partly because it’s ugly and partly because she thinks it’s gang related. Because of the growing graffiti, she hired someone to paint a mural on the side of her building. She and the artist collaborated to create a mural of flowers as well as an image of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. The mural has been there for four years now and Lucia says graffiti is no longer a problem.
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About Us
Krista Daly is a journalism student with an interest in photography. She has freelanced for the online hyperlocal publication, The Antelope Valley Times, covering features and hard news. In telling stories through images, she gains a new perspective on the places and people she encounters. She finds Highland Park particularly visually stunning because of its colorful murals, which she showcases here.
Sarah Fisch is a bilingual art and cultural writer from San Antonio, Texas, from a mixed Anglo and Tejano family. Much of her writing deals with the contemporary art of a new generation of Mexican Americans. Highland Park fascinated her due to its similarities to her hometown, whose demographics and income level are very similar to Highland Park. But she discovered marked differences in traditions, attitudes, and began to grasp influence of regions of Southern and Central Mexico and Central America, very different from the Norteño influence so apparent in Texas. Her Highland Park experience has reinforced the idea that the Latino experience in the US is a diverse array of stories, and nowhere near predictable.
Tetiana Terekhova is a Ukrainian broadcaster with a particular interest in issues of religious faith. She has appeared as a Eurovision Song Contest Commentator, and earned the Guinness World Record for hosting the longest televised national song marathon in history. Terekhova has also hosted various national competitions and events. Her other fields of activity and engagement include working as a talk radio host for political and economic programming, and playing the piano.
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