José Ortiz and Angel Hernandez roll tiered scaffolding down a wide alley covered in bumpy grass.
What was once a plain white wall outside the Goodwill in Alisal is now a soft, colorful mural. Parents embrace their children as the day turns to night over rows of crops.
"We want the kids to see their parents like giants," Ortiz said. "I want them to be proud."
This pathway was chosen because it connects to a row of parking lots frequented by farmworkers.
"They get dropped off here, and they get picked up also by the buses who takes them to the fields," Ortiz said.
Ortiz started working in the fields as a 10 year old alongside his mother.
“Teachers along the way would tell me, 'you don't wanna end up like your mother, who's a field worker,'” he remembers.
After graduating from UC Santa Cruz he founded Hijos del Sol Arts Productions in 1994. Thousands of kids from Salinas have participated in the free arts programs. Angel Hernandez is one of them.
"I was probably, like five, six," he said, when he started. "I would go into the studio."
Now, he works full time for Hijos del Sol and says being one of three artists on staff to bring this scene to life hit home. His parents immigrated to Salinas where his dad worked in agriculture.
“I would always, like, go home and hug him when he would get back from work," Hernandez said, "and he would always come back, like, all dirty and stuff, but I never cared because that would make me proud, you know?"
The hand-painted mural took around 70 hours and was designed to tell the story of farmworkers persevering through the pandemic.
“It reminds them why they work and why they wake up every morning and, yeah, just keep on going,” Hernandez said.
A $10,000 state grant awarded by the Arts Council for Monterey County and $3,000 from Goodwill made the piece possible.
