The graffiti they left behind tell us interlinking stories ofboth marginality and community.

Narratives often result from a relationship with theenvironment, particularly with regard to people who areconcerned with personal and place-based identities.While narrative links between environment and commu-nity remain an under-examined aspect of urban ecolo-gies, the link between naming place and environmenthas been well examined in literature regarding indige-nous societies.2 In anthropologist Renato Rosaldo’swork, for example, place names provide doorways intolarger narratives. The names themselves are linked to thestories that Rosaldo attempts to solicit from his Ilongotinformants, and these stories were inextricably bound tothe land. Similarly, in the work of writer Jeanette Arm-strong and anthropologist Keith Basso, American Indianconceptions of identity result from bonds betweensacred places and naming. Identity among these groupsis scarcely possible without a clear sense of place.

In urban interstitial spaces, material expressions likegraffiti function similarly to these place- and name-based narratives, which can yield insights into the livesof people not generally included in the historical record.Here, places considered forsaken, destitute, abandoned,and even dangerous become loci for community-building. The traditional notions of house or neighbor-hood are replaced by bridge, tunnel, or hobo camp.Marginalized spaces and marginalized peoples go handin hand.

Hobos, 1914-1940Hobos have a history and a written tradition that date

back at least to the end of the Civil War. It is a history ofdisplacement and migratory labor, of people from par-ticular locales taking their places with them in theirtravels. Men who no longer fit into the industrial frame-work of the United States took to the rails, moving fromtown to town, looking for work, telling stories, andsleeping in “jungles” or hobo camps.

Already by the 1920s scholars studied the graffiti ofhobos, tramps, and wanderers. Sociologist Towne Ny-lander wrote that tramps developed “[a]n elaboratesystem of road signs . . . to discriminate between goodand bad towns, relative to the activities of the police;also between houses where people give to tramps, or

N a concrete tunnel along the Los Angeles Riverduring the 1940s and 1950s, a man with the initialsJK carved out history and home. His name could

have been Johnny K, Jorgenson Krag, John Kook,Johnson Kraft, Johnny Kake — all names that appear inhis lists. He dated his work JK 1945, JK 1947, JK 1951,and JK 1952. JK was likely a veteran who had at somepoint been in residence at the Brentwood Vet’s Home, aplace that appears among his lists in two separate riverlocations. Possibly, he had also been in jail — a con,“kon,” or “ex ex kon,” as he writes, dutifully replacingeach of his “c”s with “k”s to honor himself and hisinitials.

JK’s lists comprise but one history within the inter-stitial landscapes under bridges, on rivers, in vacant lots,and down alleys in Los Angeles. This article examinesthree groups of people, hobos, pachucos, and railway-men, whose written records revolve around iconicaspects of the Los Angeles environment: railroads,bridges, and rivers. Taking several examples of histori-cal graffiti from these marginalized spaces, I positionthem within the context of what Ralph Cintron calls“condensed narratives of subjectivity.”1 In such narra-tives, icons function as entryways into personal his-tories. Los Angeles graffiti thus provides a window intoalternative communities — and alternative histories —that critique both nostalgic and traditional views of LosAngeles and the American West.

Those who write graffiti look to walls and bridges fordifferent reasons. They want to inform, to teach, or tothreaten, but above all to make themselves knownthrough a vernacular history situated in social as well asphysical spaces. Hobos, pachucos, and railwaymen havehistorically comprised overlapping communities, whereconcrete and steel become the preferred canvases, andwhere rocks, wood charcoal, and railroad tar become themedia of choice. The majority of writing presented hereis located on the undersides of bridges on the Los An-geles River and Arroyo Seco, where older and contem-porary markings frequently coexist. More specifically, Idiscuss hobo writing from 1914 to the 1940s; early graf-fiti of pachucos, or Mexican gang members, during thelate 1940s; and the writing of railway workers from the1950s and 1960s. I also rely on oral history interviewsthat help place these materials within a broader context.

I

Phillips: Notes from the Margins: Graffiti, Community, and Environment in Los Angeles JOW, Spring 2009, Vol. 48, No. 2 — 35

Notes from the MarginsGraffiti, Community, and

Environment in Los AngelesSusan A. Phillips

36 — JOW, Spring 2009, Vol. 48, No. 2 Phillips: Notes from the Margins: Graffiti, Community, and Environment in Los Angeles

where they are likely to call the authorities or loose thedog.”3 Similarly, sociologist Nels Anderson’s descriptionof a hobo jungle is as relevant for the early twentiethcentury as it is today: it “should be located in a dry andshady place that permits sleeping on the ground. Thereshould be plenty of water for cooking and bathing andwood enough to keep the pot boiling. If there is a gen-eral store near by where bread, meat, and vegetablesmay be had, so much the better. . . . It is well that thejungles be not too far from a town, though far enough toescape the attention of the natives and officials.”4

Imagine a man reaching up to a bridge along theArroyo Seco with a piece of chalk or a rock in hand. TheArroyo Seco has not yet been paved, and hobos flourishbeneath the bridges that could shelter them, near thewater that could nourish them, and close to the railroadsthat could transport them. On August 13, 1914, “KidBill” writes his name on a bridge that at the time is stillsparsely decorated. His name survives under thisbridge, which has provided safe haven for some of theearliest known hobo writing from the region. Alongwith Kid Bill, depicted in the far left of Figure 1, arethe names of people like Kid Smith, Winey Pete, KidRoot, R. H. Williamson, Kid Burgan, Val Inferno, KidWanna the Jackass, Harden, the Tucson Kid, andOakland Red.

The names suggest an iconic figure of the AmericanWest: the cowboy. On another portion of the wall, shown

in Figure 2, is the work of J.W.T., also known as Chito,the Tucson Kid, written in charcoal in scroll form. Thisis juxtaposed with the image of a bucking bronco, withthe words, “No. 1 Campion” next to it (out of view inFigure 1). A further reference to “la crica de tu madre”(your mother’s crack) and other obscure Spanish ob-scenities add color to the wall. Much like the vaquerosand cowboys of the nineteenth century, a mixture ofSpanish and English coexist on these walls, as Spanishand English speakers alike shared this shelter of bridgesand traveled from faraway places. They contributed,each in turn, to the frontier identity that has helped todefine the West.

The writings referenced above were inadvertentlysaved by the great river paving projects of the late 1930sand early 1940s. To pave the Arroyo Seco and the LosAngeles River, engineers dug the river bottoms down byabout 30 feet. In the process, the span of human reach —until then about 6 or 7 feet — was greatly elevated. Thislowering of the river floor and the resultant inaccessi-bility of the marks, combined with the bridge’s ability toprotect the marks from weathering, have preserved thesefragile chalk, rock, and coal writings for over ninetyyears.

General concerns with work, with riding the rails,with taking on monikers, and with leaving marks be-hind probably had their start in the hobo community.Later, hobo signs would develop into a comprehensive

Figure 1. Early hobo writings: Kid Bill 8-13-14; R. H. Williamson; Kid Flint; Kid Wanna the Jackass. Photograph taken by the author

Phillips: Notes from the Margins: Graffiti, Community, and Environment in Los Angeles JOW, Spring 2009, Vol. 48, No. 2 — 37

nationwide system of communication that Nylanderrefers to. Things like “a kind lady lives here,” or “goodplace for a handout” are signals to a marginalized com-munity that is well aware of the meanings behind thesymbols. Not all marks are friendly; one piece under abridge further up the Arroyo Seco reads in slender pen-cil marks: “Okies go home.” Regardless of the intent,however, such marks represent forms of community thatexclude as well as include.

Pachucos, 1947-1948Within the context of trains, tracks, bridges, and

rivers, another character enters our discussion. In 1947,a young boy named Ralph walks along the tracks thatrun alongside the Los Angeles River. He is from aneighborhood called Dog Town, and he has a tattoo of across on his arm that he has had since he was nine. Heremembers the zoot suit riots just a few years before.He reaches onto the tracks, gets a hold of a rock, andbegins to write his name on a concrete wall.

The graffiti remains, as does the memory. Sixty yearslater, Ralph describes how different things were backthen:

Graffiti writing back in the 1930s and 1940s wasmore serendipitous than part of a program, anagenda. Because you didn’t have at your disposalall the writing paraphernalia that exists today. If

you were out there, wherever you were, you’dcome up on, you’d chance on something that youcould scratch and carve or whatever. Whether itwas a rock or a railroad spike, or a nail. You usedall of that stuff to do your graffiti with. Thereweren’t spray can paints back then. Of course ifyou did get paint of any kind, you’d be in somekind of graffiti heaven I guess. But you would haveto stumble on it. People were very poor then. Theyeither had to steal things or save money to get whatthey needed. All you needed to do graffiti was justat hand. You just went with whatever was there.It was a totally serendipitous thing.5

Some writings obviously took much effort, withpachucos venturing well up into the heights of thebridges. Kids would sometimes use the axle grease thatwas dropped from the train wheels, as was the case inFigure 3. With weathering from the sun, rain, wind, anddust, it would turn hard so that a person could pick upa gob of it, put it on his finger and run his finger intothe gob periodically to get more. “You would do yourwhole placa and barrio and protective signatures so thatother gangs would face eternal hell if they tried to saya lot of bad things about you,” Ralph recalls. Early gangmembers would write things like “Joe D/T 1948” “EddieD/T 1947” “Killer de Dog Town 1948” “Huero de laEastsid[e],” or, as in Figure 3, “Big Ted de DT” — all

Figure 2. J.W.T, Chito, Tucson Kid 9/1/21 with bucking bronco in charcoal. Photograph taken by the author

38 — JOW, Spring 2009, Vol. 48, No. 2 Phillips: Notes from the Margins: Graffiti, Community, and Environment in Los Angeles

the names of Ralph’s contemporaries in the Dog Townneighborhood.

The trains that ran along the river used to carrytramps and were peopled by some of the same wor-kers, such as engineers and switchmen, who also usedchalk and rocks to write out their concerns. Someneighborhood youths used to seek out the hobos.One man I spoke with described how he used to liveperiodically on the river during the summers as a boyin the 1950s. Hobos adopted him and taught him theircraft — such as how to open cans with a rock or howto dig out a spot for a fire. “Unlike us,” he said, refer-ring to his gang membership, “they didn’t develop anylonging for a particular place; their place was on theroad.”

The sensory experience of hopping trains, feeling the

rhythm of the tracks, being part of the river, adventuring,and becoming intimately involved with the bridges inpart linked these pachuco kids with the railwaymen andhobos. Kids from the neighborhoods around the tracksused to build rafts to float down the river then hop afreight to come home again. The bridges were theirplaygrounds. Again citing Ralph:

That bridge, you know, I used to climb that bridge.Hop on the arch. Climb up those arches, go up inand then they kind of round off. And then whenyou get up to the top, to the apex of this arch,there’s a pipe that runs up to the central piling. . . .We used to crawl on this pipe like this, you know.One slip left or right and we would be plunged,what, 50, 60, 100 feet, probably. There was only

one accident in all that time — one guythat was trying to climb on it to MainStreet. . . . He fell to his death.

In the callout box of Figure 4 is a pencilwriting of the name Dopey of Dog Town. Itreads “Dopey DT,” and was written by theyoung man who fell to his death in Ralph’sstory. Though his life ended prematurely,the walls still bear testimony to his placewithin his neighborhood, the river and itsenvirons.

Railwaymen, 1950s-1960sWhile Dopey, Big Ted, and Ralph of

Dog Town scrawled graffiti on or underbridges, those who worked on the trainstraveled underneath and over them. Accord-ing to one railwayman, both switchmen andengineers made frequent use of chalk aspart of their jobs, which became a naturalmedium for their graffiti.6 Like the pachucowriting of the 1940s, the graffiti by railway-men had a close connection to its hobocounterparts. As a 1938 issue of RailroadMagazine indicates, train writing was prac-ticed by railroad employees as often as byhobos themselves. As with hobos, railwayworkers beginning in the late-nineteenthcentury created insignias, chalked them onboxcars, and watched the marks travel onthe rails as they did.

Bill Daniel, who has extensively re-searched railroad graffiti, states that “[t]hedevelopment of boxcar art has been en-riched by the two-way influence betweentramps and trainmen. Although they arefrom two different classes, their drawingsshare common themes: frontier identity,freedom, and fantasy.”7 It is no coincidencethat these themes relate to a similar figure in

Figure 3. Big Ted; Ted de DT [Dog Town] with crosses and written in railroad tar.Photograph taken by the author

Phillips: Notes from the Margins: Graffiti, Community, and Environment in Los Angeles JOW, Spring 2009, Vol. 48, No. 2 — 39

hobo writing: the cowboy. For example, Daniel hasextensively researched the writings of Bozo Texino,originally identified as J. H. McKinley, a Missouri Paci-fic engineer who adopted a cowboy signature. The signis claimed by many and still found on trains to this day.Another railwayman, now known as buZ blurr, also usesa cowboy caricature. He writes:

As a third generation railroad man, who hired outin train service in 1962, I was aware of a long tra-dition of boxcar graffiti. In fact there were broad-casters within the railroad system long before

Marconi’s radio [1901]. Romantics mythicized[sic] that these signature tags and character draw-ings were the work of hobos, but the most perva-sive and persistent authors were trainmen, usuallyin the larger rail centers of big cities.

buZ blurr describes these chalk marks as being both“omnipotent” and “transient” and he describes the “rail-road network of the north American continent” as hismass medium.8

As buZ blurr says, the writer is “a broadcaster withinthe railroad system.” The powerful bonds among rail-

waymen appeared on bridgesas visual reminders to all rail-waymen — to join and becounted. One literal exampleof such graffiti under a down-town bridge gives the resultsof a Southern Pacific Rail-road union election:

S-P Election [SouthernPacific]

3731 Votes Cast2496-BRT [Brother-

hood of RailwayTrainmen]

1217 UROC [UnitedRailroad OperatingCrafts]

14 Void3 ORC [Order of Rail-

road Conductors andBreakmen]

1 FORD (?)

Here the competition be-tween unions, like the com-petition between gangs, wasplaying itself out on thebridge walls. A writer put theresults of union voting into apublic venue for other train-men to see. In the context ofdaily work on the rails, thewalls of bridges, if not on theboxcars themselves, were anideal means of communi-cation.

On a wider scale we seecompetition playing itself outalong the underside of LosAngeles’s 4th Street bridge.A switchman once leaned outfrom a railroad car, his armoutstretched, trailing a pieceof work chalk along the

Figure 4. Dopey DT in pencil obscured by layers of more current spraypaint.Photograph taken by the author

40 — JOW, Spring 2009, Vol. 48, No. 2 Phillips: Notes from the Margins: Graffiti, Community, and Environment in Los Angeles

length of the wall to form a wavy line that followed themotion of the train. Above and below his line were otherchalked writings: references to scabs, U.S. politics, andmatters of union voting — all since covered by hip hopgraffiti writing.

The existence of this graffiti powerfully depicts thedevelopment and fate of the union as both a social andeconomic influence. Until the 1970s, separate unionsrepresented the individual job categories of railroadworkers — engineers, conductors, switchmen, firemen,brakemen. The histories of the unions representing theseworkers were peppered with friendly and unfriendly

rivalries. In Figure 5 we see aconversation between the Big6 CYA (the Chicago Yard-men’s Association) and themore purist SUNA (Switch-men’s Union of North Amer-ica). It begins with oneswitchman’s proclamation:“SUNA Govern by Switch-men for Switchmen ONLY,Your Trade Union, JoinToday.” Next to that appearsthe taunt of a Big 6 member:“Ha ha ha, bologney [sic],Join the Big 6 — You get asmuch.”

This exchange dates fromthe final days of SUNA’s his-tory. Beginning as a MutualAid Association in 1877, theunion was formally estab-lished in 1894. In moderntimes, however, many unionswere forced to combine inorder to retain their numbersin the face of rapid techno-logical and political change.The Switchmen’s Union ulti-mately dissolved in 1969 dueto a merger with several otherunions to form the UnitedTransportation Union (UTU).Yet many switchmen resisted— and continue to resist —the identity of the unionconglomerate that eventuallyabsorbed them. As the mottoof a 1961 newsletter of theSUNA Local 263 quipped,“We don’t claim to win ’emall — but we fight for switch-men only.”9

In addition to internalunion concerns, national pol-itics were also common

themes among railway writers. Along one wall, we readthat “The PEOPLE wanted Kennedy,” or “Vote AdalaiStevenson in ’56.” According to one UTU member, suchreferences would have fit into SUNA’s progressive men-tality:

The Switchmen’s Union was a wonderful union. Itwas the most progressive union — a very liberalunion. They supported Eugene V. Debs when heran for president. He got more votes than anymajor candidate, and he was sitting in a jail cell.Then, all the unions all merged together except for

Figure 5. SUNA [Switchmen’s Union of North America] Govern by Switchmen for Switchmen ONLY,your trade union. Ha ha ha Bologney, Join Big 6 — you get as much. Photograph taken by the author

Phillips: Notes from the Margins: Graffiti, Community, and Environment in Los Angeles JOW, Spring 2009, Vol. 48, No. 2 — 41

the engineers. The conductors, switchmen, andbrakemen all merged. In numbers, there’s power.You can’t afford to be a small union anymore.Because you have big companies and you needresources to combat them.10

The graffiti reminds us of ways that railwaymen usedto combat authority while encouraging mutual bondsamong members. Powerless alone, they sought out acommon cause together through union membership aswell as through union rivalries. The bridge writingsserved to uphold that sense of community.

ConclusionTwo of the cultures discussed in this article — hobos

and railway workers — were migratory, traveling fromtown to town, sharing the rails together. Each hascemented itself into American identity as part of a mys-tique of wanderlust and frontier adventuring.11 Earlygang members, however, remain a contentious thirdcategory. Gang culture has always been tied to a col-lective identity of place, and while the romantic tug ofthe pachuco era is sometimes felt within Latino or gangcommunities — or even within circles of L.A. historybuffs — the idea of Latino kids flirting with gangsmusters up images of criminality today.

Within this context we can revisit the work of JK, thewriter with whom we began this story. He wroughtcompulsive lists in concrete of letters carved to quarterinch depth. These writings give us a cryptic history ofboth himself and his world:

4 LEAF KLOVERSTAY OUT OF JAIL

ROOSVELTJOURNEYMANWASHINGTONKPTL

Though JK’s history may be seen as singular andesoteric, the themes he treats speak to recognizablyAmerican issues. He writes, as in Figure 6, of

TRUCKS, AUTOS, MAIL, MILK + BREAD,SHIPS, JOBS [in large letters], PAINTINGS, AIR-PLANES, POSTAGE, ARMAMENTS, SHOES,KAR, STEEL MILLS, MUNITIONS, SHELTER,MARCHES, BOTTLES, FACTORIES, MOVIES,MUSIC + STORIES, SONGS, SCULPTURE,HISTORICAL KONSTRUTIONS [sic], N.Y.C.,PITTSBRG, ST. LOUIS, WIFE?, HUSBAND?,KLASSICS, FINEX, L ANGLES.

The confluence of the three cultures of hobo, pa-chuco, and railwayman is in some ways akin to theconfluence of the two rivers — the Los Angeles Riverand the Arroyo Seco — where people with very differ-ent stories often come together to share common spaces.Multiple histories overlap, and past and present seem tomerge. A comingling of cultural truths surfaces at theintersection between water, transportation, and neigh-borhood, serving as a reminder of bonds as well asdifferences.

Ralph’s description of hopping a train is an experi-ence shared by members of all three groups. “One of thethings we did for fun,” he said, “was to hop trains”:

That used to be a big thrill — learning how to hop

Figure 6. Detail of carvings in JK’s tunnel. Photograph taken by the author

42 — JOW, Spring 2009, Vol. 48, No. 2 Phillips: Notes from the Margins: Graffiti, Community, and Environment in Los Angeles

a train. The veterans, the more experienced guyswould show us how to do it — how to deal withmomentum. You know, the speed of the train ver-sus jumping straight down on the ground. Youcould go straight flat on your face. So to compen-sate for that, we used to have to immediately gointo a sprint. I mean a full sprint and when you’refirst trying that, it’s really a, it feels like it’s adeath-defying act. Especially when you’re a boyand you’ve never done it before.

Metaphorically, the stories of Ralph, JK, and similarfigures are about the relationship of that which moves tothat which is stationary — the train and the ground. Thekind of writing that hobos, gang members, and trainmenengaged in ties marginal or migratory people to land-scape. It fixes community in situ, on site, where namesare situated in place and sometimes refer to place. Thewritings represent storytelling within material culture,where words act as indirect indices to the histories em-bedded within them. Then take the river itself, stationaryyet constantly moving, whose once migratory paths arenow fixed, yet whose waters are perpetually in motion.If the confluence of the two rivers of Los Angeles isnow a landscape of marginality, a forgotten center ofthe city, the graffiti that remains there reminds us thatpeople can transform even the most interstitial spacesinto new frontiers for cultural identity. They are, asJK writes,

KONSTRUCTIONSON THE BORDERTO THECENTURIES

NOTES1. Ralph Cintron, Angels’ Town: Chero Ways, Gang Life, and

Rhetorics of the Everyday (Boston: Beacon Press, 1997), 176-177.

2. See Renato Rosaldo, Ilongot Headhunting, 1883-1974: A Study inSociety and History (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980);Jeanette Armstrong, “Sharing One Skin: Native Canadian JeanetteArmstrong Explains How the Global Economy Robs Us of Our

Full Humanity,” New Internationalist (Jan.-Feb. 1997); and KeithBasso, Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language amongthe Western Apache (Albuquerque: University of New MexicoPress, 1996).

3. Towne Nylander, “The Migratory Population of the UnitedStates,” The American Journal of Sociology, 30, no. 2 (September1924): 131.

4. Nels Anderson, On Hobos and Homelessness (Chicago: Univer-sity of Chicago Press, 1998), 43.

5. Ralph Lopez-Urbina, interview by author, tape recording, LosAngeles, Calif., July 19, 2000.

6. Bill Daniel, Mostly True: The West’s Most Popular Hobo GraffitiMagazine (Bloomington, IN: Microcosm Press, 2008), 75.

7. Andrew Hultkrans, interview by Bill Daniel, “Who Is ‘BozoTexino’?” Online at http://www.northbankfred.com/p_bill.html.Accessed on October 1, 2008.

8. buZ blurr, interview by Blake Donner. Online at http://www.northbankfred.com/blurr.html. Accessed on August 10, 2005.

9. Switchmen’s Union of North America. Records [ca.1886-1970].#5034. Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation andArchives, Cornell University Library. Available at http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/ead/htmldocs/KCL05034.html. Accessed onOctober 10, 2008. For the motto of the newsletter, “Snake Bites,”published by S.U.N.A. Local 263, see vol. 1, no. 1 (1961).

10. Lawson Chadwick (United Transportation Union alumnus),phone conversation with author, October 24, 2008.

11. See Paul Michel Taillon, “‘What We Want Is Good, Sober Men’:Masculinity, Respectability, and Temperance in the RailroadBrotherhoods, ca. 1870-1910,” Journal of Social History, 36(winter 2002): 319-339.

Susan Phillips has beenstudying gangs and their ex-pressive culture since 1990.She has received grants fromthe Getty Center, the HarryFrank Guggenheim Founda-tion, and the Soros Founda-tion. She earned a Ph.D. inanthropology from UCLA in1998, and her book, Wall-bangin: Graffiti and Gangs inL.A., was published in 1999by the University of Chicago

Press. She currently teaches urban and environmentalstudies at Pitzer College, where she also directs the Pitzer inOntario Program. Her current projects include the study ofa gang sweep, research into spatial justice issues involvingyouth violence, and documentation of surviving historicalgraffiti in the Los Angeles area.