The Diego Rivera Pan American Unity Mural at City College of San Francisco

By Daniele Hagen

Winding our way down one of City College of San Francisco’s notorious hills toward the Diego Rivera Theater, we spot a group of tourists chatting in heavily accented English as they consult a map. Once we’re within earshot, one asks if we can point them to the Diego Rivera mural. My tour guide, Will Maynez, smiles and says, "Follow us."

	Image courtesy of City College of San Francisco
	Detail of Rivera's Pan American Unity Mural

Like me, the tourists have come to see The Marriage of the Artistic Expression of the North and of the South on this Continent, or, the Pan American Unity Mural as it is commonly called, by Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. The mural was commissioned by architect Timothy Pflueger to be created during the 1940 Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island. The Exposition was held to celebrate the openings of the Oakland Bay and Golden Gate bridges, which were finished in 1936 and 1937 respectively. Pflueger, who designed several of City College of San Francisco’s original buildings, wanted visitors to the Exposition to witness "art in action."

Rivera and his assistants began the mural in June when the Exposition opened, and finished it in December 1940, two months after the Exposition closed. More than 30,000 people came to see the finished mural before it was taken apart, crated, and temporarily stored on Treasure Island. Originally, the mural was to be installed in a new library Pflueger designed for City College of San Francisco, but those plans were halted due to the United States’ entry into World War II. The library was never built, and the mural was stored in a shed on the City College campus for 20 years.

It wasn’t until 1961, four years after Rivera’s death, that Milton Pflueger, Timothy’s brother, approached the San Francisco School Board and suggested the mural be displayed in the then-new performing arts theater at City College, that the mural finally found a home.

Maynez is a lab manager for the physics department, and Julia Bergman is a librarian at City College. Neither one of them, Bergman points out as she hands me a business card, has the words "Diego Rivera" in their job description. However, when it comes to the Pan American Unity Mural, they are the resident experts and are leading the effort to gather and organize all of the archives associated with the mural, including oral interviews, photographs, and letters that they have collected over the years.

Bergman has been a librarian at City College for more than 30 years, and recalls that early on in her career, when people asked to see the mural, she’d personally escort them to the theater, only to find the doors locked, and the mural off limits. In 1989, City College built a new library, and Bergman volunteered for the architectural committee that introduced the idea of moving the mural to the new library, as was intended so many years ago. But there were no guarantees that the 1,800-square-foot mural would withstand being moved. Feasibility studies are extremely costly, and so the mural remains in the theater. In 1993, the theater was named for Rivera.

Maynez, who was trained as a painter, was asked in the 1990s by a colleague in the hospitality department to paint a mural for a campus dining room. Instead of painting one himself, Maynez recommended the Rivera mural be reproduced and displayed there. It was during the process of having the original mural digitized that the idea for a public exhibit took root and a docent program was established. Taking a cue from an English as a Second Language (ESL) professor who used the mural as a tool to get her students to speak English aloud, art history professor Diana Scott developed a script describing the structure, symbolism, and artistic technique of the mural that student docents recite to Rivera enthusiasts. Docents now provide access to the Pan American Unity Mural 40 hours a week, something Maynez calls "honoring the sensibility of Rivera’s concept of public art."

Bergman has seen firsthand the impact the mural has had on a striking cross section of students throughout her time at City College, where, she says, "a lot of people come to get real." Lisa Velarde is one such student. She came to City College with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology, but was floundering and didn’t know what to do with her life. She became a mural docent, and, fascinated by the archives related to the mural, took a course in library and information technology. She was hooked, and went on to graduate school at San José State University where she became a librarian. Velarde is now a reference librarian at the Academy of Art in San Francisco.

There are many like Velarde—alumni who came to City College without the faintest inclination toward art or archives—who, thanks to unparalleled access to a national treasure, have found their true calling.