dieser beitrag wurde verfasst in: englisch (eng/en)
titel: Chicano Folklore. A Guide to the Folktales, Traditions, Rituals and Religious Practices of Mexican Americanisbn: 9780195146394
+: Santa Barbara CA, 2000 / Oxford 2001
«Placas (Insignias)
The word placa means 'an insignia of an order', and in the United States it also means the license plates of a car. But within cholo and youth gang culture it refers to the sign and name of a gang or club as it appears on the walls of buildings in the barrios of Chicano communities. What may appear as graffiti is actually the placa of a person, or of a gang. Where the placa appears signifies that territory belonging to that gang, and it may also serve as a challenge to other gangs. The use of public walls for asserting a fraternal identity is really an ancient tradition, and within Chicano culture it can be traced back to at least the 1930s. Chicano street culture uses plaqueasos as a system for conveying information about territory and youth socialization customs. If one placa is written over by the placa of another gang, it is accepted as a challenge to a confrontation.
A placa also refers to the individual name of a gang member. Nicknames are very common among Chicanos, but a placa is specifically a gang-related name and often very well describes the person as perceived by friends or other gang members. Names, such as 'Sad Girl,', 'Diablo' (devil), 'Joker,' and 'Malo' (bad) could be names used within a gang, and may signify sadness, wildness, or craziness. Sometimes the writing of names on the walls is referred to as plaqueasos, or in contemporary terms, 'barrio calligraphy.' In more recent times the individual who writes on walls has been called a tagger, and the art of writing is Many Chicano taggers use a stylized medieval writing, such as Old English or German Gothic forms.
Sanchez-Tranquilino has analyzed the displacement of graffiti by murals in Chicano communities and finds that murals can be an extension of the barrio calligraphy rather than an attempt to control gang vandalism, as is sometimes assumed.»
(pp. 188–189)