Jaime Escalante Biographical Mural
This piece honors the life of educator Jaime Escalante and his contribution
to Garfield High School. Because Mr. Escalante’s story involves Garfield High
administrators, fellow teachers, his family, and especially his students, we
included their contribution as well.
The mural has several overlapping and intersecting “layers,” including figurative and abstract elements and text. The unifying design element is a series of abstracted waves, which suggest waveforms from calculus and physics texts. The main biographical story of Mr. Escalante follows a vertically oriented waveform, starting with his birth on the bottom and
finishing with his death at the top. This information is presented on the right side of the waveform.
On the left side we present historical data relating to Garfield High School administration, teachers and AP students. The background layers consist of a large black and white image of Mr. Escalante and original yearbook photos of each of the approximately 1,000 students who completed AP courses and exams during Escalante’s tenure at Garfield.
Commissioned by the Los Angeles Unified School District.