Longfellow Mural | Longfellow Ave

When I was driving along Broadway and watching out for stray pedestrians a colorful image caught my eye. Although it was fleet, it was the oddity of the image and choice of subject that particularly caught my interest. With Tucson being a predominately Hispanic community, its rare to see any sort of Asian wall art or graffiti. If it was in downtown Tucson, it wouldn't be surprising,  however, along Broadway Boulevard it stands out.

 The location of this mural is somewhat fitting, due to the fact that the name of the street it is located on is called "Longfellow". Unsure if the name existed before the mural or after the mural, but the Chinese word for Dragon is Lóng [龙] = Long; perhaps the "fellow" portion is associated with the man in the mural.  I'm not sure what the purpose or underlying dedication of this mural is, Its interesting to see Asian inspired/dedicated art in Tucson especially street art. 

Upon inspection, It is an mural of a Dragon and a cowboy. The Dragon is an Asian Long and whats interesting is that it has a western saddle on its back.  It hard to tell, but the hair is light colored and makes me question if this person is of Chinese decent. We typically have black hair, so the light color makes me a little skeptical of its implication. While I'm sure it is not intentionally offensive, it does bother me that the rider may not be ethnically Chinese or of Asian decent. In Tucson's past history, the Chinese community was not look upon fondly and were often blamed for stealing business and jobs away from the "locals. Thus this light haired man looks as if he has power over the dragon, which can be demeaning in a sense because Dragons are revered as powerful creature in Chinese lore. Taming the dragon may be a righteous thing in European standards. but to tame a powerful and benevolent Asian dragon like a horse, it seems disrespectful. Though there are stories of Dragons being open to the idea of being ridden so who knows, maybe the mural is showing the melting of Asian and Western imagery together. Perhaps, I'm looking into it too much or maybe there's not enough awareness, I don't know.