Charles "Chaz" Bojórquez began his artistic career "tagging" his neighborhood of Highland Park, Los Angeles, in the early 1970s. Though he now paints on canvas instead of on walls, his work references the history and aesthetics of urban graffiti. The artist's calligraphic letters are adaptations of Cholo-style writing, one of the oldest forms of graffiti. It was invented by Mexican Americans in the 1940s, when gangs marked their territories with roll-calls, or lists of names. In Somos la Luz, Bojórquez created a roll-call of prominent Los Angeles graffiti artists. The title translates as "we are the light."