After twenty-five years, Darryl Mar came back to UCI to be part of the Beginnings of Activism for the Department of Asian American Studies at UCI (BADAAS@UCI). Our research group has wanted to interview Darryl Mar from the start of this project in Winter 2017. His mural is hanging in HG 3008, a conference room in the Asian American Studies Department office. After months of rigorous searching and contact inquiries, we were finally able to get his contact information to get in touch with him.
I met him and his daughter at the Mesa Parking Structure where we began our tour of the school. Mr. Mar had not been back on campus since he graduated, so he was in awe from how big the campus got since he left. Most of the buildings such as Humanities Gateway were new while he recognized older buildings like Langston Library. We went to sights like the Infinity Pool as well as the Science Library.
Caption: Justine Trinh showing Darryl Mar and his daughter at the Infinity Pool.
After our tour, we returned to Humanities Gateway where we ate and socialized before we began with the interview. He sat in front of his mural. His mural was originally at Student Center before it was moved to HG 3008. He mentioned that that the mural is finally home, and he was proud to see it hung up.
In his interview, he talked about his artwork and his contribution to Rice Paper. He created the covers for the early Rice Papers in 1990 and 1991, and he graciously donated the remaining newspapers that he kept.
