Stop 8

The fifth stop on our walking tour is the public mural, “Coffee Farmers,” painted by Kim Barzola. Located at 113-165 Division Street, this piece is on the side of El Dorado Cafe. The common denominator between the mural and this establishment is an appreciation for Latin-American culture. Barzola, a Peruvian- American raised in the nearby town of Salem, MA used her knowledge of Peruvian coffee farmers to create this mural. However, the artist behind this painting is not where the appreciation for Chelsea’s Latin-American heritage stops.

Carlos Camacho, the Head Baker and co-owner of El Dorado Cafe immigrated from Colombia in 1978. In an effort to share and spread authentic Colombian baked goods, Camacho’s parents and older brother established the original El Dorado Cafe in 1981. The cafe served as the first Colombian owned and operated bakery in Chelsea until the original structure was lost in a fire in 2014. However, soon after being rebuilt, the cafe soon became an opportunistic canvas for Barzola’s “Coffee Farmers.” Therefore, while this mural represents the hard work of Latinx coffee farmers, it goes further to dually acknowledge two nationalities.

In an October 2020 interview with the Chelsea Record, a local news gazette, Barzola explained that “even though [Camacho and her] are from different places, [they] both [know] what the world of coffee farming is about.” With a shared understanding of what it takes to grow and prepare perfect coffee, this location is a strong representation of how immigrants and first-generation residents of Chelsea have assembled to celebrate their shared identities.