Melesio "Mel" Casas was an American artist, activist, writer and teacher. He is best known for a cycle of complex, large-scale paintings characterized by cutting wit, incisive cultural and political analysis, and verbal and visual puns that he called Humanscapes, which were painted between 1965 and 1989. Only a few of these Humanscapes address Chicano topics, though they are his most famous paintings, and "have appeared repeatedly in books and exhibitions" and "are rightfully regarded as formative icons of the Chicano art movement." Many of the Humanscape paintings, by contrast, are little known, as is much of the work Casas produced in the following quarter century.

El Segundo Barrio is a historic Hispanic neighborhood in El Paso, Texas. It is one of the oldest neighborhoods in El Paso. It was one of the main ports of entry into the United States from Mexico for many years, and became known as the "other Ellis Island" as a result.