"America Tropical" pays homage to historic Olvera Street mural

By Letisia Marquez

As an orchestral tone poem paid homage to Los Angeles' first outdoor mural, a video of one of Mexico's most celebrated muralists — David Alfaro Siqueiros — flashed before an audience at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on June 6.

The video, by UCLA Chicana and Chicano Studies Professor Judy Baca, unearthed a recreation of Siqueiros' controversial "América Tropical" mural on a wall in Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles. Mezzo-soprano Suzanna Guzman's voice echoed in the background as the video showcased contemporary murals whose artists were inspired by Siqueiros' art and activism.

Baca worked with Steven Loza, UCLA ethnomusicology professor, and Jose Luis Valenzuela, UCLA theater professor, to create the multi-media tribute for the Siqueiros mural, which also included a portrayal of Siqueiros by actor Sal López.

Performed at a concert featuring the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra and Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano, whom garnered several standing ovations, the tribute also highlighted the admiration for and influence of Mexican culture in the United States.

"With the Chicano movement and its related artistic movement, Chicano artists have identified heavily with their Mexican heritage and its various artistic forms in visual art, music, dance, film and theater," said Loza.

Unveiled in 1932, "América Tropical" was partially whitewashed and then entirely covered up two years later. Siqueiros, one of Mexico's greatest muralist and an outspoken communist, painted a crucified Indian, an eagle perched above him, as the mural's central figure.

In the 1970s, 40 years after the mural was censored, the image began to reemerge from the whitewash as the sun burned through the white paint.

"Chicano artists saw this as a symbol — an aparición (religious apparition) — coinciding with the growth of Los Angeles's Mexican population and strength of the Chicano movement and, in a sense, a call to paint murals on the streets of Los Angeles," said Baca, a legendary muralist who also founded the Social and Public Art Resource Center. "América Tropical was influential, even under whitewash, in spawning a mural movement."

Today, the Getty Conservation Institute and El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument, the Olvera Street unit within the City of Los Angeles, are working to restore the mural and construct a shelter that will protect the mural and a public viewing platform. An official public opening date of the mural measuring some 80-by-18 feet has not yet been announced.

Funding for the mural tribute was made possible, in part, through the UCLA Arts Initiative, which is supported by the Chancellor to stimulate collaborative programs in the arts.