América Tropical

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Jaime Roque: In preparation for the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and in the spirit of civic boosterism, a local Olvera Street art gallery director commissioned the renowned painter David Alfaro Siqueiros—one of the great Mexican artists of the 20th Century—to paint an idealized tropical scene on the gallery’s second-story exterior wall, which just so happened to directly face City Hall and the office of the mayor.

What happened next is the stuff of legend, a story filled with shame for the city, and a bit of mystery for those of us living here.

I’m Jaime Roque and this is ReCurrent, a Getty podcast where we discover what we gain by keeping the past, present.

Archive Audio: Next, next, F. K. Ferencz, the director of the Plaza Art Center in Olvera Street, commissioned Siqueiros to paint  another mural. This one is to be painted by a group of 20 students under the direction of Siqueiros. Siqueiros said, “The owner of a gallery, the Plaza Art Center, wanted to have the same kind of publicity. A typical bourgeois Yankee, he called me aside and said, ‘I want you to paint me an outdoor mural 30 meters long and 12 meters high. As you know,’ he went on, ‘my gallery is in the Mexican section of Los Angeles, a city of more than 500,000 Mexicans.’ The opportunity was magnificent.”

J. Roque: I’ve lived in Los Angeles for 18 years, and I thought I had done a pretty good job of exploring and learning about all it has to offer. Turns out, I’m still learning new things.

J. Roque: Ok, so I am going down the street walking past the vendors and the restaurants. Wow, I passed by so many times and never saw it. It’s in such a weird location. Why would anyone paint a mural where no one can see it?

Audio Archive: The mural he was asked to paint was to depict a romanticized view of tropical America as a land of plenty, but Siqueiros, a Mexican political activist and revolutionary artist, instead painted a scene of Maya ruins, with a central, crucified Indian figure. A North American eagle looms above him, while two sharpshooters take aim at the nearby eagle from a rooftop.

J. Roque: How’s it going?

Chris Gurrola: Good.

J. Roque: Located at the base of América Tropical is an Interpretive Center, I ended up chatting with Chris Gurrola. He’s a guide there.

J. Roque: This is kind of something that I want to tackle. Did you know about this mural growing up? Are you from L.A.?

Gurrola: Yeah, I’m born-and-raised-in-northeast-L.A. Angeleno and no, I did not know about this mural at all until I started working here as a museum guide at El Pueblo. Chicano history, Los Angeles history has had a big impact on me. I’m a historian. But I never knew about Siqueiros or América Tropical at all and I spent a lot of time in downtown L.A.

J. Roque: Ok ok, hold up. Before we continue, I think I need to know more about this mural, besides the fact that it’s hard to find. What’s the big deal about this?

Leslie Rainer: América Tropical is a mural that was painted by Siqueiros, 1932. On the rooftop of a building between Main Street and Olvera Street, called the Italian Hall...

J. Roque: That’s Leslie Rainer, she is a senior project specialist and a murals conservator for Getty Conservation Institute.

Rainer: ...And it’s painted on the exterior wall of this building. The building was an art gallery in 1932, and so the painting was commissioned by the art gallery director and Siqueiros had the remit to paint a picture of tropical America, and the idea was to follow the theme of Olvera Street. Olvera Street had also just been created at the time. It was brand new, and it was meant to be the idyllic sort of, theme park, Mexican marketplace that people would come to and feel like they were going back in time to another country.

And this was meant to follow that same idea, but Siqueiros was a real revolutionary and he did not paint exactly what they wanted him to paint. He did not paint the idyllic tropical America with the fruits of the land falling into the hands of the people. It was pretty controversial at the time and I think that one of the biggest problems that some of the people had with the mural right at that time was that tourists walking down Olvera Street could see those revolutionaries aiming their rifles at the eagle.

J. Roque: Back at the Interpretive Center, Chris Gurrola wasn’t the first Angeleno I encountered who hadn’t heard of the mural before it became work. I talked to Summer Ibarra, she works in the history department at El Pueblo Historical Monument. El Pueblo Historical Monument is a lively spot in the heart of Los Angeles where you can explore the city’s history through old buildings and museums.

Summer Ibarra: I was an intern here during 2021, through a Getty undergraduate internship program, and luckily they decided to keep me, so I’ve been working here in the history department, giving tours, helping out with museums. What we hear from a lot of guests who come into the museum, that they lived here like, their entire life and they never saw it here. So yeah, you, myself, Chris, who you met at the museum, everyone kind of has a similar experience with that.

I grew up around Boyle Heights, East L.A. My family has been based in Boyle Heights since they came over in the ’70s, you know, and murals are honestly your first exposure to art when you’re living in Boyle Heights. I mean, whether or not you went to museums, you were exposed to art.

J. Roque: There is a 1993 movie titled Blood in Blood Out, by director Taylor Hackford, it’s a story of two brothers and a cousin and the different paths life takes them through. It’s become a cult classic among Chicanos and there is a scene in the movie where the main character, Miklo, is getting dropped off in East L.A., and it’s probably the best way to describe the difference between Boyle Heights, East L.A., and the rest of L.A.

Blood in Blood Out Audio:

Driver: So what’s the difference between East L.A. and L.A.?

Miklo: It’s a whole different country!

J. Roque: I have driven this route so many times in my life. This is the route my family and I would always take to go eat tacos in Boyle Heights coming in from Downtown. We would eat at La Michoacana #3. It was on the corner of Soto and Whittier. That was my go-to spot in Boyle Heights, especially after concerts because it was open 24/7.

It’s now a Panda Express.

J. Roque: I’m in Boyle Heights and I’m standing in front of a mural titled Las Posadas that was recently whitewashed.

Viva Padilla: Hi, I’m Viva Padilla. I’m the owner of Rearte Centro Literario here in Boyle Heights. I’m also a poet, a publisher, and an art curator.

J. Roque: Viva commissioned this mural on the wall of her business to fight against the continued gentrification of Boyle Heights. The mural, painted by artist Sergio Robleto, covers a large, empty wall on a busy corner featuring traditional skull designs inspired by the artist, Posada. Robleto added bodies and instruments to the skulls, creating images of Norteño musicians to celebrate the area’s rich musical history. It is a symbol of resistance against the gentrification that threatens this area.

Padilla: We’re also stating that our culture never dies, that even in death we’re playing our instruments and we’re honoring the people that have passed away too, who were musicos norteños here that have contributed greatly to our neighborhood and to our community. Erasing it, it would be gone, it’d be lost, we wouldn’t be able to document them anymore

We’ve been pretty vocal about our opposition for the project that they’re planning to bring in here, that’s gonna basically gentrify this corner.

J. Roque: That project would redevelop a single-story commercial building on Cesar Chavez Avenue with a mixed-use, six-story apartment building. It would displace Viva’s bookstore, Re Arte.

Today, Boyle Heights is largely Latino, but its demographics are changing as higher-income residents move in. Rents and property values are rising, displacing long-standing, lower-income residents of the community. This shift not only changes the socioeconomic landscape, but also threatens the rich cultural heritage and tight-knit community bonds that have defined the neighborhood for generations. Which is why the whitewashing of the mural has Viva so energized.

Padilla: They’re just taking out the political statement, and the political statement says, Brooklyn Avenue is not for sale. So they have a problem with that. So they’ve been whitewashing it. This is the second time they whitewash it and so, bringing it back to Brooklyn Avenue is to say, don’t forget the history. Don’t forget what this used to be, or what this is, or what it’s become.

Isabel Rojas-Williams: Between 2002 until 2013 when the mural ordinance was signed by Mayor Garcetti, thousands of our murals were erased and many, because they were heavily tagged, but they could have been restored.

J. Roque: This is Isabel Rojas-Williams, an art historian and curator, who served as the executive director of the Mural Conservancy Los Angeles from 2011-2016. She is telling me about a period in Los Angeles’s history when a mural moratorium was in effect.

Rojas-Williams: Many because the climatic conditions, you know, that they were faded, but there was no need to erase them. Many because, uh, gentrification. Because, uh, new developers, uh, new buildings, or the same building where people were evicted and the new owners decided to erase our murals.

J. Roque: The ban was lifted on October 12, 2013, with the passing of L.A. Ordinance No. 182706, known as the mural ordinance.

Rojas-Williams: I got here at the time of the birth of the Chicano mural movement. I was very alone here. I think it’s the same that happens to any person that comes from a different country, where you don’t have any friends, no family, you’re no one, no one. I hardly spoke the language. I didn’t like the food. I missed my family. But one day, I was standing in front of a mural, I look at the mural and, you know, that mural empowered me. I look at it and I say, wow, that person looks like me. I saw myself in those murals. Politically, my color, and my struggle.

J. Roque: Okay, I’m here at the Estrada Courts in Boyle Heights. So now, in front of building 29 on Olympic Boulevard. Looking at the mural that inspired Isabel, the mural that made her feel at home, when she was missing home. The title’s Moratorium, The Black and White mural, and the artists, Willie Herron and Gronk.

But as we see with Siqueiros, América Tropical, a lot of these murals here, you sometimes have to take your education and your knowledge, your cultural background, your cultural heritage into your own hands. You have to make it important in your life because no one else will. Your family’s history, your family’s cultural heritage, the history that is being taught through murals. The Chicano mural movement, that’s a lot of what they wanted to do, they wanted to take back the narrative. They wanted to teach others in the community about their heritage, their history, and they did it in the only way they knew how.

This area serves as a vibrant outdoor museum and gallery, where the community can view and learn about their history just by walking around. The murals, some of which adorn the outside walls of people’s homes, transform the neighborhood into a living classroom of art and heritage. As Summer previously said, even if you didn’t go to a traditional museum, you are still immersed in art, experiencing the stories and history of your community firsthand.

Rainer: I think América Tropical was one of the seminal pieces for the Chicano mural movement in Los Angeles. It was really a touchstone because of this woman, Shifra Goldman, who was the UCLA professor, because she was interested in Chicano art, teaching Chicano art. There are a lot of artists who really were inspired directly by América Tropical.

Ibarra: I just think that it’s important to realize how much of an innovator Siqueiros was.

J. Roque: This is Summer Ibarra, again.

Ibarra: Not only as an artist, but also as a really strong activist as well. And also, look around if you’re driving around Boyle Heights, East L.A., and notice how much of his influence is embedded into every single mural here.

Rainer: So, Siqueiros was hugely innovative and he was always pushing the boundaries of painting and what it was and his way of doing it and his way of seeing it. So he innovated techniques and also styles. But when he got to L.A., he saw so much new materials and technologies that were being used here that were not yet really readily available in Mexico. So he saw a widespread use of cement. He saw pneumatic drills. He saw a lot coming out of cinema, out of the movie industry. And so large projectors and, you know, cameras, the photographic process, which he already had been using quite a bit in his earlier murals. But there were just all kinds of things that he saw here and he thought, wow, what if I tried doing murals like this?

He stated that he was going to paint this mural, América Tropical, using fresco technique, but with cement. And he was gonna prepare the walls using pneumatic drills. He was gonna use blow torches, he was gonna use cameras, he was gonna use big projectors, to project the images onto the wall. And he was gonna use all this new technology that he saw and then he put on this pigment in water, which he actually used spray gun. So we can also consider that Siqueiros was one of the first spray artists, right.

Rojas-Williams: Siqueiros was the first graffiti artist, if you think about it.

J. Roque: Siqueiros invented aerosol paint, which we now know as spray paint, and was innovative in other methods such as painting on fresh concrete.

Rojas-Williams: He invented Pyrocelin, or paint that is used on low riders, as a matter of fact.

Blood in Blood Out Audio:

Cruz: Orale mijo, this is Quetzalcoatl, the great Aztec poet king, he ruled the kingdom of Aztlan that was from Mexico all the way up here to Califas.

Juanito: Sexy mamasota!

Cruz: Pay attention, Pelao! I’m gonna teach you all about Aztlan! Cuz this vatos coming back someday to reclaim the Raza’s kingdom.

J. Roque: That was another scene from the Chicano cult-classic, Blood In Blood Out, that seems to me more relatable now than before, as I learn more about Siqueiros and spray painting techniques he invented. One character is giving a history lesson to his younger brother while they’re spray painting a lowrider.

Omar Ramirez: We weren’t definitely going to get an, uh, a lesson in your ancestors. Students still don’t, there has to be teachers that go out of their way to introduce students to this content. The, you know, the lesson plans, the state standards for social sciences doesn’t include these histories.

Why it’s not, he’s not talked about in school as much as, I don’t know.

J. Roque: That’s Omar Ramirez, artist and a professor of Chicano art history at Cal State L.A. He’s telling me how these histories don’t make it into our state standards and curriculum. As a former teacher myself—I taught elementary school for eight years—I can attest that as “progressive” as California is, we still have a long way to go.

Ramirez: I do feel like as a Chicano artist, he’s definitely held up higher in, within circles of muralism, because he definitely has had more of an impact. This goes back to muralism as a way of telling our stories. It’s narrative work, right? And so there’s different ways of telling a story.

J. Roque: Omar says there’s direct narratives; there’s parallel narratives, and even something he calls, ‘compositional structures of cubism.’

Ramirez: It’s all about education and teaching, and there’s almost like, this inherent obligation to help reconnect the communities that we belong to, in, up, and down the southwest region and all over right? Once you learn something, it’s our obligation to now teach the next person this story, this skill, this practice, this code, like reconnecting. Each one teach one.

J. Roque: Omar told me he thinks Siqueiros was big on two types of art: easel painting and large scale public painting. Siqueiros definitely preferred the latter because of this idea of teaching.

Ramirez: He definitely is pushing that art in the public space should be transformative. Should be exact in its discourse around issues of injustice, whether it’s environmental, social, historical, all these things. Siqueiros, very politically minded, didn’t hold back their punches around, let’s say, colonization, imperialism, etc.

Rojas-Williams: That’s the reason why he went to jail so many times.

J. Roque: Here’s Isabel again.

Rojas-Williams: Fighting for the rights of the people and fighting for equality and human rights. There was so much coming from him. And what he said, you know, he said, go out to the parks and to public buildings and paint about your struggle.

Rainer: He was a staunch communist and he was quite an activist. And so he wanted his art to make political statements. He painted to make political statements. That was one of his goals. América Tropical is an excellent example of his sort of political beliefs.

He was really painting about the oppressors and the oppressed. He painted two other murals while he was in Los Angeles. One of them was called Street Meeting, and he is wearing a bright red shirt, which is indicative of the sort of communist movement. In América Tropical, the doorway that goes out onto this rooftop, he painted to be a sort of a doorway that projects out and they’re on the rooftop of that.

That was a red door and that was also meant to indicate communism. And, his third mural, that was called Portrait of Mexico Today, and that depicts three female figures of different ages, a grandmother, a mother, and a young girl, they’re sort of a centerpiece, and then there are dead soldiers on either end of this little patio. And there is the picture of, who is then, the Mexican president. Directly across from him is a portrait of JP Morgan and, and it’s really a commentary on the U.S. influencing Mexico and Mexican politics at the time. So, he was very political and he painted it in, in quite a lot of what he painted. He painted into it his political ideas.

J. Roque: According to Isabel, her deep dive into Siqueiros’s work revealed much about his brief presence here in the U.S. He arrived in 1932, and he painted three murals in just six months. However, despite his significance as one of the three great Mexican muralists, Siqueiros faced exile shortly after. This led Isabel to reflect on the broader issue of how and why our culture is often erased.

Rojas-Williams: The centerpiece, that crucified, indigenous person, really represented our struggle, you know, and I always see it like a double struggle, you know, being colonized by the Spaniards. And then by imperialism, which is represented by that eagle above the cross. So to me, I began going deeper and deeper into why América Tropical was whitewashed.

J. Roque: Yes, that’s right. América Tropical was whitewashed, both literally and metaphorically. The bold message of América Tropical wasn’t at all what the city leaders and local big shots were expecting. And they definitely didn’t want it hanging out there for everyone to see, right in front of City Hall. They acted fast and within just a few years, they had whitewashed the mural, covering up the tough truths Siqueiros painted.

Rainer: Those revolutionaries aiming their rifles at the eagle, and that is the part that got whitewashed first so that the tourists couldn’t see it. The rest of the mural was left exposed for several years. We’ve been doing research and we keep finding pictures where you still see the mural up until at least about 1942. We know by 1950 it was completely covered, and it was in the ’60s that it was then, sort of rediscovered.

J. Roque: But painting over América Tropical did more than just hide a mural. It was like trying to quiet a really important conversation about who we are in America and what we stand for. This wasn’t just about covering up paint; it was about silencing a piece of history at a time when L.A., and really the whole country, much like today, was wrestling with big questions about race, identity, and who gets to tell our stories.

Rojas-Williams: I learned through a friend of mine that there was a little door in the, in one of those doors there that you could go through that not many people knew about it and you could get to the second floor where it connects with the Italian Hall, where you could see the mural.

J. Roque: Up close?

Rojas-Williams: Yes! I mean, there was nothing there because there wasn’t that division between the, you could be right there. So I remember going there, and I just laid down on the floor, on my back, looking at it. And I remember I was, you know, completely teary-eyed looking at it, and it was very faded. You couldn’t see much, and this is probably in the ’80s, mid ’80s.

J. Roque: So the whitewash itself was already coming off?

Rojas-Williams: I had that feeling—Wow, how inspiring. Look at this! And it was like black and white, no color because they had whitewashed white and it was coming out. These figures that you could make up a little bit or invent them in your imagination, which I did a lot of at the time I was looking at it, all so, so many things there.

So at the same time the Chicanos realized that the mural, was emerging from the wall like a ghost and it inspired people to go out for the reasons that Siqueiros always inspire people to go out for, you know. Like, just fight for your rights, find your identity, you know, fight for social justice. So that’s when everything began with all who got involved with restoring the mural.

Rainer: At that time the mural was forgotten, for a few decades until UCLA professor and art historian and scholar Shifra Goldman, who was one of the early professors to study Chicano art history, actually went to interview Siqueiros in Mexico City, and he told her about the mural, and she came back to L.A. to, to look for it and, and found that it was actually still on the wall. The whitewash had started to flake off and you could see some kind of partial image. So, Schiffra Goldman is the person who started grassroots efforts early in the mid 1960s to try and preserve the mural, and she brought up lots of experts and conservators from Mexico, from L.A. to, to examine it, and everyone thought that, you could actually probably preserve the mural, but probably could never be brought back to the way it had been originally painted.

By the 1980s, the city, they contacted the Getty Conservation Institute in a first instance to do scientific analysis of the paints and to find out what, what it was made of and how conservation could be sort of thought of, and then we entered into a collaborative agreement. It would be more than just conserving the mural. It would be building a shelter for it of some kind. It would be allowing access because it’s up on a rooftop and it would be, creating some kind of museum or interpretive center for it to tell the story.

Rojas-Williams: For me it was a great experience seeing that the Getty was getting involved. Because to me, I saw it as becoming partners with our community to bring back our culture, to bring back what is so rightly ours, but also of the world, also part of our history. To a place where, when Siqueiros was here in 1932, almost a half-million people had been, people born here, Mexican descendants born here were deported from Plaza Olvera. So, to see this organization such as the Getty bringing back our culture along with the city of L.A., it was a crowning moment for me.

Rainer: I think it’s really important that we have these touchstones. I think it’s really important. Los Angeles is such a new city that I think having anything that dates back to a certain period in time that remains relevant. I think it kind of carries our cultural heritage right, that’s what carries us forward.

Ibarra: Do the honors.

J. Roque: Yes, thank you! This is really amazing up close. It’s so much bigger. I mean, I knew it was big, but it’s just so much bigger when you’re like up close and personal.

Ibarra: Yeah, right? And like all those details that you can’t really see from afar, you could see close up.

J. Roque: Mhmm.

J. Roque: I’m with Summer again, a guide for the Pueblo Museums located at Olvera Street and she is showing me América Tropical up close and personal.

J. Roque: Wow! And it just kind of goes to show the amount of work that it took. It’s huge! You know, the central figure, I feel privileged. Thank you for, for allowing this. I appreciate it so much.

J. Roque: Standing in front of the América Tropical mural, it’s really something to see up close like this, especially with City Hall right there in the background. It feels special to be standing in front of such an important piece of art. I’m still amazed I hadn’t heard about it even with my constant trips to Olvera Street. Summer and Chris didn’t learn about it until it became a part of their work, and who knows who else still hasn’t heard about the mural, or of Siqueiros. The whitewashing that happened when they took the white paint and covered up the mural was meant to erase the memory of América Tropical, but ironically, that white paint actually helped preserve the mural, showing that history can’t be silenced. It’s a testament to the resilience of art and the enduring power of cultural memory. Even through layers of paint meant to hide its message, América Tropical lives on, reminding us of the past and inspiring new generations to uncover and embrace its story. Even though the mural was whitewashed back in the 1930s, similar attempts to silence artistic voices are still happening today, just like with Viva in Boyle Heights. But despite these efforts to suppress expression, art remains a powerful tool for informing the public and sharing our stories. The struggles are the same, but so is the resilience. So, while some may have tried to erase its existence, the mural’s survival serves as a powerful reminder that our stories will continue to resurface, no matter the efforts to bury them.

Let’s remember to appreciate the art on our city walls. Let’s keep sharing our stories.

Thank you for joining me on this episode of ReCurrent. Join me in two weeks as we continue to explore the cultural heritage stories around us. Let’s see what we can gain by keeping the past, present.

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ReCurrent was written and produced by Jaime Roque; audio production by Jaime Roque, with creative support from Zoe Goldman. Our executive producer is Christopher Sprinkle.

For transcripts, images, and additional resources, visit getty dot edu slash podcasts slash recurrent.