The waymark coordinates are for the entrance to the America Tropical Interpretive center, from whose roof you can see the conserved mural. The decision was made in the 1980s not to repaint, so the mural today is presented in its stabilized state, though damaged and faded. Historic photographs of the mural are on display in the interpretive center.
When "Olvera Street" was created in the 1930s, in an area of downtown LA that was falling into seediness, it was supposed to be a re-creation of an idealized (by Anglos) Mexican village, heavy on the colors, shops and food -- light on reality. Olvera street was supposed to revitalize and reclaim this area of the old Pueblo and draw Anglo tourists and visitors to the area, which had been a bustling Chinatown for almost 100 years after also being first foothold for the Spanish settlement of Los Angeles.
In this spirit, the then-dean of the Plaza Art Center at the pueblo approached Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros in 1932 to create a mural that Ferenz suggested be called "La America Tropical." Can you see the brightly-colored happy birdies and stereotypical Mexican villagers?
BUT -- in hindsight, maybe Ferentz approached the wrong guy for his sanitized vision of happy Mexicans in an Anglo-friendly "Mexican" village.
A few months before meeting Ferentz, David Alfaro Siqueiros, a Mexican national then in Los Angeles teaching at the Chouinard Art School, had been kicked out of Mexico for his in-your-face political militancy that challenged the Mexican elite establishment and their government cronies.
Maybe Ferentz had no idea about Siquerio's history as a powerful visual artist who created provocative works of art when he hired him -- it's not exactly clear what Ferentz knew, especially after the mural was unveiled.
But what is clear is that Siqueiros and the 20 volunteer artists he recruited to help him seized the opportunity to create "La America Tropical," and the result was a visceral indictment of US imperialism and its effects on the Mexican people.
The mural is set in the rainforest, but it is a bitter foreboding place -- a tangle of thorns and men with guns who are trying to protect their homes from invasion. In the center of the mural, a Mexican peasant is being crucified on a cross, where an American bald eagle has landed. Behind him, an ancient Mayan temple lies in ruins.
Happy Mexican peasants in sombreros, pretty birdies -- not so much.
The cream of LA's elite came to the grand opening -- movie stars, socialites, politicians, media titans, captains of industry -- all were on hand to see the newest addition to the nascent Olvera Street attraction.
When the curtain was dropped, most dignitaries were appalled. This mural, far from supporting the Olvera Street fantasy, pierced it with a stinging message of the state of Modern Mexico and its fraught relationship with the US, past, present, and (it would turn out) future.
Within weeks, that part of the mural visible from Olvera Street was painted over. By 1933, it was all whitewashed -- erased from view of the throngs of happy tourists who visited Olvera Street and bought trinkets and ate enchiladas in this carefully stage-managed attraction.
The mural was forgotten for decades, until it was rediscovered in the 1960s. After years of stabilization and limited restoration, in 2013 the mural opened to the public, with its own interpretive museum next door.
The conservation and interpretive work that went on the restore this mural and put it in context has won preservation and cultural awards -- and rightfully so.
From the 2013 Best of LA by LA Weekley: (
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BEST OF L.A. /// ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT /// 2013
America Tropical
BEST HISTORIC, CONTROVERSIAL MURAL
Even a $10 million restoration couldn't bring America Tropical back to life — not completely. The 80-foot-long mural painted at Olvera Street by legendary Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siquieros is smeary and pale, a ghost of the past in burnt browns and moss greens. But we are lucky to have it at all: The painting was whitewashed by shocked officials shortly after its 1932 creation. They had expected a joyous, carefree "tropical America," but Siquieros delivered the incendiary image of an indigenous Mexican worker lashed to a double cross beneath a fierce eagle. A mural observation deck opened a year ago along with the America Tropical Interpretive Center, a two-room museum dedicated to the piece's controversy and legacy. The mural's colors may have faded, but history is well illuminated. 125 Paseo de la Plaza, dwntwn., 90012. (213) 485-6855, americatropical.org. —Daina Beth Solomon"
From the Olvera Street website, a recognition and celebration of this important mural and its legacy: (
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"Visit the America Tropical Interpretive Center.
America Tropical Interpretive Center is located in the heart of Olvera Street.
Free Admission Tuesday - Sunday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
History Behind the Piece
Upon his expulsion from Mexico in 1932 for radical political militancy, David Alfaro Siqueiros came to Los Angeles for six months. During that brief time, he completed three murals. The first, "Street Meeting," was painted at the Chouinard School of Art, where he taught a class on fresco painting.
He painted the last mural, "Portrait of Present Day Mexico" (which still exists), at a home in Pacific Palisade. But Siqueiros' most important mural in Los Angeles was his second -- "Tropical America." The powerful political statement was executed along the exterior of the second floor of Olvera Street’s Italian Hall, where the Plaza Art Center was located.
F.K. Ferenz, the director of the Plaza Art Center, suggested the mural’s title. Along with Los Angeles Public Library muralist Dean Cornwall, Ferenz, sponsored the work. Commercial companies donated paint, cement, mechanical equipment and wood for the scaffold. Siqueiros was assisted by approximately 20 artists known as the Bloc of Mural Painters and began the mural in mid-August.
Working primarily at night, he painted with an airbrush after the design had been outlined on the wall with a projector. The fresco, made of cement rather than the traditional plaster, was completed the night before its dedication on October 9, 1932.
The central visual and symbolic focus of the piece is an Indian peon, representing oppression by U.S. imperialism, is crucified on a double cross capped by an American eagle. A Mayan pyramid in the background is overrun by vegetation, while an armed Peruvian peasant and a Mexican campesino (farmer) sit on a wall in the upper right corner, ready to defend themselves.
Siqueiros’ allegorical depiction of the struggle against imperialism wasn’t a comfortable topic for the Downtown L.A. business and political establishment. It was also an uncomfortable topic for societal matron Christine Sterling, Olvera Street’s leading promoter, possibly because it did not conform to her image of Olvera Street as a docile and tranquil Mexican village. Unfortunately for the artists, the conservative politics of the era triumphed over artistic expression, and within six months a section of the mural visible from Olvera Street was painted out. Within a year, the work was completely covered.
Virtually forgotten for years, the mural was rediscovered in the late 1960s when the whitewash began to peel off, revealing Siqueiros’ hidden yet still powerful statement. However, the mural was severely damaged from the exposure to the sun. A plywood cover was installed in 1982 to prevent further deterioration. The mural is now going through the process of conservation.
In executing this work, along with his other murals in Los Angeles, Siqueiros used mechanical equipment, such as his extensive use of the airbrush, for the first time. "Tropical America," ("La América Tropical") is also significant in Siqueiros's development as an artist, for it was his first outdoor mural. Most importantly, it was the first large-scale mural in the United States that created a public space by being painted on an ordinary exterior wall. So unusual was its location that at its dedication, Dean Cornwell predicted "it would stimulate the execution of murals on similar blank walls." But it took the political and social upheavals of the Vietnam War and the Chicano Civil Rights movement 35 years later for the prophecy be realized. For when murals began appearing in urban neighborhoods across the nation during the 1960's, Tropical America acquired its most far-reaching significance by becoming their predecessor and prototype.
RESOURCES:
To learn more, please visit the America Tropical Interpretive Center.
We would like to thank the Getty Conservation for conserving the mural."