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América Tropical. Directed by Jesus Trevino. New York: The Cinema Guild, 1971. Non-theatrical release: 2003. 30 mins. Color VHS. $99.95.
In 1969 art historian Shifra Goldman initiated a campaign to restore América Tropical, a public mural painted by Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros in 1932 on a second-story, outside wall of Old Italian Hall in Los Angeles' historic Olvera Street. Jesus Trevino's 30-minute film is an artifact of that early initiative. Equal parts historical documentary, political activism, and promotional campaign, the video situates Siqueiros' most important U.S. mural within the cultural nationalism of the Chicano civil rights movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The story of the mural, while familiar to Angelinos, has been overshadowed by the more spectacular censorship of Diego Ri vera's 1933 Rockefeller Center mural in New York. Nonetheless, Siqueiros' influence is arguably more significant among Chicano artists in California, with the Olvera Street project as his greatest legacy. After executing a controversial fresco at the Chouinard Art School, Siqueiros was propositioned by F....