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westernartgirlHeavenly Voices from the Barrio and Elsewhere in Los Angeles
This year’s Las Posadas celebration at the Autry, scheduled for December 16, features the Harmonies Girls Choir, whose voices have graced stages as diverse as the Hollywood Bowl and the Basilica de Guadalupe in Mexico City. They will perform classic choral arias as well as traditional and contemporary Mexican songs dedicated to the Virgin Mary. … Read more
Bang Data Rocks an Immigrant Groove Mixed With Latino Standards — and Hip-Hop
Juan Manuel Caipo, one-half of the driving force behind Bay Area-based alternative hip-hop band Bang Data, says he was born in the United States, but grew up in Peru. Deuce Eclipse, the other half, is of Nicaraguan extraction. So it’s fair to say that their music has a certain . . . something . . … Read more
Torrance Families, Anti-Violence Group to Make a Statement at ¡Vivan los Muertos!
One of the altars that is scheduled to be on display in front of the Autry at this month’s ¡Vivan los Muertos! celebration commemorates the shooting death of a young girl — and the rebirth of a community. “Those bullets were not for her,” said Blanca Mendoza, a mother and resident of the low-income, racially diverse … Read more
Sandy Torres Finds Escaramuza Both a Tough and Ladylike Way to Do Rodeo
Whenever there’s a horse or two in a story, you know there’s going to be a lot of pageantry — brave knights, mighty steeds, legendary riders, all that stuff. But even with those expectations, the film Escaramuza: Riding From the Heart, premiering at the Autry on Sunday, Sept. 30 and debuting on PBS on Oct. … Read more
Josefina Quezada: A Lifetime of Fighting for Public Art
A Mexican artist who was responsible for starting the drive to restore David Alfaro Siqueiros’ downtown Los Angeles mural América Tropical was honored Monday, June 11, in perhaps the best way possible: with the start of conservation work on one of her own murals. Josefina Quezada died about three weeks ago in Mexico, but she … Read more
A Cinco de Mayo Ditty
Music has always been part of the festivities in the 150 years that Cinco de Mayo has been celebrated in Southern California. But among the archives at the Autry is a popular song that could have been intoned at that first known pachanga to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, in May 1862 in Columbia, CA, not … Read more
A Facebook Conversation With Gustavo Arellano
If you missed it Wednesday, here’s a transcript of our Facebook chat with Gustavo Arellano, slightly edited for order. Thanks to Yadhira De Leon for moderating! Let’s welcome ¡Ask a Mexican! columnist, OC Weekly editor, and author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, Gustavo Arellano! In this thread, he will answer our questions … Read more
As American as July 4th — on May 5th
It’s true that Cinco de Mayo is more popular and more celebrated in California than in Mexico, where the Battle of Puebla that it commemorates actually took place. But contrary to popular belief, that is not because of U.S. Latinos’ flimsy grasp of history, says David Hayes-Bautista. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Hayes-Bautista, an … Read more
Gustavo Arellano, the Original “Mexican” Columnist, Answers Questions About Mexican Food in the U.S.
Updated April 18, 2012 — I had a chance this month to chat with Gustavo Arellano, the original “¡Ask a Mexican!” columnist and now OC Weekly editor, about Mexican food in the U.S., the subject of his new book Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. Arellano is one of the featured speakers at the … Read more
Tere Romo and a Seven-Year Quest for Art Along the Hyphen
Updated Jan. 10, 2012 — As much as Domingo Ulloa’s painting Braceros has become a symbol and one of the most admired works in the Autry’s current exhibition Art Along the Hyphen: The Mexican-American Generation, there was a time when its very existence was little more than a theory. The large canvas, which depicts a … Read more
