Students Ferret Out Hidden Stories of Olvera Street

A class of Loyola Marymount University students was assigned this semester to record the histories of the merchants of Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles, but they also unexpectedly found more to the story.

One student, for example, was prompted to explore her mother’s Mexican background. Another, an African American student, found in the Latino community a parallel to his own. A third student learned more about the history of political and artistic protests in the California Latino world in which he grew up.

Professor Cesar Lopez, who taught the American culture/Chicano studies class “Writing La Plaza History,” said he hoped students also learned to appreciate the layers of Los Angeles history found in the street, a tourist destination that combines historic landmarks -- such as the 1818 Avila Adobe home -- and shops and restaurants that attempt to recreate a Mexican marketplace.

“I hope they walk away from the class with a more complex understanding of multiracial, multiethnic history and comparative history of L.A. through the eyes of the plaza,” Lopez said. “I think for the most part Olvera Street is in essence historically taken for granted.”

Olvera Street has been studied up, down and sideways, according to William Estrada, curator of history at the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument, the city department that administers the area around and including the street.

Still, Estrada said there is value in Lopez’s teaching method, combining lectures with hands-on research.

Besides getting a good sense of the business people, the students “come away with the feeling that L.A. still has spaces that haven’t been overrun by freeways or fancy new modernist buildings,” Estrada said.

Olvera Street merchants sell folkloric art and colorful dance costumes as well as sombreros and taquitos from stands and galleries along the short but vibrant street, which is closed to traffic. In restaurants, diners can sit outdoors and watch tourists.

For the Loyola class, students in pairs created presentations rather than taking exams.

Many of Lopez’s 18 students were from California, but about a third had either not heard of Olvera Street or didn’t understand its historical significance.

Lopez’s lectures focused on both the history of El Pueblo and the challenges of recording oral histories. Required reading included two “how to” texts on creating oral histories and one historical text. Lopez did not teach much about the street after 1930, when it opened in its current form.

“I covered it, but I made them realize that they are the ones filling the gap,” Lopez said. In the 19th century, El Pueblo was the center of downtown. By 1903, the street had fallen into disrepair. About 20 years later, civic activist Christine Sterling started a campaign to save the area, and in 1930, the Mexican marketplace opened in the renovated buildings that line the street.

As some students discovered, the idea of a non-Mexican creating in essence a “Little Mexico” drew some debate about the authenticity of the street. Nonetheless, the merchants seem to greatly appreciate Sterling.

“She helped create a sense of community,” said student Beth Hughes. “She helped create a place where [Mexicans] could be themselves.”

In their projects, the students shared personal stories of the merchants.

Senior Antonio Bringas, 35, used his film major skills to make a documentary about Valerie Garcia, who sells Mexican arts and crafts through her business, Casa Garcia Imports. Garcia showed him the neglected corners of Olvera Street, including missing plaques and a broken water fountain.

“The oral history form gives a more in-depth, real and immediate view of the information,” Bringas said. “In a textbook, you are once removed.”

Bringas, who is from a Mexican American family, was very moved by the 1932 mural by David Alfaro Siqueiros on Olvera Street, which was whitewashed within months of its creation because of its highly critical portrayal of U.S. policies in Mexico. The mural features a large central figure of a Mexican Indian crucified beneath an American eagle.

Though the mural has been restored by the Getty Conservation Institute, it remains covered, awaiting the construction of a shelter to protect it from the elements and the building of a viewing platform.

In the mural’s history, Bringas said he saw a recurring theme of Latinos being marginalized. “I guess for me the No. 1 thing that I got out of it is that it seems like [Latinos] are getting taxed and not getting their fare share,” Bringas said.

Michael O’Quinn, 29, an African American studies major, focused on the Sousa family, which runs a coffeehouse that sells Mexican antiques.

“I didn’t know about the struggle politically for Hispanic people,” O’Quinn said, a struggle he said parallels that of African Americans. O’Quinn said he was unaware of the history of ethnic diversity in El Pueblo, which has had Italian, Mexican and Chinese immigrants and African American residents.

The Sousa business is facing serious financial troubles, Consuelo de Sousa told the students. The merchants get little support from the city, she complained.

(The city Department of El Pueblo, which operates Olvera Street, is near financial ruin because of bad management, according to an audit last month by the city controller. The audit suggested reforms.)

Student Beth Hughes, whose mother is half Mexican, said that being on Olvera Street reminded her of her childhood vacations in Mexico. Growing up in Orange County, Hughes said she never felt entirely comfortable with her ethnic identity.

“I never really felt like I belonged in one place or the other,” Hughes, 21, said.

Hughes profiled Martha Vasquez, who sells traditional Mexican dance costumes at her store, Olverita’s Village. Hughes talked for hours with Vasquez. Her business, unlike many others on the street, is doing well, Hughes said.

Hughes said she watched as Vasquez helped a mother and daughter trying on a dress for a quinceanera. It reminded her of a similar dress Hughes had worn as a child. She had never attached cultural significance to it before. Now she wants to buy an adult-size dress in honor of that part of her heritage.

And she hopes Olvera Street can survive in the age of malls. “It’s important to remember places like Olvera Street, because there are enough places already that are too similar,” she said.