Art, Politics and the History of Downtown Los Angeles

America Tropical is emerging again on the second-floor wall of the Old Italian Hall on Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles. It was painted by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros in 1932, sponsored by an Olvera Street booster named Christine Sterling. But she and the rest of the city's elite were so shocked by the picture that they whitewashed it section by section until it disappeared. Now the Getty Conservation Institution has almost completed the restoration. KCRW's Saul Gonzalez has the story. (Voices of Leslie Rainer, Getty Conservation Institute; Carmen Muñoz, Olvera Street merchant; and Chris Espinosa, General Manager of El Pueblo.)