EAST LOS ANGELES : Memories of Latinos Chronicled in Photos

Six Arciniegas, holding graceful bouquets, surround sister Henrietta on her wedding day in 1931.

A confident Frank K. Lopez, dressed in a long overcoat and baggy pants that narrow at the ankles, holds his left hand in his pocket, making sure to pull back his jacket in true 1944 “zoot suit” style.

Women in long dresses and a man in a top hat stop before the Lopez Brothers grocery store at the corner of Utah and 1st streets in Boyle Heights in 1916.

These scenes are depicted in photos documenting Latino family histories in Los Angeles and beyond that have been collected and recorded in “Shades of L.A.,” a project of the Photo Friends of the Los Angeles Public Library. The exhibit of 50 photographs is on display at the East Los Angeles Public Library, 4801 E. 3rd St., until June 2.

Altogether, the “Shades” project, started in 1991, has collected copies of 6,000 photographs of ethnic communities in Los Angeles. Holding “photo days” in various parts of the city, the nonprofit Photo Friends of the Los Angeles Public Library gathered photographs from people who culled family albums and shoe boxes and other places where old family photographs have been stored.

The project has documented the African American, Latino, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Pacific Islander and Native American communities, said project director Carolyn Cole. This year, it recorded the Armenian community, and there are plans to collect photos of Israelis, Iranians, Turks, Southeast Asians and others.

After turning over the photographs for copying, family members were interviewed to jog memories of who was pictured, where they was taken and the events depicted. Scores of people brought in more photos than the organizers had anticipated.

“People do that for a reason,” said Tomas Gaspar, president of the Friends of the East Los Angeles Library/Chicano Resource Center. “They keep those old photos thinking someone someday will want to see them and know who those people were. We strike that chord.”

For Pete Rodriguez, 75, the exhibit has given him the opportunity to document the radio broadcasts he and his brother, Edmundo, or “Eddie,” were known for in the 1940s and ‘50s. They are pictured doing the first Spanish-language simulcast of the Rose Bowl Parade in 1952.

Rodriguez and Gaspar plan to collaborate on a book about the brothers’ groundbreaking work, which includes a bilingual music and talk radio show in 1942-43 called “Buenos Dias.”

“We had an audience you wouldn’t believe,” he said, recalling that his brother was called the “Mexican Pied Piper” because of his following. “He was way ahead of his time and he made his mark. They still talk about him in this neighborhood.”

Eddie Rodriguez went on to host a Spanish theater hour on Channel 9 and then a variety show on KNXT-TV, now KCBS. He died in 1961 of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 44. “With him went all the talent,” said Rodriguez, who lives in City Terrace. “He was a pioneer in Los Angeles.”

Gaspar, who helped bring the exhibit to East Los Angeles, volunteered at several of the photo days throughout the city and is now on contract with the city to digitize the photos onto the Central Library’s computer.

The Photo Friends are putting together a book of the collection while it continues to document other ethnic communities, including an effort today at the Central Library to collect photographs of the Jewish community.