DIA

Peace.” Amongst the parents were some who had lost their children and asked Tanguma to memorialize them in the mural.

One mother asked for a depiction of her son who had recently passed from suicide, another whose daughter was killed while helping her friend escape an abusive situation. Some had lost their children to gang violence.

Also featured in the mural was Tanguma’s young granddaughter, her cousins and classmates, and well-known children from around the world such as young activist Samantha Smith, (who passed in a plane crash), or brothers who marched for peace in Afghanistan. And while originally, he hadn’t planned to include political elements, Tanguma said the need to depict the injustices of war became apparent — an issue he was all too familiar with after having served in the military.

While painting the children, Tanguma asked for the families’ countries of origin, and depicted the children in the traditional clothing from each area. Over time, as many as 70 different countries were portrayed.

“These are fantastic experiences that have to mold you, because you see the beauty of humanity daily, from many, many countries of the world,” he reminisced.

Tanguma hoped that by including each of these countries, the artists could spread a message of peace to places beyond Colorado.

“I saw that as an opportunity to take the ideas that I have learned in my own community, a community where they are aspiring for greater civil rights and cultural identity, that permitted me to share those ideas with the passers-by from almost any country in the world.”

Attempts to destroy the artwork of the Tanguma family are not new to them. Leo Tanguma has faced critiques of his work since he was a child in Texas.

“When I was in the fifth grade in elementary school, I did some drawings on the blackboard about my classmates killing our town Sheriff,” he recalled.

“So, I got severely punished for that. But the reason I did that is because the sheriff in our hometown was the killer. He had killed, up to that point, seven MexicanAmericans -- including two of my mom’s cousins.”

Tanguma continued to do artwork portraying both injustice and visions for resolution. He was commissioned for a mural while stationed in Germany, and once again in the 1960s when he was transferred to California. There, he did a mural honoring the Mexican American movement for civil rights.

Eventually, his artist studio in his hometown of Houston was destroyed in a case of suspected arson. Around this time, his wife, Darlina’s mother, passed away from cancer. The family decided to try to start anew in Denver, where Darlina began her career as an artist while Tanguma continued creating well-known murals in places like the Denver Art Museum.

“Imagine a person that’s blacklisted in Houston. When I got to Denver, the Denver Art Museum asked me to do a mural inside the museum. What beautiful feelings that I had,” he shared. “But I still kept painting issues. I thought that besides the beautiful city and surroundings that I see, still there remained police brutality, education, women’s liberation, war.”

Through it all, Tanguma and his daughter have remained strong in their messages of hope, con- nected to art, and perhaps most importantly, connected to each other.

“My daughter has been the most important figure that I’ve ever painted with,” Tanguma shared. “Because not only is she talented, but she’s aware, aware of conditions, aware of our culture and our history.”

And as far as the conspiracies go, they haven’t stopped the Tangumas either. “It made me more dedicated, I think, because after that I did a number of other murals with social and cultural meaning,” he said.

Darlina continues to collaborate with community in her artwork both independently and through the Redline Contemporary Art Center’s ‘Reach’ program, and Tanguma is planning a mural with students from East High School.

“I think rumors like the airport conspiracies and the mural conspiracies, they really seek to destroy the human connection, the human spirit.” Darlina said. “But I want to create artwork that will bring us together.”

This Rocky Mountain PBS story runs as part of a news sharing agreement with Colorado Community Media.