Cover story: Oaxaca rising: A native culture shines in L.A.16

MAY 4, 2011 @ 8:30 AM

Maybe youʼve seen it on a menu, in a travel magazine or on a food label. Itʼs that exotic name with the spelling you canʼt quite figure out: Oaxaca (for the record, itʼs pronounced: wah-ha-kah). Turns out itʼs all around you: in the food youʼre eating, the music youʼre listening to, even the

cocktail youʼre drinking. Colorful, pungent, ancient, mystical, itʼs a place thatʼs home to Mexican icons ranging from Benito Juarez to Lila Downs and mezcal. A land of striking contrasts filled with steep valleys, soaring mountains, hardscrabble terrain and fertile fields, itʼs arguably Mexicoʼs richest depository of indigenous culture — and absolutely the countryʼs poorest state.

But in Los Angeles, we are richer for having a vibrant Oaxacan community, people who are creating music, film, art and delicious fare to eat and drink, all a potent synthesis that mixes one of the worldʼs most ancient cultures with L.A.ʼs fast-forward, post-modern sensibilities. Here we profile six local tastemakers keeping this spirited culture alive in L.A.

Bricia Lopez: Co-owner, Pal Cabron restaurant

“If you live in Oaxaca, youʼre automatically attached to food — I canʼt live anywhere where I canʼt get a clayuda.” Spoken like a true Oaxaqueña, this sentiment expressed by L.A. restaurateur Bricia

Lopez sums up the deep connection Oaxacans feel to their food. This sophisticated cuisine dates back to before the Spanish conquest and brims with a variety of flavorful ingredients including chiles, chocolate and maize, all imaginatively rendered into dishes like clayudas — an orgy of flavor best described as Oaxacan pizza topped off with mole, avocado, pork loin and Oaxacan cheese.

At Pal Cabron, the Korea Town restaurant Lopez owns and runs with her two siblings, everyone from Silver Lake hipsters to recent Oaxacan immigrants queue up for clayudas and regional Mexican specialties like the torta on steroids known as a cemita.

Lopezʼs father, an immigrant from Oaxaca, essentially founded Oaxacatown (an area on 8th Street bounded by Vermont and Hoover) back in the early ʼ90s when he started selling clayudas on the corner of 8th and Irolo. That humble venture evolved into Pal Cabronʼs predecessor, Guelaguetza, L.A.ʼs acknowledged temple of Oaxacan food, now located on Olympic Boulevard. For Bricia, being part of the cultural mashup that is L.A. is something she has always viewed as more of an opportunity than a challenge. “At 10 years old, without knowing English, I was sent to Palisades Elementary School. I remember seeing girls with blond hair and blue eyes, and thinking they were little Barbies. It was like another world.” Today, she sees her mission as promoting Oaxacan culture across the city, helping Angelenos discover the richness of Oaxacan cuisine and culture one entrée at a time.

Yolanda Cruz: Filmmaker

Every community wants to have its story told, especially one whose narrative is rarely heard. Fortunately for Oaxacans in L.A., a storyteller has emerged who since arriving in this

country at 17 from Oaxaca City has been making films of increasing impact and visibility.

When Yolanda Cruz first arrived in the States, she spoke only Spanish and Chatino, one of Oaxacaʼs indigenous languages. Eventually she earned a masterʼs at UCLAʼs Film School. But with no real connections in Hollywood and no prospects in mainstream filmmaking, she turned to

her own experiences and community, and realized her subject matter was right in front of her: immigration and its impact on fellow Oaxaqueños.

“It started feeling like a part of Oaxaca was thriving right here in L.A. I encountered many people like me with immigration experiences and stories that hadnʼt been told.” Her seventh film, the 2009 documentary “2501 Migrants: A Journey,” fuses art and immigration, and details an artistʼs creative examination of a village in Oaxaca that lost many residents to emigration. Since its release, it has sold out a screening at Disney Hallʼs REDCAT theater and aired on PBS, adding to the filmmakerʼs achievements, which include invitations to the Sundance Film Instituteʼs Native Lab, Screenwriterʼs Lab and just last week, an invitation to participate in the Sundance Directorʼs Lab, where she will be working on a feature film project. Cruz feels at home in L.A. “Iʼve lived outside Mexico for so long, I almost feel like an outsider there,” she says. “Being here has helped me define my voice, learn about diversity, and cultivate a lot of support.”

Jose “Pepe” Carlos: Musician, La Santa Cecilia

You canʼt walk down a street in Oaxaca, whether itʼs a cobblestone lane in the capital or a dirt road in a village, and not hear music. Little wonder then that some of the freshest

tunes being made in L.A. today riff on the sounds of this soulful corner of southwestern Mexico. Pepe Carlos, a multi-instrumentalist with L.A.ʼs

free-wheeling Latin fusion band La Santa Cecilia, was born in the small Oaxacan village of San Andres de Solaga. He grew up steeped in the Zapotec culture, language, and of course, the music of his parents. When the family emigrated to the States when Carlos was 6 years old, the musical lifeline was kept alive by his grandfather, a musician in one of the small groups known locally as bandas filarmónicas. “My grandfather would make tapes and send them up to us,” Carlos recalls. “That kept us connected to the music being made in Oaxaca.”

His parentsʼ home was regularly filled with traditional rhythms such as boleros, sones and jarabes. But the sounds of L.A. filled his ears and imagination too. “I was listening to grunge, heavy metal, gypsy jazz, banda music — everything from Nirvana to Norteñas.” Today, the music Carlos is making with La Santa Cecilia reflects this cultural kaleidoscope. The result is a pan-Latin rhythmic roller coaster, absorbing Oaxacan melodies, cumbia, boleros and salsa, but also incorporating everything from alt rock to klezmer.

The band, named after the patron saint of musicians, has expanded from its regular gigs at Downtownʼs La Cita Bar to opening for high-profile bands such as Ozomatli and playing the Hollywood Bowl and SXSW. Their latest EP, “Noches y Citas,” is the newest expression of Carlos and the band.

“Weʼre all about preserving our culture, our parentsʼ music, but celebrating our music too,” he says.

Carlos Ramirez & Armando Lerma: Visual artists, the Date Farmers

Growing up in Indio, Carlos Ramirezʼs first exposure to art came in the form of gang and prison counterculture: tattoos, graffiti and his cousinʼs prison art. “Badass stuff,” Ramirez remembers. “In jail, itʼs used as currency.” A self-taught multi-media artist, Ramirez had a chance encounter with another artist at a gallery show more than a decade ago, and sharing a common vision, he joined forces with Armando Lerma to form the Date Farmers. Lerma introduced Ramirez to Oaxaca, and the two Mexican Americans began doing three-month trips to the region.

“When I first got down there, it was overwhelming,” says Ramirez. “We experienced it spiritually at first, then it started showing up in the work.” There were visits to pre-Columbian temples such as Monte Alban, and small towns with names like San Bartolo Coyotepec, where the quality of the artisansʼ work, richness of color, materials and connection to ancient ways inspired the artists.

The resulting work by the Date Farmers is a heady, almost psychotropic cocktail of cultural influences mixing street art, pop iconography and the indelible influences of Oaxaca that resonate through the use of Mesoamerican symbols and cast-off objects, which is a common practice in the region. Even more ambitious is their latest work, now on display at LAʼs Ace Gallery through July. For the show, the artists have

reconstructed a small theater and bar that inspired them on their last visit to Oaxaca.

“It just illustrates that art is part of everyday life there,” says Ramirez. “Thereʼs no nonsense — you wake up and do art. I love that.”

Edwin Cruz: Mixologist, Tlapazola Grill

In the shadows of the Santa Monica Freeway in a nondescript mini-mall, a small corner of Oaxaca is alive and well, fueled by the inventive mixology of Edwin Cruz.

Opened by his Oaxacan father 20 years ago, Tlapazola Grill, named after the village where the Cruz family is from, is gaining notoriety not just for its regional dishes, but for Cruzʼs fusion of traditional and unexpected flavors with agave spirits, especially Oaxacaʼs signature spirit, mezcal.

Working out of a bar space barely big enough to hold Cruz, his multi-hued bottles and farm-fresh ingredients, he finds himself in an interesting position for someone who was on his way to a graduate degree in psychology. But when the family business beckoned, Cruz responded. Now heʼs just steps away from the kitchen run by his father, where he can rummage for spices and flavors like mole, chiles and exotic produce for his cocktails. The experience reminds him of the markets he visited throughout his childhood in Tlacolula. “Now that everyone is using fresh fruit and vegetables, itʼs a way for me to come full circle and introduce some of these flavors with my cocktails.”

Itʼs also a way to maintain traditions that heʼs obviously proud and infuse them with a contemporary spin, using new super-premium mezcals and novel twists like Averna amaro or housemade orgeat. “In Oaxaca everything is either fresh or savory, so for our spring menu, since people want something fresh, we are incorporating things like traditional spaghetti squash and zucchini aguas frescas.

“When I started making my cocktails here, I never thought people would pay any attention to this tiny little corner. But I guess if you are doing something right, surrounded by 200 bottles of tequila and mezcal, people will take notice. It makes you feel really proud to be from Oaxaca.”

–Eric Hiss

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All photos credit: Raul Roa/Staff Photographer