Layers of cultural influence

A hefty article in the Los Angeles Times about Latinos in arts leadership that is seen as a brown tide moving beyond  "the height of 'multiculturalism' in the '90s, even if it slowed down.

Yet it hasn't quite happened as expected. For every successful Latino/Mexican/Chicano-specific music or theater festival and every showcase such as Long Beach's recently remodeled Museum of Latin American Art, there have also been sore points, such as the venue struggles of the Latino Museum of History, Art and Culture and the protracted battle over the city-owned Los Angeles Theatre Centre.

The latter has been the subject of a drawn-out struggle since 2003, when Cultural Affairs solicited proposals to run it. A Cultural Affairs panel selected the team of Will & Company and developer Tom Gilmore over a competing plan by Jose Luis Valenzuela's Latino Theater Company. However, the City Council did not sign off on the agreement, and Councilwoman Jan Perry, in whose district LATC lies, tried to get the groups together without success.

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Un-pigeonholing -- and also affording opportunities not only for Latinos from other countries but also for those whose families have been here for generations. "I don't know if Mr. Domingo will produce a Chicano version of 'Porgy and Bess' any time soon," says Culture Clash's Montoya. "But I would like to talk to him sometime soon about a libretto for the generations of Eastsiders who have toiled in the factories and sweatshops of this city, whose children now occupy the most important offices just down the street at City Hall and in Sacramento. Now there is a story with operatic proportions."