Post date
29 Jun 2017
Caption
Tony Ponce with Los Olvidados shirt featuring their iconic logo that referenced the controversial “Watch for people crossing road” signs first posted on the roads close to the México-US border in the early 1990s. Los Olvidados were one of the first artists to embrace the stark warning sign as an extension of their name, the immigrant forgotten ones. The people who are forgotten in their migration journeys. The migrant workers who are “forgotten” and made invisible in their jobs or in the streets of American cities. The original sign was commissioned by Caltrans to Navajo artist John Hood in the late 1980s. Hood drew inspiration from his own war experiences in the Vietnam war and ancestral stories of Navajos who died trying to escape from U.S. soldiers who marched them onto reservations. For the members of Los Olvidados —who were almost all recent immigrants in the U.S.— the sign became a potent icon that identified them as immigrants and that were discussed in their songs. The sign also connected the band with supporters who shared personal or family migration experiences. #LosOlvidados #CautionWatchforPeopleCrossingRoad #WatchforPeopleCrossingRoad #musicainducumentada #rockangelino #rocklatino #rockenespañol #latinalternative #losangeles #1990s #rockarchivoLA
Location
Los Angeles, California
Type
photograph
Bands
Los Olvidados
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https://www.instagram.com/p/BV8w1Kfn656/
View on Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/1990stony