The Denver Airport Murals

jay on Mon, 17th Oct 2011 12:16 am 



How could you protect this artist? There is no doubt in my mind that these paintings are evil. They depict what is to come. Why else would the airport be funded by the new world air commission? This world is filled with evil. Open your eyes willful ignorance is for the weak.

Angela on Mon, 17th Oct 2011 7:26 am 



What I love about these paintings is that whoever views them and then talks about them gives an inside look NOT into the artist or those who commissioned the paintings, but to the viewer. Why such evil thoughts Jay?

Yes Jay, there will always be evil in the world. What are you doing about it? Will you just choose to slander other artists or will you be the difference we need in this evil world? Its easy to talk about evil, its another thing to irradiate it. What do you choose to do? Should I get rid of this blog post because you perceive the artist and airport as evil? I can’t do that. You’re opinion does NOT make the artist evil. Why not write a blog yourself on the beauty of goodness and God, instead of spreading paranoid hatred that doesn’t do anything but glorify the very villainy you claim to be evil.

red on Mon, 17th Oct 2011 1:51 pm 



these paintings are showin 2012. i didnt believe it at first but when religion and science both say yes were all gotta start to open our eyes. come on now these arnt exactly nice to look at…them being there is not random, just look at what they show. a man with a assault rifle killing a dove…dove has always stood for peace.

Angela on Mon, 17th Oct 2011 2:03 pm 



Yes Red, the dove always has stood for peace, however, does that mean the artist is evil for showing EXACTLY what man has done in the past and will do in the future? It doesn’t take a psychic to know that men and women have destroyed civilizations and people in the past, and will continue to destroy in the future.
More shocking to me is the idea that people are so blinded by conspiracies that they don’t see the every day evil that takes place in the world around them until it is too late.

If you were commissioned to paint Satan and Armageddon, would others accuse you of being in league with the devil or that you are evil? Probably! But we both know the truth don’t we?

Leticia Tanguma on Wed, 7th Dec 2011 2:24 am 



From Leticia Tanguma, one of the artist of the murals at DIA.

Dear Angela,
I am currently writing a description of the airport murals that my father and I painted, as well as about the accusations from the conspiracy theorists. In my research, I recently came across your writing. I am very moved, and very grateful, for your thoughtful response to the murals, Children of the World Dream of Peace, and Peace and Harmony with Nature. I truly appreciate your insight and care.

I would like to share with you and your readers my essay.
Sincerely,
Leticia Tanguma

Copyright 2011.
Children of the World Dream of Peace
People around the world have said that murals at the Denver International Airport, titled Children of the World Dream of Peace and Peace and Harmony with Nature, promote genocide and the “New World Order.” My father, Leo Tanguma, who designed and directed this mural project, and I, Leticia Tanguma, assistant artist, reject these accusations. In response to books, websites, blogs, and TV and radio shows about the “DIA mural conspiracies” - - I wish to share the truth of the mural’s original meaning and beginnings. I am confident that with the following narrative, people will discover the mural’s real message.
I thought that I would start by sharing a little about ourselves just to remind others that we all have commonalities. On many websites, radio, and TV shows, people mistakenly label my father. For example, radio show host Jay Weidner claims that he, Weidner, “knows (Tanguma) was told” (as if Weidner interviewed my father, which he has never done) “pretty much what to paint” (qtd. in Maher). DIA administrators have never ordered any artist to paint certain subjects. Also, writers for the Denver Conspiracy Files website state as fact that “Tanguma is a Mayan” (An Index).
My father is not Mayan. Although we would be proud to be Mayan, my father, the child of impoverished Mexican American and Chicano migrants, worked as a child laborer in the farms of America during the 1940s. He joined the Marines, and later, after being honorably discharged for being only 15 years old, he joined the Army. He raised my two brothers and me by himself after our mother, Ruby, died from a long struggle with cancer. In the last five years, my father survived cancer himself, and is now painting much smaller paintings. Artist Cheryl Detwiler and I were his main mural assistants. Cheryl, an incredible artist specializing in oil portraits, raised five children, four sons and a daughter, alone. I also raised my daughter alone. Both Cheryl and I survived domestic violence. Actually, while we painted the DIA murals together, we talked about our personal experiences. Her will to stand up against interpersonal violence inspired me to do the same. I will always admire her strength and determination for escaping her abusive husband in order to raise her children without the threat of violence. Now, Cheryl is still painting. As for myself, after the completion of the DIA murals in 1995, I worked for almost ten years at Denver crisis centers as an educator and self-defense instructor. I also taught art in after-school programs. In 2009, my twenty-two-year old daughter and I were laid-off from our jobs. I decided to return to school; I am now pursuing a degree in art. The lives of my father, Cheryl, and I are very similar to millions of other Americans; we have struggled within our families, we work hard at our jobs, we make mistakes, we have successes, and we have dreams and aspirations. Our main priorities are our children. We care for our community as demonstrated not only by painting at local schools with students, but also by volunteering at places like the local food bank and community theater.
In 1992, my father responded to a Call for Entry from the City and County of Denver. For those not familiar with the term, “Call for Entry,” it is simply a contest that is standard in the art and business industries. Many of the people making false accusations about the DIA murals have stated that my father painted what the airport told him to paint. However, my father has always created works of social commentary. He submitted a sketch of his idea, and he became one of several artists from around the country chosen to create art for the new airport.
We painted the two sets of Denver International Airport murals in a local studio within Lakeside Mall, near Wheatridge, Colorado. After three years of creating the mural there, we transferred the large panels to DIA in 1995. While the murals were at Lakeside Mall, hundreds of people visited us. They came to see the mural, which spoke of peace and diversity. We not only painted children’s faces from our own imagination, we also painted real life children, such as Sandina, my then eight-year-old daughter, three of her small cousins, and at least ten of Sandina’s classmates and friends from school and church. I have many memories of these children attending each other’s birthday parties, playing in tree houses, skating at the roller rink, and going on school field trips, such as to the museum, zoo, video arcade, and to ice cream shops. Chris, one of Sandina’s classmates, was a Boy Scout, so the portrait we painted of him is in his Boy Scout uniform. Other proud parents brought their sons and daughters to the studio and either lent us authentic traditional costumes or brought us reference photos. Some of the children posed in their traditional dress. Many of my daughter’s friends were in costumes from their own heritages, like nine-year-old Sarah, whose portrait is next to Chris’s – Sara’s ancestors were from Russia, Amber’s from Italy, and two sisters, Felicia and Jackie, from Switzerland and Holland. Other costumes included some from Africa, the Australian Aboriginal, Bangladesh, Nepal, Native America, and even from Amish America and the Colorado Rockies. Seeing how much the community enjoyed the mural, my father, Cheryl, and I collaborated with Sandina’s school, Stephens Elementary, and organized free painting workshops where every child was welcome. Some of the parents provided free photography, writing, and comic book drawing lessons as well. The murals truly belong to the community.
Little did we know that authors Alex Christopher and Jay Weidner, and radio and TV talk show hosts George Noory and Jessie Ventura, were to twist the mural’s message of peace by implying that the murals promote genocide and war. Now, as artists, my father and I accept that all of us have the right to interpret any art. Even DIA administrators have advised individual conspiracy theorists to “select whatever explanation you choose to believe” (Gettleman).” However, when these interpretations generate hate and fear, we are naturally compelled to share our original purpose of the mural.
To a world wide audience, some of the conspiracies generated from Ms. Christopher’s book and a host of websites, such as Vigilant Citizen, state as fact that the murals portray Hitler teaching children, that the Mayans are going to destroy the world in 2012, that the mural is a road map for extraterrestrials to land at DIA, that the animals depicted in the murals are “unclean animals” from the Bible, and that DIA will only cater to the “elite” in its underground fallout bunkers when the world ends. The accusers claim that the murals predicted 9-11 and foretell a doomed future.
My father and I did not know about these conspiracies and accusations until several years after the mural was completed. We did not address these “theories” because we were busy in our lives, working on other projects, and just trying to survive like all Americans do. It was not until my cousin shared some of the accusers’ particular writings and blogs about the mural that we developed a stronger interest. My cousin was afraid that some of the content sounded like the accusers wanted not only the murals destroyed, but my father as well (Ramirez).
I could not help but ask myself, how could people who claim to be against atrocities feel such hatred and advocate it?
In the early 1990s at the Lakeside Mall studio, author Alex Christopher visited the studio to speak to my father, Leo Tanguma. Despite my father sharing the mural messages with her in great detail, as shared with the general public who visited us, Christopher warned my father not to trust the United Nations because the UN is part of the New World Order (Tanguma). My father did not wish to engage in an argument based on her conspiracy theory. He eventually created a website that explains his lifelong work of art, in which he clearly explains that the murals portray “humanity coming together to heal nature and live in peace” (Tanguma).
Within the first mural, the smaller panel of the set titled, Peace and Harmony with Nature, we painted children as witnesses to the destruction of the environment - the burning of the rainforest, pollution in cities and oceans, and the slaughter of animals. We painted what the general public already knows – as a society we know that the world has pollution and that nature has been wounded. And like every one of us who has this awareness, my father was also concerned and still remains concerned about the environment. He painted these murals because of his care for the world. He was saddened by the destruction of the rainforest and the slaughter of whales. He was aware of endangered species, such as the wolf, snow leopard and the Quetzal. He even realized that many plants are also endangered in some parts of the world, such as the Rosy Periwinkle that is used in medicine against disease.
Aware that many corporations are responsible for the destruction of the forests and oceans, my father had painted three concrete slabs to symbolize industry crushing the environment. While we were painting this panel, I pointed out to my father that not only nature and animals are affected by land development and exploitation -the destruction of the environment has also wiped out entire groups of people. It is well documented that certain tribes of Native Americans actually became extinct due to disease and the massacres committed in the 1600s through 1800s for the procurement of land. As descendents of surviving indigenous peoples of the United States, my father and I are greatly concerned that this event in history be remembered and not repeated. Because of this conversation, my father painted images of indigenous individuals in coffins, slain by the hands of greed and racism. He painted an African young person holding beloved cultural artifacts and a Native American youth holding and cherishing the Iroquois Confederation Belt. He painted these images to illustrate how resources, culture, and societal contributions were stolen in order to benefit an oppressive, dominant society. We also discussed the genocide in Bosnia and Serbia that happened in the 1990s, so we chose to paint a European child. We were touched by the struggles of our European brothers and sisters - Christians, Jews, and Muslims - being persecuted for their religion and ethnicity. The children standing above the coffins are deeply saddened as they see that mankind has killed these young people and the beautiful nature and animals around them.
In the same panel, Peace and Harmony with Nature, one of the children witnessing these tragedies is Guatemalan girl. She is holding a broken artifact of a Mayan motif. The conspiracy theorists emphasize that this image proves that the mural’s artists and that DIA want the destruction of the earth by 2012. Dave Alan of Radio KSEO interviewed Alex Christopher in 1996, in which she states:
One of them that is very unusual has three caskets with dead people in them . . . There are evidently three groups of people that they would like to see dead. Now, normally I would not have thought too much about these murals if I had not done a lot of research. Even in the government documents I have run across gene-splicing discussions on how they would like to “splice out specific races”, and also whoever these people are do not like the Jewish people. This same mural depicts the destruction of a city and the forest, and there is a little girl holding a Mayan tablet that speaks of the destruction of civilization.

L.G.Tanguma
The symbols on the Mayan artifact are actually two people speaking to each other. They are holding images of a butterfly and a flower, two symbols from numerous cultures around the world, meaning transformation, beauty, and nature. My father depicted a child from Guatemala, a country that has faced much brutality and war. She is holding something special to her people saved from a burning rainforest. The symbol of a butterfly and flower clearly do not represent the Westernized fear of the 2012 Mayan prediction – the conspiracy theorists only claim to this artifact is that this image is Mayan, so they jump to thinking something like, “Aha! It’s Mayan – the artists want the destruction of the world in 2012!” The accusers choose to dismiss or ignore the sadness in a people’s loss of their culture and livelihoods because of the destruction of the environment. The accusers are only concerned with the Mayan people when it comes to this “2012 prophecy.”
The next panel shows the best of humanity – children – coming together, their compassion, respect, and concern leading them to save the earth, nature, animals, and each other from pollution and the destruction of the environment. The Australian Aboriginal child carries a “Dreaming” painted on tree bark (which we artists learned from library books that a Dreaming, known for colorful, bright dots, reflect Aboriginal cultural and spiritual beliefs). Depicted within the Dreaming is a traditional legend of their people about a lesson of caring for nature. There are many other stories of the children we painted in this mural – such as the Mexican girl, dancing. We dedicated this portrait to my Grandmother Anita, because when she was a girl, she lived in a strict household and she was never allowed to dance. So in the mural, we imagine her finally free to dance. When my father was painting the Scottish boy’s costume, after we had transferred the murals to DIA, an elderly couple visiting the airport told him that he should not paint the crest (which is like a medal) of that certain Scottish clan. My father asked them what crest belonged to their clan. The couple told my father about their crest, and later brought him a photocopy of it. My father painted that crest on the Scottish boy’s costume as well. Weeks later, other, different people came by and complained about the second crest. They protested like the other people: “How could you paint the crest of the clan that massacred our clan?” My father ended up painting three different Scottish crests on the same costume! It was the beginning of a great discussion. We pointed out that we understood their concern; however, since this was a mural about peace and healing for this generation, we painted the Europeans next to the Native Americans – our ancestors – who were also targeted with massacres. Finally, the people we spoke to smiled with a tear in their eyes and nodded in approval.
All the children learn from a Yanomori child of the Amazon rainforest, who shows them how to care for the environment. This child shares with them an undiscovered plant from the rainforest that has not been crushed by bulldozers. The humpback whale is not being slaughtered, the endangered whooping crane, no longer endangered, dances, and the snow leopard and her cubs thrive in the Himalayas. The Guatemalan girl, now free herself from oppression, releases the Quetzal. We artists also have a sense of humor, especially my father; he dedicated the paintings of the noble golden Tamarin monkeys to him and his brother, my Uncle Lee.
In the Children of the World Dream of Peace panels, the figure of war stands over children as it attempts to destroy the dove of peace. My father painted the figure of war, the dove, the bombed out building, and the woman with the baby.
I painted many of the refugees, some of the destroyed walls, and the four main children who are sleeping, in which a “dream mist” rises. While I painted these images and explained them to the people who visited us at the Lakeside studio and at the airport, I often thought and spoke, in general, about the children and teenagers that I worked with at Denver’s Family Crisis Center and at Urban Peak, a Denver shelter for homeless youth. At Urban Peak, back in 1988 – 1990 when I worked there as a VISTA Volunteer (Volunteers in Service to America, now known as Americorps), teenagers who belonged to different gangs such as Skin Heads and Crips would drop their gang lingo and attitude outside and come inside the shelter peacefully. They did not fight or threaten each other. They even discussed various topics as if they were old friends (I directed a mural there that invited the youth to paint about their experiences). At the crisis center, four-year-olds and eight-year-olds who had been admitted there because of severe abuse, at bed time, would ask for their mother or father. They would ask, “Why did my mother hit me?” “Why did she choke me?” Why did my father burn me?” “Why did he rape me?” I cried with them, especially when they also stated things like, “ I still love Mommy.” “I still want to be with my parents.” These children and teenagers still dreamed of peace despite living through abuse and the dangers of the streets. Any person who has ever worked with children or has experienced abuse knows, that as children, we ask these questions, and still yearn, still dream of love, and still dream of peace.
Children of the world dream of peace.
I have shared what inspired me to paint this part of the mural. The famous
poem by 14-year-old Hana Herchenberg, who died on December 18, 1943 in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, was one of many inspirations to my father. Young Hana’s poem sings a generation’s cry:
I once was a little child who longed for other worlds. But I am no more a child for I have known fear. I have learned to hate. How tragic, then, is youth which lives with enemies, with gallows ropes. Yet I still believe I only sleep today. That I’ll wake up a child again,
and start to laugh and play.
In the DIA mural, despite the horror of abuse and that of war, the children dream of peace and yearn desperately for safety, love, and friendship. They yearn not to hate. A rainbow “mist” represents their “dream”. Their dream rises above the terrible figure of war, and, into the next panel, the dream/mist, turns into a rainbow. Humanity’s collective yearning for peace defeats the atrocities and injustices of war – the statue of war has been toppled over, and peace prevails, as represented by the doves standing on the broken statue. Children whose countries have been enemies are coming together in peace to discard weapons of pain and fear. My father chose to paint American, Japanese and Russian children in the center of the mural because he wanted to portray the “super powers” finally learning peace and not continuing the legacy of Hiroshima, Pearl Harbor, and Stalinism. He felt that Germany, with its history of the Holocaust, needed to be portrayed as finally learning peace the most, so he has the German child “beating swords into plowshares.” We dedicated the image of the German child to Hans and Sophie Scholl, two Christian German university students who spoke out against the Nazis – they were martyred because they distributed leaflets imploring German citizens to rally against Hitler. My father, a Christian, loves the passage in the book of Micah and wanted to show people coming together in peace and refusing to wage war.
Instead of heeding this beautiful message and dream of peace explained to her by my father, author Alex Christopher states:
All of the children of the world (take) the weapons from each country on earth and (give) them to a central figure which is a GERMAN boy who has this iron fist and anvil in his hand. What all this symbology on the airport murals seems to convey is that not only do we have a secret society behind this, but that it is a German [Bavarian] secret society behind this, working in the vicinity of this New World Control Center. (qtd. in Alan)
David Dionisi, author of Vigilant Christian li: Preventing an American Hiroshima, interprets the murals as “World War III” murals. The Vigilant Citizen has an equal sinister message: “Even the American kid (dressed as a boy scout) seems eager to give his weapons and flag to the German boy…America joyfully submitting to Germany.”
Nothing like these malicious interpretations ever crossed our mind.
The accusers also think that the panel with the towering figure of war predicts 9-11. The truth of this panel is that we as artists and community folks recognize the suffering of people seeking shelter from disease, starvation, poverty, and the bloodshed of war. We were also very concerned with the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 (on the adjacent panel, there are Tutsis and Hutus coming together in peace). The accusers’ belief that this panel predicts September 11, 2001 and a future of doom is another one of the conspiracy theorists’ dismissals of acknowledging that war and suffering has happened in other nations and that those people’s suffering is vital too. We never fathomed that something like 9-11 would happen. On September 11th, we were deeply horrified and shocked by the terrible, unjust events just like our fellow Americans. In the 1990s, we painted this panel to recognize the suffering of war and to speak out against injustice and violence.
One day, a local man visiting the studio asked my father to paint his son Jessie, who had died. Mr. Sanchez gave a photograph of his son to my father, who painted the portrait within a week. Shortly thereafter, people from all over Denver that we had never met came and asked us to paint their children who had also died. They brought their children’s photographs. We painted several young people who were killed by violence, such as domestic violence, suicide, and gang violence. One young lady, Jennifer Sanchez, was murdered when she was bringing her friend diapers for her baby. Her friend had escaped from her abusive boyfriend and was hiding in a different location. The friend’s boyfriend followed the unknowing Jennifer to the hiding place. In front of the baby, he shot Jennifer, and dragged the baby and mother over Jennifer’s body. I painted Jennifer’s portrait, which I know could never give the real Jennifer justice. Her parents and sister told me what an incredibly caring individual Jennifer was. Another portrait shows a young man who had been accidentally killed in a car accident caused by a police officer in his patrol car while the officer was chasing another vehicle. Other portraits include two youth who were shot randomly, one in front of her own home. A three-year-old Denver boy was shot by gang members in a drive-by and was confined in a wheel chair. The small child eventually died from complications. We also painted Troy Chavez, whose parents lovingly created the Troy Chavez Memorial Peace Garden, which exists to this day. In 2005, I took my students to visit Ana Chavez and her son’s peace garden so that they could learn from her and Troy and to talk about violence prevention. We painted Troy, Jennifer, and the other beautiful young people above a banner that says the word “peace” in several languages. Children of the World Dream of Peace inspired a dialogue within the community about respect and human dignity. Although their children’s portraits were not part of the original design, the parents told us how painting their children helped to contribute to family and community healing. Their families helped design the murals with much more than their suffering. They helped design the murals with hope.
Christopher and the other “conspiracy instigators” disregard the beauty of a community that shared their children’s lives within the mural’s true message. None of these authors or public figures, such as Christopher, Weidner, Noory, or Ventura, has ever interviewed the parents of the children whose portraits are in the mural, or my father, Cheryl Detwiler, or me. Christopher and the others feign ignorance and generate fear and maliciousness. They attempt to kill hope for their monetary profit and for their own selfish agendas. It is sad that Alex Christopher and her fellow accusers choose to ignore the murals’ humble message. Their accusations speak more to what they are about: generating misunderstanding, hate, and fear. To them, promoting fallacies is more important than community, more important than interviewing the families, and more important than addressing the real issues depicted on the murals.
Hope cannot be destroyed, nor will the murals’ true message. Children will always dream of peace.
I hope that the authors and hosts of the DIA mural conspiracies will put aside their agendas and be open to seeing each of us and the children portrayed in the mural and their families as fellow human beings.
Hopefully, like most people, they will truly wish for the world to thrive in peace.

Works Cited
Alan, Dave. KSEO Radio Interview with Alex Christopher, Author of “Pandora’s Box” and
“Pandora’s Box II” Extract from Leading Edge International Research Journal #92. Transcript by Leading Edge Research Group. 1 June 1996. Radio.
“An index of the theories surrounding the world’s most sinister airport. Smithsonian mag takes
a peek at DIA conspiracy theories” Denver Conspiracy Files. 25 Nov. 2011. Web. 4
Dec. 2011.
Dionisi, David J. Vigilant Christian li: Preventing an American Hiroshima Trafford Publishing.
North America and International 2011. Page 273. Print.
Gettleman, Elizabeth. “Conspiracy Watch: America’s Evilest Airport” Mother Jones. Nov. – dec.
2009: 4 gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 15 Nov. 2011
Maher, Jared Jacang. “DIA Conspiracies Take Off. Conspiracy theorists think something’s fishy
at Denver International Airport.” Westword Denver News. 30 Aug. 2007. 7 Nov. 2011.
Print.
Ramirez, Raul. Personal interview 2008
Tanguma, Leo. Personal interview 1993
Tanguma, Leo, Children of the World Dream of Peace, 2007. Web. 1 Nov. 2011.
The Vigilant Citizen, Sinister Sites – The Denver International Airport, The Vigilant Citizen,
Symbols Rule the World, not Words or Laws, 27 Nov. 2008. Web. 1 Nov. 2011.

Paul on Fri, 13th Jan 2012 2:56 pm 



Excellent.. Puts straight just what I thought for a long time…
The beauty of art makes for great debate, but some just get carried away… Keep up the great work and thanks for taking the time to share the truth… Truth is real beauty..

Leticia Tanguma on Tue, 24th Jan 2012 2:37 am 



Thank you Paul. Your words encourage me to keep sharing the mural’s true message.

Melanie on Mon, 30th Jan 2012 1:35 pm 



I would just lilke to say that I just recently got sucked into all these NWO concpericys and they lead me to these paintings and I will be honest at first hearing all the terrable stories and then seeing the muruls my heart was in my throat for a eek I have been scared and worried for my children in the upcoming 2012 prediction and lost lots of sleep … I would just like to tell you I appolagize for falling for the made up stories and interpritations of your paintings and thank you so very much for explaining the true meaning .now knowing the meaning when I looked at them again I can see the beautie in them and appreciate the art and the meaning behind them..so thank you very much for taking the time to explain this you have helped me a great deal more than you know..I am starting to realize all these dooms day consperitors are just pushing fear and hate because that’s the only way any one would ever listen to them .. and its very sad to me!

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