Place
Pan American Bank
As one of the oldest continuously operating Latinx community banks in the country, the 1965 Pan American Bank building is significant for its association with the economic development of East Los Angeles after World War II.
Saved
In 2017, this New Formalist building was the second property in unincorporated East Los Angeles to be listed in the National Register and the first for its association with Latinx heritage.
Place Details
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Architect
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Detail of one panel of the five-panel mural installed in the upper portion of a concrete arch.
Overview
Constructed in 1965, the Pan American Bank building houses the oldest Latinx-owned bank in California. For decades, it has served as a pillar of the East Los Angeles/Boyle Heights community and has provided much-needed bilingual services to local residents and businesses. The bank’s founders believed that access to culturally sensitive financial services was the basis for increasing the community’s political power, economic independence, and overall standard of living.
In 2016, the Conservancy nominated Pan American Bank for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. The building was successfully designated in April 2017, making it the second property in East Los Angeles to be listed in the National Register.
About This Place
About This Place
As one of the oldest continuously operating Latinx community banks in the country, the 1965 Pan American Bank building is significant for its association with the economic development of East Los Angeles after World War II. It provided critical bilingual financial services to Mexican and Mexican American residents and businesses, who often faced discriminatory policies at other financial institutions.
Its co-founder, Romana Acosta Bañuelos, was a successful entrepreneur who built Ramona’s Mexican Food Products, Inc. from the ground up. Her business started as a modest tortilla factory and grew into the largest Mexican food wholesale firm in the country by the 1970s. She was the only woman to serve on the original twelve-member board of directors. Bañuelos would later become the first Latina Treasurer of the United States under President Richard Nixon from 1971 to 1974. Over the course of her career, she was a strong advocate for gender and racial equality in business and the financial industry and remained an active part of her community.
The building’s New Formalist style, punctuated by a dramatic entryway of five narrow arches framing panels of a mosaic mural, perfectly complemented the forward-looking philosophy of its co-founder Romana Acosta Bañuelos. When the bank opened its doors, the Mexican American Sun remarked: “While not the largest building in the Belvedere area, it is considered by many to be the most beautiful.”
To mark the opening of Pan American National Bank, the board of directors commissioned Mexican master artist José Reyes Meza to design a mosaic mural for the primary façade of the bank building. Byzantine Studios of Cuernavaca, Mexico executed the design. Entitled “Our Past, Our Present, and Our Future” and completed in 1966, the five-panel ceramic tile mural is one of the oldest existing murals in East Los Angeles and reflected the tradition of incorporating artwork into the exterior and interior walls of small businesses. Banks, in particular, were known for commissioning murals in order to attract new customers, and Meza’s mural for Pan American Bank was illustrative of this trend within Latino communities.
As detailed in the National Register nomination, José Reyes Meza (1924-2011) was a distinguished painter and costume and set designer in Mexico from the 1940s through the 1970s. He was a founding member of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana (“Hall of Mexican Fine Art”) in 1949, a prominent cultural institution in Mexico City dedicated to the celebration of Mexican contemporary art. His mural for Pan American Bank represents a rare commission in the United States. It exhibits Pre-Columbian and Art Deco influences and expresses mosaic techniques typically associated with the Byzantine Empire.
Our Position
Founded in 1964 and completed in 1966, Pan American Bank continues to be a significant community anchor and cultural touchstone in East Los Angeles. In 2015, Central Valley-based Finance and Thrift Co. purchased the bank and relocated its headquarters to East Los Angeles. In 2016, Oakland-based Beneficial State Bank announced a subsequent merger with Pan American Bank, with the goal of maintaining its community-based mission and commitment to economic justice.
In 2015, the Conservancy received funding through the National Park Service’s Underrepresented Community Grants to prepare a nomination for East Los Angeles’ Pan American Bank to the National Register. Eight grants were distributed through the California Office of Historic Preservation (OHP) to support nominations for historic properties associated with Latinx history in Fresno, Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Francisco.
Pan American Bank was included in Latinos in Twentieth-Century California, which was the first statewide Latinx historic context statement to gain approval from the NPS. The document is intended to facilitate nominations of Latinx historic places to the National Register.
The Conservancy submitted the Pan American Bank nomination to the State’s Office of Historic Preservation in September 2016 and it was officially listed in April 2017.
