On East Cesar Chavez, across from the Las Trancas taco stand, an unsuspecting navy blue building houses an alternative memory of Austin, one that is not easily found in official archives or city history books. Inside, the walls are covered with vintage vinyl records, matchbooks, hand-painted restaurant signs and fragile flyers from decades past.
Much of the ephemera is curated by Alan Garcia, a self-described community archivist who has been collecting artifacts that trace the overlooked cultural and musical legacies of Austin’s working-class neighborhoods.
“I grew up here, and there’s still so much I want to learn because it wasn’t taught to me,” they said. “It’s been erased from our city. So anytime I can learn small details — nicknames for a neighborhood, everyone’s favorite corner store, a local gang’s old turf — that’s gold to me.”
For years, Garcia funded the project themself. This year, they got a $5,000 grant from the city for an exhibit focused on East Austin’s graffiti and mural art — particularly works from the early '90s by artists who they said are largely unrecognized.
According to Garcia, official organizations acknowledge they have gaps when it comes to these neighborhoods.
“That’s what I like focusing on because it's just in the moment,” Garcia said, “You learn about it by talking to others or collecting artifacts. You learn about it through, like, flyers or restaurant menus.”
What started as a personal impulse to collect has grown into an intentional ongoing practice of community memory work. Sometimes, it begins with a photo or artifact; other times, with a person and their story.
“I’ve tracked down people based on a name scrawled on the back of a flyer or a painted signature on a taqueria sign. One time, I found an artist’s name on a piece — he’d already passed away, but I managed to connect with his son,” Garcia said. “When I showed him his dad’s work, he instantly remembered it. That moment was powerful.”
The work is occasionally more organic. Garcia has been meeting regularly with 90-year-old Johnny Degollado, an accordion player from Montopolis also known as “El Montopolis Kid,” for a series of interviews on the evolution of conjunto music and the changing neighborhood.
Degollado, like many in the community, is eager to pass down his knowledge and has become a bridge to others in Austin’s Tejano and conjunto music scenes. That network has grown through social media, too.
ATX Barrio Archive, the Instagram page where Garcia shares finds, is part gallery, part archive, part living bulletin board. It has become a space where people recognize faces, songs or buildings from their past and reach out with stories.
“People DM me all the time saying, ‘Hey, that’s my uncle in that photo,’ or ‘My grandmother used to run that restaurant,'” they said. “A lot of the history I’ve collected came from those kinds of leads.”
Of all the mediums they collect, music holds a special place for Garcia.
"I don’t want to collect just to keep things. I want people to use this. I want younger archivists and artists to take it on."Alan Garcia
“I play the accordion, so I love music. But I especially love when I find local analog recordings — cassette tapes or LPs — of artists who maybe only ever released one record. They never made it to YouTube or Spotify, but their songs tell real stories,” they said. “One Tejano song I found was written from the perspective of a Mexican American vet returning to Austin from the Vietnam War.”
The record labels offer clues: mailing addresses help map where indie gospel and Tejano labels operated in East Austin decades ago. Liner notes offer insights into family names, religious communities and local slang — information that would probably never appear in a textbook.
Garcia’s recent work on mural preservation has led them to document East Side graffiti from both artistic and historical perspectives. The planned exhibit, still in early stages, will include the voices of original graffiti artists and muralists.
“Graffiti is history, too,” Garcia said. “There’s a difference between tagging a wall and preserving a story. Some murals were memorials for people lost to violence or addiction. There’s meaning in those walls. But we don’t always have a good system to protect or contextualize that work.”
When asked whether the city is doing enough to support this kind of community-based archiving, Garcia’s answer is layered.
“I’ve been self-funding this for years,” they said. “The Nexus grant was huge for me. It’s allowed me to start thinking about an exhibit, and I’ve got a donation link on my Instagram. But space is the biggest issue. Austin used to have neighborhood museums, grassroots community centers. Now everything’s unaffordable.”
For now, the collection lives between Garcia’s home and the Nepantla Art Gallery, where larger pieces like hand-painted restaurant signs are on display.
But the long-term vision for ATX Barrio Archive is more ambitious: a permanent space in East Austin, a neighborhood museum operated by the community for the community.
“I don’t want to collect just to keep things. I want people to use this. I want younger archivists and artists to take it on,” Garcia said. “But we need space—and support—to make that happen.”
They said the community can support this kind of work by donating, sharing stories and staying engaged.
“People want to support. They just don’t always know how. A lot of what I need funding for is the stuff no one sees—scanning materials, converting records, buying acid-free boxes. But it all matters,” they said. “It’s how we make sure this history isn’t lost again.”
Ultimately, what drives Garcia isn’t nostalgia; it’s a hunger for connection, context and continuity in a city that’s changing faster than ever.
“The best part is when I reconnect someone with a memory they’d forgotten, or give them a piece of their own story they didn’t know existed,” they said. “That’s what keeps me going.”
To hear more from Alan Garcia and their community archival work, check out the latest episode of the Tacos of Texas podcast from Identity Productions and KUT & KUTX Studios: "ATX Taco History with Alan Garcia."
