They Came to the U.S. as Immigrants and Left Their Jobs to Pursue Their Dream. Now They Have More Than 80 Murals Across the Country

Isaac Tapia and Rico Alvarez arrived in the United States as children, lost touch after high school, and later reunited to build a mural business that now has more than 80 works across the country.

Tapia emigrated from Mexico at age nine with his mother and sister. Alvarez’s family came from Uruguay in 2002. The two met at Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts, where they developed their shared passion for art while dealing with the language barrier and questions of identity that came with migration.

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Arriving here without knowing a single word of English was terrible. In fact, I had English classes in Uruguay and I was failing them.

“Arriving here without knowing a single word of English was terrible. In fact, I had English classes in Uruguay and I was failing them,” Alvarez said. He also said their shared understanding of migrants’ challenges in the United States has made them “a very close-knit duo.”

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a very close-knit duo

After reconnecting years after graduation, they painted their first mural in 2017 for the Richardson Early Learning Center. The success of that collaboration led to their joint venture. In 2021, despite initial fears, they left their full-time jobs to concentrate entirely on mural painting.

IT-RA ICONS has since grown, with most of its more than 80 murals located in the Kansas City metropolitan area and others in Iowa, Wisconsin, Massachusetts and Nevada. The artists describe their work as vibrant and constantly evolving, with themes linked to their identities as people who migrated to the United States as children. “I think that is what our murals bring: visibility to communities that are not usually highlighted, stories that are hidden,” Alvarez said.

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I think that is what our murals bring: visibility to communities that are not usually highlighted, stories that are hidden.