Destiny Lopez Five Pages + Outline

Destiny Lopez
Professor Allyson Hobbes
Research Seminar

Chicano Park Title

            San Diego, California is a popular tourist destination famous for its beautiful weather, pristine beaches, and prominent landmarks, such as the iconic Coronado Bridge that connects San Diego to Coronado Island. However, located underneath the Coronado Bridge is another landmark that represents a side of San Diego that often goes unseen by tourists. Directly underneath the bridge, you can find handball courts, lowrider car shows, and dozens of brightly-colored murals painted onto the bridge’s pillars. Chicano Park is located in the heart of Barrio Logan, a historically Mexican-American working class neighborhood. In addition to housing the largest outdoor display of murals in the world (citation needed), Chicano Park’s unique location underneath a bridge makes it a major San Diego landmark and designated historic site.

            Chicano Park was established in 1970, after a group of local activists and community members “took over” land that was intended to become a highway patrol station (citation needed). The park represented the struggle to reclaim Chicano space during a period in which Barrio Logan was facing numerous threats. At the time of the Chicano Park takeover, Barrio Logan had just been rezoned into an industrial zone, and residents worried that the neighborhood would be overtaken by junkyards (cite). [DL1] Residents also opposed the creation of a highway patrol station in their community, particularly on land that was promised by the city to become a community park (cite).

            In addition to these local motivations, some of the Chicano Park activists viewed the takeover as aligning with the political consciousness of the larger Chicano Movement. The takeover occurred during the height of the Chicano Movement in California, and many of the Chicano Park activists drew inspiration from the movement. In particular, activists viewed the takeover of the park as a reclamation of Aztlan – the legendary home of the Aztecs which had been colonized by Europeans. By analyzing newspapers, film footage, music, and the art of Chicano Park itself, I will reveal that Chicano Park activists were motivated by both concrete, local concerns and more symbolic notions drawn from the Chicano Movement. I will begin by outlining the threats to Barrio Logan at the time, and how the takeover of the park was an effective form of grassroots resistance to those threats. I will then demonstrate the ways in which Chicano Park activists connected their neighborhood struggle to the larger political consciousness of the Chicano Movement. Finally, I will argue that these were not competing visions, but in fact complimentary visions that toward the same goal of reclaiming Chicano space in the face of injustices.

Historic Context of the Chicano Movement in San Diego and California (part three)

            The Chicano Park takeover occurred during a time of heightened Chicano consciousness in San Diego, and the United States as a whole. Just five years before the takeover, the United Farm Workers, led by prominent activists Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, staged a grape growers strike, marking a major event in the Chicano Movement. This, along with other movements for civil rights occurring across the country, galvanized a new generation of young, college-age Chicanos to take action and adopt a growing political consciousness (Ortiz 132) They formed such groups as the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA), La Raza Unida Party, and the Brown Berets (to which many Chicano Park activists belonged). These national events inspired students to bring the Chicano movement to their communities.

            In San Diego, student activists drew on the movement to implement change at their universities. In 1968, Chicano students at San Diego State University (SDSU) campaigned for the creation of a Mexican-American Studies department, which became the first of its kind in the United States (Ortiz 131). These new courses in Mexican-American studies offered narratives that departed from the dominant, often white-washed narrative often taught in classrooms, providing students with a decolonial perspective on history. As student activists worked to make their campuses more inclusive, they remained connected to the larger movement happening across California and the nation. Many students from San Diego traveled to Chicano Liberation Youth Conference in Denver, where the notion of Aztlan was first introduce and became crucial to the San Diego Chicano movement (Ortiz 132).

             The concept of Aztlan was introduced in 1969 and became a central tenant of the Chicano Movement. At the Chicano Liberation Youth Conference, attended by San Diego students, students released “El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan,” the document that first put forth the notion of Aztlan as a colonized Chicano territory that includes land on both sides of the border. “El Plan” outlines the need for Chicanos to reclaim Aztlan and assert their right to self-determination (cite el plan). The notion of Aztlan became prominent in the Chicano movement, along with the impulse to reclaim Chicano and indigenous space north of the border. As Gloria Anzaldua wrote of the California border region in Borderlands, La Frontera: The New Mestiza, “This land was Mexican once, was Indian always and is. And will be again” (cite). San Diego, a border city with a substantial Chicano population and politicized student population, was strongly impacted by this consciousness. The notions of reclaiming Aztlan and asserting Chicano self-determination figured prominently in San Diego activism, and in the creation of Chicano Park.

Analysis of Chicano Park Song

            “Chicano Park Samba” is a song released in 1979 by the group Los Alacranes Mojados, or the Wetback Scorpions. The group was led by Ramon Sanchez, who was involved in farm workers’ rights in the 1970s as well as being involved in the Chicano Park takeover in 1970. (cite). The song tells the story of Chicano Park, and highlights the sense of community pride in the struggle to take back the space underneath the bridge. It reflects the local vision of creating a park for the community in place of a highway patrol station. It also connects the takeover of Chicano Park to the greater Chicano Movement, demonstrating the way in which Chicano Park activists saw the park is a significant not just for Barrio Logan, but an important event in the struggle for Chicano self-determination.

            The song suggests that the immediate importance of the park was the sense of community it would bring to Barrio Logan. According to the song, Barrio Logan residents wanted “a park where all the little chavalitos could play in / So they wouldn’t have to play in the street” and where “all the familias could come, / And just get together on a Sunday afternoon.” (cite). The concern for community building in Barrio Logan was most likely heightened in 1970, since the rezoning of the neighborhood threatened to change the composition of Barrio Logan to a residential, family community to an industrial zone. In this context, a neighborhood park would be an effective way to resist changes to the neighborhood’s composition, since it could serve as a community gathering space.

            “Chicano Park Samba” portrays the Chicano takeover as a way for Barrio Logan residents to use civil disobedience to hold their government accountable for actions that harmed the community. The residents of Barrio Logan had little power over the changes that were occurring in their community, from the building of Coronado Bridge to the rezoning of their neighborhood (find evidence). Rather than respond to the community’s demand for a park, the city said “Chale, we’re going to make a highway patrol station here” (site the song). When the city chose to build a highway patrol station without informing the community or allowing them a say in the process, the takeover providing an avenue through which to oppose government actions that were damaging to the community. In “Chicano Park Samba,” Sanchez portrays the takeover as a bold act of civil disobedience:

            “And they walked on the land,
            And they took it over with their picks and their shovels,
            And they began to build their park.”

In the absence of formal mechanisms for resisting threats to their neighborhood, the community had to turn to civil disobedience. The unsanctioned takeover and creation of the park proved to be the most effective – and perhaps only – way that the community could combat the presence of a highway patrol station.

            The song makes the connection between the fight for a park in San Diego and the larger Chicano struggle. The final lines of the song, “Que vivan, que vivan, los barrios unidos,” which means “long live, long live, the united barrios,” signify a sense of unity and solidarity among all Chicano communities. This suggests that the victory for Barrio Logan was a shared victory for “los barrios unidos,” and the greater Chicano struggle. Additionally, the description of the activists who “walked on the land” with “their picks and their shovels” alludes to reclaiming and that once belonged to Chicanos and indigenous people of the area.

Outline

1.      Introduction

a.       Background information on Barrio Logan and takeover

b.      Thesis

2.      Threats to Barrio Logan

a.       Rezoning of neighborhood + junkyards

b.      Effect of bridges and highways on neighborhoods of color

c.       Problematic effect of building highway patrol station in community of color

3.      Vision for Chicano Park as tool to combat these local threats

a.       Varrio si, Yonkes no mural analysis

b.      Way to reclaim “spatial trauma of freeway construction”

c.       Asserting community pride

4.      Connection to Chicano Movement

a.       Background on Chicnano movement and notion of aztlan

b.      Analysis of paintings – La Tierra Mia

c.       Chicano Park Steering committee pamphlet

5.      How activists viewed chicano victory as local victory and part of larger struggle at same time

a.       Analysis of Chicano park song

           

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 [DL1]Reword ugly sentence