Chicano Park

Park in San Diego, California

Chicano Park is a 32,000 square meter (7.9 acre) park located beneath the San Diego–Coronado Bridge in Barrio Logan, a predominantly Chicano or Mexican American and Mexican migrant community in central San Diego, California. The park is home to the country's largest collection of outdoor murals, as well as various sculptures, earthworks, and an architectural piece dedicated to the cultural heritage of the community. Because of the magnitude and historical significance of the murals, the park was designated an official historic site by the San Diego Historical Site Board in 1980, and its murals were officially recognized as public art by the San Diego Public Advisory Board in 1987. The park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013 owing to its association with the Chicano Movement, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2016. Chicano Park, like Berkeley's People's Park, was the result of a militant (but nonviolent) people's land takeover. The denial of beachfront access was the initial source of the community's resentment of the government and its agencies. This resentment grew in the 1950s, when the area was rezoned as mixed residential and industrial. Junk dealers and repair shops moved into the barrio, creating air pollution, loud noise, and aesthetic conditions unsuitable for a residential area. At this time, Mexicans were accustomed to not being included in discussions concerning their communities and to not being represented by their officials, so no formal complaint was lodged. The City Council had promised to build a park to compensate for the loss of over 5,000 homes and businesses removed for the construction of the freeway and bridge, as well as for the aesthetic degradation created by the overhead freeways supported by a forest of gray concrete piers. In June 1969, the park was officially approved and a site was designated, but no action was taken to implement the decision. Solis went door to door to spread the news of the construction. At school, he alerted the students of Professor Gil Robledo's Chicano studies class, who printed fliers to bring more attention to the affair. At noon that day, Mexican American high school students walked out of their classes to join other neighbors who had already congregated at the site. Some protesters formed human chains around the bulldozers, while others planted trees, flowers, and cactus. Not trusting the city and fearing that abandoning the land would be tantamount to conceding defeat, an agreement was finally reached and the Steering Committee called for an end to the occupation of the land while stationing informal picketers on the public sidewalks around the disputed terrain to provide residents with information regarding the project. They maintained that the park would be re occupied if negotiations failed. Finally, on July 1, 1970, $21,814.96 was allocated for the development of a 1.8 acre (7,300 m²) parcel of land.

While the creation of the park was actually begun on the day of the takeover, with minor landscaping improvements being undertaken by the occupiers, the murals that brought the park to prominence were not begun until 1973. Eventually a core of about 16 artists were dedicated to finishing the murals Murals have many themes including addressing immigration, feminist concerns and featuring historical and civil rights leaders. In 2014, the park had lights installed so that it would be well lit at night time, to create a more family friendly atmosphere. After years of work, Chicano Park was officially designated as a National Historic Landmark in December 2016. Talamantez helped lead the opening of Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center inside a nearby city owned building that used to house the Cesar Chavez Continuing Education Center. Like the park, the museum is a communal space that often corporates and collaborates with other local non profit organizations. Within the museum, there is a local artist gallery, where local Chicano artists are given the opportunity to represent and sell their artwork. There is a main exhibit space, an archival room, a community room and a gift shop. Inside of the Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center’s gift shop there are varieties of art pieces created by local California artists that guests are encouraged to browse or purchase. The museum’s first exhibition, which ran through September 9, 2023, highlighted the organizations or “elements of the heart of the Chicano Park Movement including: The Brown Berets, Centro Cultural de la Raza, the Chicano Park Steering Committee, Danza Azteca, Danza Folklorica, Kumeyaay Story, Lowriders, Música, Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Teatro, Unión del Barrio, and the Youth. In addition, the exhibition will have an installation by Visionary Elder Artist Salvador “Queso” Torres.” The significance behind the exhibitions is the knowledge given to individuals about “Chicana/o, Latina/o, and Indigenous culture and history.” The exhibit was open to the community for more than a year. The number of restored murals added to 23. Artists such as Victor Ochoa participated in the Chicano Park Mural Restoration Project, which lasted 13 months. Ochoa was widely known as one of the leaders in organizing local artists to paint murals at Chicano Park back in the 1970’s. He is also the editor of an instruction manual on restoring the murals. The murals were fully restored by 2013 in time for the 43rd Anniversary Celebration. Mo Jourdane, an attorney with California Rural Legal Assistance represented the farmworkers. "El corito" was a short handed hoe that caused many farm workers to spend hours bent down, which later caused spinal issues. This mural honors the work and sacrifice of those working in the fields, depicting farmworkers. The mural was created by artists Mario Chacon, Ariana Arroyo, and Gary Hartbur.

Since its inception, there have been disputes within the community about who decides who gets to paint the murals, what imagery should be represented, who is responsible for the restoration of the murals, etc. But conflicts between the community artists and city and state officials have been much greater. Conflicts have also arisen between supporters and opponents of the park on political grounds. In 1979, a San Diego grand jury investigation forced the Chicano Federation to vacate the park building. A demand for a kiosk, called the Chicano Park kiosko and based on traditional community centers in Mexican villages, was fulfilled in 1977, but only after a great deal of bureaucratic wrangling and disputes over the style of architecture to be used. Councilman Jess Haro wanted the architecture to be in the Spanish style, while the barrio residents wanted an indigenous style of architecture. The community won out, and today the kiosko resembles a Mayan temple. An effort to have the barrio re zoned as solely residential provoked the ire of the neighborhood junk dealers, who vandalized the murals, especially the "Barrio Sí, Yonkes No" mural created to commemorate the effort. In the mid 1990s, Caltrans decided to retrofit the San Diego Coronado Bay Bridge to make it earthquake safe. Fearing that the murals would be damaged or destroyed, the community mobilized to stop the project to protect the murals from what they viewed as official insensitivity to the history and culture the murals represented. Eventually, a compromise was reached whereby the murals would be boarded over with plywood to protect their surfaces from damage during the retrofitting process, and would be restored to their previous condition afterward. A 2003 plan to renovate the park was stalled when Caltrans objected to the word "Aztlán", which for years had been spelled out in rocks on the park's grounds. Calling the term "militant", they claimed that using federal funding for the project would violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by showing preference to Mexicans and Mexican Americans. However, Caltrans district director Pedro Orso, after consultations with civil rights experts from within the agency and from the Federal Highway Administration, decided that the word did not violate the law, and the $600,000 grant was allowed to go through. Chicano Park was added to the list of National Historic Landmarks by Obama's Secretary of the Interior, Sally Jewell on December 23, 2016. Conservatives have objected to murals depicting or referring to communist and socialist leaders such as Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and Salvador Allende. On September 3, 2017, Roger Ogden, leader of a far right group called Patriot Fire, organized a "Patriot Picnic" in the park as a protest against "anti American" murals. Over 500 community members and supporters held the park in response, and Ogden and his supporters were escorted from the park by police. On February 3, 2018, a second "Patriot Picnic" was organized by an anonymous group calling itself "Bordertown Patriots", with the intention of forcing down the Aztlán flag in the park and replacing it with a U. S. flag. Numerous far right figures, including Ogden and white nationalist Kristopher Wyrick, attempted to enter the park, but were prevented from entering the park by hundreds of Barrio Logan residents and supporters. Four people were arrested in connection with the protest, including a man who urinated on a mural. Police also attacked and beat a man who was allegedly jaywalking, who was subsequently arrested for assault on a peace officer; despite initial press reports to the contrary, the man was not involved with either side of the protests. Barricades separated the groups, preventing any physical altercations between them.

Every year around April 22, Chicano Park marks an anniversary celebration to "celebrate the takeover of the area." The Park hosts traditional music as well as modern bands.

A fatal car crash occurred at Chicano Park in 2016. An intoxicated navy petty officer drove off the Coronado Bridge into a busy festival at Chicano Park. The names of those who were fatally killed: Cruz Elias Contreras, 52, and Annamarie Contreras, 50, both from Chandler, Arizona and Andre Christopher Banks, 49, and Francine Denise Jimenez, 46, both from Hacienda Heights. A vigil was held for those that died.

The park hosts many different events and groups throughout the year. Different groups who practice and perform Aztec dance use Chicano Park to prepare for ceremonies and other events.

"The takeover of that land underneath the bridge in the barrio, that was a political expression. That was an expression of the community saying, 'Hey, we're not going to take it anymore. We're going to decide what's going to happen with this land.' And out of that political expression came cultural expression. "—Veronica Enrique

"The community spirit and pent up energy exploded in free, uncomposed murals of bright color. "—Victor Ochoa