Chicano Park
Chicano Park has become well known for being born out of protest within the Chicano Community in San Diego. During April of 1970 the Mexican-American neighborhood Barrio Logan was undergoing construction below the Coronado Bridge, an infrastructure that had infamously displaced families within the barrio. Plans from the city were to build a highway patrol station parking lot, but San Diego City College student Mario Solis had other plans. Solis got in contact with members of the Chicano Studies classes being taught at City College, and started a movement which demanded for the property to instead become a park, one where Chicano culture could be celebrated through art. Circumstances were difficult and the activists’ efforts were often mocked, but they ultimately accomplished their goal.
CPMCC
The Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center (CPMCC)
The Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center opened its doors on October 8th, 2022, but the building that it is located in proved to be significant to the local community decades earlier. In 1970, the building was included in the takeover, which resulted in the creation of Chicano Park. In 1980, the San Diego Community College District (SDCCD) was given control of the building, and it was not until 2015 – upon completion of a new continuing education campus for the SDCCD – that the building was made available again. That year, the Chicano Park Steering Committee (CPSC) resumed lease negotiations with the City of San Diego, and in 2018 the city granted a twenty-year lease of the building for use as the CPMCC. [14] The museum and cultural center is undoubtedly of significant importance to the local community, and its history of service began years before the opening of its physical location: “The CPMCC has served as an educational and cultural hub by providing resources, programming, and care to the community since its inception in 2015.” [15]
The song “Chicano Park Samba” by Los Alacranes Mojados is dedicated to narrating the founding of Chicano Park during the 1970s. Lyrics include:
“A piece of land that the community of Logan Heights
Wanted to make into a park.
A park where all the chavalitos could come and play in
So they wouldn’t have to play in the street anymore
And get run over by a car.”
[1-12] “Murals - Chicano Park Museum,” January 1, 2023. https://chicanoparkmuseum.org/murals/.
[13] “Emiliano Zapata Summary | Britannica.” Accessed April 29, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/summary/Emiliano-Zapata.
[14] Roberto Camacho, “A Hard-Won Museum Preserves San Diego’s Chicano History,” Next City.Org, November 10, 2022, http://libproxy.sdsu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/hard-won-museum-preserves-san-diego-s-chicano/docview/2735272771/se-2.
[15] “About,” Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center, accessed May 3, 2023, https://chicanoparkmuseum.org/about/.