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Barrio Logan’s Chicano Park, Our National Treasure

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By Brent E. Beltrán

Editor’s Note: Chicano Park was designated as a National Historic Landmark on January 11, 2017. This 2013 article from the San Diego Free Press archives chronicles Chicano Park’s placement on the National Register of Historic Places.

On Friday, March 15, the Ides of March, there was a press conference at Chicano Park in my beloved Barrio Logan. The press conference was put together to announce Chicano Park being added to the National Register of Historic Places. In other words, Chicano Park was officially recognized as being a national treasure of the United States. Those of us who live in Logan and the various barrios throughout San Diego, California and beyond already recognize this fact. But, through the fine work of Chicano Park co-founder, Josie Talamantez, the nation now officially recognizes this.

In front of Chicano Park co-founders, activists, artists, professors and numerous members of the media Mayor Bob Filner gave praise to Chicano Park and those that struggled for a peoples park. He was followed by District 8 City Councilman David Alvarez, State Senator elect Ben Hueso, Chicano Park Steering Committee Chairperson Tommie Camarillo and Josie Talamantez who broke down the process and criteria for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. It was a proud day for all involved in the creation and maintenance of Chicano Park.   [Read more…]

Victor Ochoa – Mural Maestro of Chicano Park

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As we were sitting in Victor Ochoa’s studio garage in Golden Hill the other day, I realized that even though we’d been friends since the late 1970’s, I didn’t know a whole lot about his earlier life before those heady days of the Seventies decade. I was wondering whether he remembered that I had helped arrange for him to be hired to paint murals at the Che Cafe up at UCSD – way back in in 1980 and 81. He did but he had a few different details.

“This is my favorite garage,” Victor said, as we settled in for our talk. Surrounding us on three sides inside the garage were painting materials and large plastic bins holding more painting stuff stacked up on shelves, brushes, cans of paint piled on each other, cans of spray paint in a shallow closest. There was a gas-powered airbrush machine that looked like a cross between a lawn mower and a Mars Rover.

In one corner, he had set up a type of shrine to his past, his family, his culture, with various memorabilia of his life. On another wall were posters of Pancho Villa and of more recent Chicano heroes, like Corky Gonzalez, and local activist Marco Anguiano. And along part of one of the walls were the books, the notebooks, the 3-ring binders, paper records, the manuscripts, the slides.   [Read more…]

A Freeway Runs Through It: A City Heights-Barrio Logan Conversation

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Resistance, Vision and Community

Chicano Park exists in Barrio Logan because of the construction of the San Diego-Coronado Bridge and the loss of property and displacement of lives that it caused. The community responded in a powerful, unique way. Residents couldn’t stop the construction, but they did lay claim to the land beneath the immense concrete pillars that enabled travelers above to make their way across the Coronado Bridge, oblivious to the transformation occurring below them. The land that was being readied for a California Highway Patrol substation was re-claimed as a long promised park. The reclamation began as a twelve day occupation that involved hundreds of people.

City Heights was likewise changed forever when eight city blocks along 40th Street- people’s homes and businesses–were scoured from the face of the earth in the early 1990’s to make way for the last connecting link of I-15, which extends from Canada to Mexico. City Heights would become a scorched earth community divided by an enormous ditch in keeping with Caltrans signature construction style.   [Read more…]

Civil Rights Icon John Lewis at San Diego’s Oak Park Public Library: In This Place, the Beloved Community

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By Anna Daniels

Editor Note: Congressman John Lewis told Chuck Todd in a recent interview that he did not see Trump as a legitimate president and that he would not attend the inauguration. Congressman Lewis brings the voice of moral authority and courage to his decision. The following is an article from the SDFP archives published on March 2, 2014.

On Saturday March 1, Congressman John Lewis received the National Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC) Peacemaker award for his outstanding work as a civil rights champion and inspiring congressional leader. The reception, dinner and award ceremony were held at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines. I did not attend, but there is no doubt in my mind that the guests were moved by his powerful oratory as he embraced another opportunity at that event to promote non-violent action as the only democratic remedy and response to injustice in the world.

Earlier in the day, Congressman John Lewis entered the Oak Park Public Library and became Storyteller John Lewis. In the intimacy of this small library, Lewis was clearly in his element. The Oak Park Library has no meeting room. Over eighty people sat and stood in the heart of this library surrounded by computers and book stacks. We sang This Little Light of Mine, lead by Lisa Sanders followed by a brief, heartfelt introduction from 4th district Councilwoman Myrtle Cole, the first African American woman on the city council.

In this place, Congressman Lewis unhurriedly and deftly wove the personal details of his own life, about how he grew up in rural Alabama on a farm in the segregationist south. We were immediately drawn into the storyteller’s enchanted circle.
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Anti Choice Women’s Clinics Seek to Defy State Law in San Diego County and El Cajon

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Editor Note: This article was originally published on March 15, 2016. The effort to erode women’s reproductive rights and access to health services here in San Diego was one of the under-reported stories of 2016.

The County of San Diego and the City of El Cajon are considering a proposed settlement with anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers, amounting to a pledge not enforce the Reproductive FACT Act.

In response, local pro-choice activists are presenting El Cajon City Attorney Morgan Foley and San Diego County Counsel Thomas Montgomery with petitions signed by 25,000 Californians urging them to enforce the letter and the spirit of the law.

NARAL Pro-Choice California, UltraViolet and Courage Campaign have been gathering signatures since the anti-choice organizations offered to remove local authorities as named defendants in lawsuits if they agree not to apply the law.   [Read more…]

“Friday Is Going to Be One Crazy Anti-Trump Day in San Diego”

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It’s going to be literally one crazy, anti-Trump day in downtown San Diego on Friday, May 27th. So much is going on that it boggles the mind to try to imagine everything.

First, of course, Donald Trump is arriving at the San Diego Convention Center to speak to his throngs around 2pm. And coming out to see and hear him, of course, will be probably thousands of ticket-holders. There will be long lines of them snaking around the Convention Center – which undoubtedly will be off-limits to protesters. Except those protesters in line with tickets.

Second, there will be thousands of protesters coming out to demonstrate against Trump and all that he stands for.   [Read more…]

Local San Diego Anti-Trump Emergency Response Network Forms

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The “Love Trumps Hate Solidarity Network” Commits to Counter-Protest at Trump’s San Diego Rally

Frank Gormlie / OB Rag

Two-dozen San Diegans met at the Joyce Beers Community Center in Hillcrest last night, May 16th, and formed the skeleton of a local anti-Trump emergency response network.

So, once it’s announced that the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee is coming to town, a coalition has already began organizing a counter-protest. The same if Trump waits to visit San Diego until after he is nominated, San Diegans are getting ready now.   [Read more…]

Having Fun Watching my Grandson Having Fun

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The other day, for some reason, a wonderful memory rose in my mind of times when my grandson, Marlon, was dancing on the stage at SCPA (School of Creative and Performing Arts) to the hooting and hollering sounds of girls who were swooning from the very sight of him.

As I remembered those days I couldn’t help but think about how I had never experienced anything like that. Ever. I mean I’ve wondered a few times how somebody in my bloodline came out looking as fine as he does.

Since those days, he’s evolved into ML Wilson, performer, rapper, actor, a hip-hop-beat-maker. Living in San Francisco, pursuing his showbiz dreams.   [Read more…]

City Attorney Candidate Forum and San Diego’s Fault Line

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Land use, wealth and the smart city

The League of Women Voters and community radio station KNSJ hosted a city attorney candidate forum at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in downtown San Diego on Saturday May 14. I had been asked to participate as a media representative on the panel asking questions of the candidates.

The 94 freeway exit that my husband and I took downtown to the event dumps cars on a surface street on the fringe of East Village. We drove through a convulsed urban landscape created by CalTrans engineering, deteriorating Victorian era houses, new apartments and temporarily re-purposed vacant lots. This entry point reflects how San Diego’s decision makers have approached land use and development in the area over many decades and to wildly different effect.

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The California Way of Poverty

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Last week, I pondered the obscene spectacle of holding a mega-concert catering to the wealthy in the Southern California desert town of Indio where a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line. The truth is that events like this that underline the contrast between the heedless luxury of the affluent with the deprivation of the poor are not the exception to the rule, but rather, a basic fact of everyday life in our era of historic economic inequality. It’s just the way we live now.

And in sunny California, San Diego in particular, the poor are accustomed to watching the party from the outside. As a community college professor at City College, I am particularly attuned to the painful realities of economic and racial inequality because I see the costs of poverty on a daily basis in the classroom and in the lives of my students who frequently struggle to balance the hard economics of survival and academic success. Sometimes the choice is between books and groceries or rent; in other instances, it’s between childcare and study time. The list goes on and on.   [Read more…]

Direct Action Journal: Overcoming Fear

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Another episode with anxiety knocks me to my bedroom floor. Rational thought forsakes me. My body shakes with the strangled sobs of a man ashamed of his tears. Alicia bends over me. Her dark brown eyes – normally calm with the consistent rationality characterizing her personality – are wide with concern and weariness. We’re only several nights removed from the last episode. She must think, “Oh god, not again.”

Alicia seeks to hold me. I find a deep comfort in her touch – and a deep revulsion. It’s not her. The contradiction is born from the lies fear instills in me. Somewhere in the darkness, a voice reminds me that I am unlovable. I crave love but the voice whispers my lack of reasons to be loved. The closer Alicia gets to me, the closer she’ll get, I fear, to hearing those whispers, too. The closer she’ll get to realizing a man who cannot love himself should not be loved by anyone.   [Read more…]

Feminism is Alive and Well in San Diego . . . but the Fight is Getting Harder

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On Mother’s Day, a group of about 30 women (and a couple men), some of the women mothers and some not, gathered at the Lyceum Theater to celebrate with champagne and listen to a panel of experts discuss “The (True) History of Feminism in San Diego”. The panel, assembled by the Women’s Museum of California, preceded a viewing of “Rapture, Blister, Burn”, a contemporary Pulitzer nominated play by Gina Gionfriddo – a funny and poignant feminist play running for another week that I highly recommend.

The panel, consisting of a politician, a research psychologist, both a professor and a masters student in women’s studies was moderated by Ashley Gardner, the Executive Director of the Women’s Museum.   [Read more…]

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