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Looking Past 100 Days of Trump: Resistance Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

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The listicles are popping up all over the media world, hoping to capture the essence of what 100 days of Donald Trump in the White House means for the United States.

The New York Times headline reads “Trump Wants It Known: Grading 100 Days Is ‘Ridiculous’ (but His Were the Best).” The Hill is dutifully reporting on the new White House web page touting the first 100 days, making the claim “this President has enacted more legislation and signed more executive orders than any other president in over a half century,”

The executive order part is actually true, which is more than a little ironic coming from a man who spent much of last year whining about his predecessor’s actions in this arena. I’m old enough to remember when executive orders were equated with the mark of the devil in some quarters. And you can give Trump a ‘partially true’ on legislation only if you count bills undoing Obama executive orders.   [Read more…]

Islamophobes Angry at San Diego School Board Over Anti-Bullying Policies

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The San Diego Unified School District Board of Trustees meeting this week may see an exercise in bombastic bigotry, thanks to articles published at Breitbart News and other outlets suggesting policies aimed at preventing bullying are actually implementing Sharia law.

An article in the Union-Tribune says the district is hearing complaints from people drawing misinformed conclusions stemming from the lead-in to the article, which strongly suggests the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a terrorist organization.

The local loonies of the right-wing persuasion are mighty worked up and looking to share their fear of the ‘other’ with anybody unfortunate enough to be at the district building on Tuesday evening. Today I’ll make the case for how they got to this particular unhappy place.   [Read more…]

Why the People’s Climate March Matters Now More Than Ever

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In the lead up to Earth Day, Elizabeth Kolbert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction, accurately observed that this year there wasn’t much to celebrate. She’s right. An administration that can’t seem to stop stepping on its own feet in nearly every other area has been pretty darn good at gearing up to kill the planet. As Kolbert writes in the New Yorker:

A White House characterized by flaming incompetence has nevertheless managed to do one thing effectively: it has trashed years’ worth of work to protect the planet. As David Horsey put it recently, in the Los Angeles Times, “Donald Trump’s foreign policy and legislative agenda may be a confused mess,” but “his administration’s attack on the environment is operating with the focus and zeal of the Spanish Inquisition.”   [Read more…]

Looking Back at the Week: April 16-22

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This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns, toons, and other work by San Diego Free Press regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, cartoonists, and sourced writers on: Chicano Park Day, BunnyPAC, Dumanis out, March for Science, Students for Economic Justice, Ernie McCray’s birthday, San Diego Lowriders, temporary ending of fireworks, Yermo Aranda, and lots of other grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s friendly, neighborhood, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site.   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: Easter Island

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At midnight
a door in darkness opens
light is dispensed –
from one candle to another
carried through streets
starved by the austerity of shadows   [Read more…]

For the Love of Cars, for the Love of Community: ‘San Diego Lowriders’

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There is a new and exciting book titled “San Diego Lowriders: A History of Cars and Cruising”. Authors Alberto López Pulido and Rigoberto “Rigo” Reyes capture a history and culture that is not always thought of when the history of San Diego is related.

This book begins with the roots of lowriding and introduces us to organized car clubs. The authors emphasize the pride and respect Lowriders had for their community, for their cars, and for each other. Car clubs became a focal point and have remained a common ground for community drivers to the present day.

The general public is not aware that Lowriders are actually part of the history of San Diego as early as 1950.   [Read more…]

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…]

Field of View: 43rd Annual Chicano Park Day

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Surrounded by the famous murals that make Chicano Park a powerful and spiritual refuge on a regular day, it is impossible not to be affected by the deep traditions that make up the Chicano culture while visiting during the 43rd annual Chicano Park Day.

Not even the blistering sun could keep hundreds from coming to celebrate . This year marks the first that the park and its murals have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since being established by Chicano activists on April 22, 1970.

The event showcased classic cars, vendors, food, music and Aztec dancers, and was attended by couples and families alike — many of whom have been taking part in this celebration for years.   [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…]

A Cactus Speaks of Persistence (Thoughts about the Restorations of the Murals at Chicano Park)

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I shakily tried to take a picture with my AT&T 3G cell phone of a cactus painted by Mario Chacon. I acquired it from him a while back in Chicano Park. I had to shade the painting from the glare of a blue sky with the sun shining high and bright and far and wide and finally I got about as good a picture as I was going to get no matter how hard I had tried.

Trite as it may seem my persistence in getting this snapshot was based on Mario telling me that the protrusions reaching out from the cactus spoke to the persistence of the indigenous people.

Being a simple minded person, that colored my thinking as I walked around the park with other people who were there, like me, to celebrate the restoration of the murals. Murals, as I see them, that stem from the long trail of heartaches that have plagued the Americas since the Spanish came by in drive-by style and created a reality wherein folks who had hunted, farmed, and gathered on those rich lands for thousands of years suddenly found themselves in poor standing in the only world they had ever known.   [Read more…]

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