San Diego Reader

Barrio Logan sits at the crossroads of Route 5 and Route 75, the later being the bridge connecting San Diego to Coronado Island. Named after a turn of the century congressman who had supported the Transcontinental Railroad ending in San Diego, the Latino majority community is home to Chicano Park, the brainchild of artist and cultural activist Salvador Torres. It is situated on the site of a twelve day non-violent sit-in that effectively served to protect the property from further development.

The City Council had promised to construct a park beneath the underpass in lieu of the loss of more than 500 homes to the bridge’s construction. With the arrival of bulldozers that were intent on preparing the site for a new Highway Patrol Facility instead of a park, residents, including Torres who had lost his childhood home to the bridge, showed up in droves barring the machinery from proceeding with a human chain. They camped out for nearly two weeks before negotiations resulted in the approval of a park based on Torres’ progressive vision to use the monstrous rows of then graffiti-covered bridge pillars as canvas for massive cultural murals. Typically, although his Monumental Public Mural Program had received preliminary approval in 1969, it would be another three years before artists and sculptors were given the official permission to proceed.

In the spring of 1973, just months after George Foreman claimed the Heavy Weight Championship, American forces pulled out of Vietnam with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, and Elvis performed the world’s first globally telecasted concert which subsequently was viewed by more people than had watched the Apollo lunar landing, Torres and his group of artists set up scaffolds and hauled out buckets of paint. In honor of the community's Mexican heritage and the hundreds of residents who had been displaced by construction of the bridge, the park was to have an undeniable Chicano history--social justice theme. Being the era of “free Love”, freedom of self-expression was also encouraged.

Torres’ Mural Program spurred a cultural renaissance for the Mexican-American community that resulted in the largest single display of outdoor murals anywhere in the U.S., some as tall as sixty feet. An international collage of artists ascended onto the Barrio to create the more than sixty murals that have been painted on the concrete bridge support piers to date. Forty years later, local artists are still slapping up paint. Scaffolding braced against several pillars indicates that more are in the works. Torres may well have been the architect of the park's concept, but his dream to beautify the community by reclaiming the grey concrete pylons still lives on in the youth of today. As a result, the park is an ever evolving project still in the making.

Given the civil unrest spawned by the ecological and social inequities that were still rampant at the time, it is not surprising that many of the murals are political in nature depicting controversial images of illegal immigrants breaching brick walls and migrant workers chained to the land. A forerunner to environmental justice, a highly visible street front mural stands legacy to the neighborhood’s resistance to the forty-eight Anglo-owned scrap metal junkyards that once littered the small barrio. Zoning laws were subsequently changed due to the community’s plea that they weren’t the city’s dumping ground. Perhaps Torres’ most famous mural is the one entitled, Viva La Raza, which was inspired from the Chicano movement that aimed to dismantle persistent racial prejudice. Politics aside, there are many murals in the park that take a softer approach to instilling a sense of cultural pride, as indicative in the Aztec Archer and the low rider tribute.

The project was modeled after the 1920-1930 Mexican Mural Movement and inspired by Chicago’s ground breaking 1967 Wall of Respect that in turn was triggered by the growing Civil Rights Movement. It received designation as an official historic site by the San Diego Historical Society in 1980. Seven years later, the San Diego Public Advisory Board recognized the murals officially as” public art” as if that fact could have ever seriously been in possible dispute. The blue hues of Indian Dancer and the Boy in a Sombrero that looks like he was drawn with a hunk of discarded barbecue charcoal alone arrested my creative sensibilities. The artistry demonstrated in the multicolor dragons and aerosol sprayed lizard is stunning.

I’m not alone in my aesthetic assertions. The National Geographic Magazine covered the Barrio in 1980 and in 1983 it again received international recognition when the murals were displayed in an exhibition throughout Mexico City. Although not high on the local tour guides’ roster of top must see sights for out of town visitors, they’ve been designated one of the top three not to be missed regional attractions by a West Germany tour guide. Outside the Latin community, Chicano Park has fallen victim to the old adage that we often don’t appreciate what’s right in front of us. Yet, let me assure you the Barrio Murals are an outstanding example of awe inspiring Power of and BY the People. It is a walkable museum tucked in an historic neighborhood exhibiting some of America’s finest outdoor public art.

The Chicano Park Mural Restoration Project, which began in June of this year, aims to restore 18 murals. The project funded by a Transportation Enhancement Act grant administered by the California Department of Transportation has enabled many of the original artists to restore their paintings after decades of weatherization. Last year, lead paint was removed from some of the earlier murals. The restoration is expected to be completed in time for the 42nd annual Chicano Park Day Celebration scheduled for April 21, 2012. The planning commission is currently accepting sketches for the event’s promotional poster which is to reflect the theme, "Lowriders: Part of Chicano Park's History, Culture, Pride & Future!' Drawings as well as inquiries may be emailed to cpscchicanopark@sbcglobal.net.

The 1993 Kelco Historical Community Mural that Torres completed with his then wife, artist Gloria Rebolledo Torres, is around the corner on Harbor Drive. It, too, is currently under restoration. This mural comprises representations of the past and present waterfront industries. Monterey wasn’t the only California coastal village with a cannery row. The Kelco Mural consists of colorful renditions of cannery workers and Long Shoremen, the Navy which still has a large presence in the area, the legendary San Diego trolleys, as well as a conch blowing Aztec dancer and kelp diver. Although thematically different from those adorning the bridge, it is of no less historical and artistic significance.

Back in the 1930's, more than 225,000 pieces of public art were commissioned by the New Deal's Federal Art Program, creating more than 5,000 jobs during the Great Depression. Many were murals. Today, older communities, some along forgotten highways like old Route 66, are using murals as a marketing technique to again draw visitors off the high speed thoroughfares back onto America’s Main Streets. The historic cultural murals along the Cesar Chavez Parkway, virtually a stone’s throw from the highway entrance ramp, remind us to do the same. Remind us that life was once lived at a slower pace and that where the great expanse of asphalt now lays, there were once homes with fenced yards where children chased dogs running after little red balls. That we were once a city of neighborhoods and neighbors. Chicano Park reminds us to embrace our diversified heritage and respect each other's right to life, liberty and happiness. To hold tight to the truth that our hard earned freedom soars with unleashed expression and is forfeited with enforced repression.