Translation: Barrio Yes, Junkyard No! The people of Barrio Logan fought to make this area under the bridge a park.
In the early 1960s, the construction of I-5 further intruded on the community and severed Barrio Logan from Logan Heights. By 1969, the newly built Coronado Bridge additionally bisected the barrio. An estimated 1,500 families were displaced by the bridge and by industrial rezoning.
Vargas finds it interesting that the maintenance facility for the bridge is sited in the barrio instead of on the Coronado side. “I think it’s a lesson in haves and have-nots,” he says. “There are nice parks and a golf course on the Coronado side. The side in San Diego has very little that is beautiful other than that which was fought for underneath the bridge.”
That would be Chicano Park.
When bridge construction began in 1967, Barrio Logan residents believed they would receive land for a park. But on April 22, 1970, bulldozers were under the bridge in preparation of groundbreaking for a California Highway Patrol station. The community decided enough was enough. Led by activist José Gomez, residents disrupted the grading work.
“What I still remember are the women and children who made human chains around the bulldozers,” says artist and activist Victor Ochoa. Many people expressed a willingness to die for the tract of land.
“Some of us decided that it was time to put a stop to the destruction and begin to make this place more livable,” Gomez declared. The community was tired of the junkyards, the factories and especially the bridge. So for 12 days, hundreds of people defied police. They began planting shrubs and flowers during the standoff. In the end, they won.
“This park is our pearl, and the community is our oyster,” according to artist Raul Jaques. “A pearl is not born in a comfortable zone. An oyster creates a pearl through great irritation. That’s how our pearl was born.”
Read the entire San Diego Magazine article here.
