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Arts & Culture

Barrio Logan's Chicano Park Celebrates 45 Years

By Matthew Bowler / Video Journalist
Published April 24, 2015 at 12:44 PM PDT
This story was published more than 10 years ago.
Folk dancers are pictured from Chicano Park Day in 2009.
Angela Carone
Folk dancers are pictured from Chicano Park Day in 2009.

Chicano Park on Saturday is celebrating its 45th anniversary.

Chicano Park Day memorializes a conflict and celebrates a community.

Originally, Barrio Logan residents were promised a park on a plot of land situated beneath the San Diego-Coronado Bridge. But after construction began on what would be a California Highway Patrol parking lot, community members took over the property and turned it into what is now Chicano Park.

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San Diego Chicano Movement Archival Film c.1970

Activists took over the land, eventually making it into an iconic San Diego park. The famous murals went up in 1973.

The Chicano Park Day celebration runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday.

There is limited parking. Attendees are encouraged to ride the trolley.

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Arts & Culture San Diego
Matthew Bowler
Matthew Bowler is an award-winning journalist from San Diego. Bowler comes from a long line of San Diego journalists. Both his father and grandfather worked as journalists covering San Diego. He is also a third generation San Diego State University graduate, where he studied art with a specialty in painting and printmaking. Bowler moved to the South of France after graduating from SDSU. While there he participated in many art exhibitions. The newspaper “La Marseillaise” called his work “les oeuvres impossible” or “the impossible works.” After his year in Provence, Bowler returned to San Diego and began to work as a freelance photographer for newspapers and magazines. Some years later, he discovered his passion for reporting the news, for getting at the truth, for impacting lives. Bowler is privileged to have received many San Diego Press Club Awards along with two Emmy's.
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