Josie Talamantez recognized for her contributions to Chicano Park
In the April 19, 2013 La Prensa San Diego feature on Bert Corona I wrote that Chicano Park and its Monumental Murals had been listed on the National Register. I failed to mention the exceptional individual responsible for making this possible.
Josie Talamantez, Logan Heights home girl who participated in the Chicano Park takeover in 1970, founding member of the Chicano Park Steering Committee (CPSC), former director of the Centro Cultural de la Raza, retired Chief of Programs/Legislative Liaison with the California Arts Council, and researcher with an MA in History from CSU Sacramento, conducted the 14-year campaign that culminated in the international recognition of the park and the murals as National Treasures.
Josie spent years researching the founding of Logan Heights and how Chicanos/Mexicans came to settle there; studying art and muralism and its relationship to the Chicano community; meeting with staff at the California Office of Historic Preservation; gathering support letters from the CPSC, community, historians and politicians; and communicating with the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Later this month San Diego’s Save Our Heritage Organization will present Josie Talamantez and the Chicano Park Steering Committee with their highest honor a Lifetime Achievement Award recognizing that: without the committed group of volunteers the park would not have ultimately survived. Chicano Park and the Chicano Park Murals have now been added to the National Register of Historic Places, thanks to, in your own words, a group of people who dared to share a dream and work to make that dream become a reality.
David Avalos
Editor’s Note: In the April 19th story “Bert Corona: Chicano Park Mural Recognizes the Father of the Immigration Movement” by David Avalos, due to a technical glitch a pieces of the story about Sal Barajas was blank. The following are the two paragraphs were the parts were missing:
Forty years later Barajas and the others restored the badly deteriorated “Historical Mural.” Financed by a $1.6 million federal transportation enhancement grant to Caltrans and the Chicano Park Steering Committee (CPSC) Barajas, the Toltecas and dozens of other artists revitalized nearly twenty murals, finally able to afford proper scaffolding, and the best mural paints available.
The stunning results reintroduced all San Diego to a cultural treasure. In 2012 the restoration project received the City of San Diego’s Historic Preservation Award for Cultural Landscape. Later that year the San Diego Architectural Foundation presented its Grand Orchid Award to the CPSC for representing “a space and not a building, as the center of culture.” The State Historical Resources Commission recognized Chicano Park as a Historical Space.
To read the story in it’s full context you can read the story at: http://laprensa-sandiego.org/?p=22171