Salvador Torres Slideshow

Slideshow given to UCSB Chicano Studies C-1

Salvador Torres - Artist in Residence, ImaginArte and California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives

The master plan was: first and foremost, to have a Chicano Park. Then there was la Universidad del Barrio, the Chicano free hospital, and the International Chicano Free Port. During this time period Panama and Ecuador were capturing tuna boats, so there was a tuna war taking place. We felt it would be detrimental to our community to have a tuna war so our idea was to create a a cultural center and invite people from Panama and other places to come because we were starting to get the negative backlash from the dominant community. All the columns have murals on them. There is a facility that became the Chicano Federation and is now the Cesar Chavez Learning Center, so we’ve made a lot of progress.