Hand Held Visions – “Truce in the Culture Wars”

by Dee Dee Halleck, Post on the ending of the Centro Boycott, 2007:

I hadn’t been in San Diego too long in the early eighties when I found the Centro Cultural de la Raza. This former water tank in Balboa Park was the dynamic nexus of cultural expression in the border town. The Border Arts Workshop was just beginning. There was always a buzz of activity: poetry readings, art exhibitions, performances, fiestas and lively discussions. Victor Ochoa was the presiding spirit: his murals graced the exterior and his gentle humor was a benediction to all the activities of the place. It was the only place in San Diego where farm workers, pipe fitters and college professors mixed. As a weekend approached, friends would ask, so what’s going on at the Centro this weekend? And like as not there would be something happening there: perhaps a poetry reading by Jesus Papoleto Melendez, an opening of an exhibition of envelopes drawn by Latino prisoners in California prisons, a performance by a folkloric group from Mexico, a film about Nicaragua that Tania Winter had dug up.

http://deedeehalleck.blogspot.com/2007/06/truce-in-culture-wars.html