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A Plea to El Pasoans to learn from the Past: Revisiting Tucson, Arizona’s Efforts to Revitalize Downtown in the 1960s
By Dr. Lydia R. Otero
What is occurring in El Paso today mirrors the destruction that took place in Tucson, Arizona. In the 1960s, boosters and city officials felt that Arizona’s first urban renewal project, the Pueblo Center Redevelopment Project, held the key to the city’s future and prosperity. They also believed that they had “business” reasons for destroying eighty two acres of the city’s oldest barrio. In many ways they believed, like the Paso Del Norte Group, and their affiliated boosters in El Paso today, that the older neighborhood stood in opposition to the visions of modernity that they wanted the city to exemplify.
There have been many instances where history and historical sites became casualties in the quest for progress. The cultural, historical and social damage that demolishing 128 acres of El Segundo Barrio in El Paso is insurmountable. Destruction of vital landmarks, and older adobe homes in the name of progress in Tucson concealed the hostile sentiments that stood at the core of urban renewal’s objectives. Sites that could have been restored to celebrate and honor Mexican and Mexican American contributions were destroyed along with the barrio as city officials attempted to consolidate their power to cleanse the area of its people and history in order to attract more commercial projects, and more tourist to Tucson. This is clearly what is taking place in El Paso.
City leaders in Tucson forty years ago feared that restoring the old could possibly overshadow their new designs. Similarly, the new proposals that some El Pasoans hope to implement not only seek to destroy historical sites, but they also desire to break the century-old historical and cultural attachment that drew, and continues to draw, people from Mexico and the United States to the downtown area and el Segundo Barrio. I made it a point to walk the Segundo Barrio when in El Paso a few years ago. It is a historian’s haven. I also felt wonder to see evidence of the “Ellis Island” of the Southwest situated so close to the Rio Grande and the ever imposing bridge that connects the two nations. It is disappointing to learn that new designs, and new business, like Starbucks, Kinkos, Subway, and Cold Stone Creameries mean more to some El Pasoans today. To ensure diversity some may even propose the inclusion of a Panda Express and Taco Bell.
The Paso Del Norte Group and city leaders must take time to ask themselves a monumental question: If they destroy the Segundo Barrio, what distinguishes El Paso from Cleveland, Portland, Memphis, or any other city in the U.S.? Historical preservationist Alva Torres best related her sentiments regarding the drastic changes that occurred in downtown Tucson and El Pasoans should heed her advice.
They cheated everybody and built something that for years did not make them money because they did not do it right. When you do something wrong it comes back to you and that’s what the city did. La Placita (an older site that the city destroyed) would have been a natural asset to the city. People could have come out and seen how the city once was. Our grandchildren and tourists would have loved it. It's like we had a little diamond and we gave it away for a zirconium. I love Tucson and the buildings are not the people but they are part of a story that you try to save.
Urban renewal in Tucson did not revitalize the downtown area as city officials had promised. Their determination to transform the city’s image failed. In fact, they lost a large segment of consumers who contributed to the Tucson’s economic vitality and they lost a large source of tax revenues. City officials never considered the economic risks to their Central Business District, which instantly and drastically declined with the implementation of urban renewal. Examine the photograph below which shows a vibrant and busy downtown area. Ask anyone who has visited Tucson in the last four decades and they will tell you that it changed substantially, and not for the best. On some days, especially weekends, its emptiness is eerily striking.
Postcard of the downtown area circa 1960 indicates the vitality of the downtown area. (Collection of author.)
There is a sense of pride that only the past can yield. An understanding and appreciation of the struggles of those who came before and their contributions gives individuals and groups a sense of belonging and ownership. Young people remain thirsty for understanding their own ancestors’ contributions. Unjustly, with the destruction of vital Mexican American landmarks, many will continue to regard Mexican people as recent arrivals or outsiders undeserving of citizenship since much of the historical evidence to contradict these ideas has been destroyed.
Those invested in preserving El Segundo barrio express an investment in maintaining a connection to their past and recognize the need for public reminders of the barrio’s worth as a site of historic, cultural, and economic vitality. After all, the barrio’s past is an extension of a Mexican past, and it tells the story of strength that enabled Mexicans and Mexican Americans to live and celebrate themselves and their culture in contrast to the hardship they faced in other spaces. Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and El Pasoans of all ages thirst for tangible evidence that explains and enhances an appreciation of their ancestor’s contributions, which brings to mind a well known quote, "There are two important gifts we can give (future generations): One is wings, the other is roots." If the Segundo Barrio is lost what will subsequent generations remember about this significant area? More daunting, what type of cleansed history will be created and disseminated by those powerful enough to destroy acres of history and community in order to bring new commercial venues? In the 1960s boosters and Tucson city officials saw no potential benefits in saving what they considered a dilapidated and substandard community. Yet, former barrio resident Henry Garcia contests their lack of vision. He maintains that, “It (the barrio) would have made a fantastic place,” Garcia contends. “Tourists would have flocked there like flies because they knew it wasn’t phony, you know. It was the real thing.” El Pasoans also have the “real thing.” Let us hope that reason prevails and they avoid the inconsolable regrets that await them in the future and instead chose to embrace and preserve the past the El Segundo barrio represents and embodies.
Lydia R. Otero is an assistant professor at the Mexican American Studies & Research Center at the University of Arizona and is currently working on a manuscript that examines urban renewal, historical preservation and the politics of saving a Mexican past in Tucson.
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