It was billed as a storytellers festival, but it was much more than that.
The gathering at Balboa Park was a giant thank you card to San Diego’s Latino community members and many others who helped launch the Latino Legacy Foundation and its multimedia project.
There was a full house at the Prado Grand Ballroom for last weekend’s celebration, including those who played important roles as activists and political leaders. Also attending were everyday people who helped build the San Diego of today, part of a vibrant, diverse community who wanted to mark a major achievement during Hispanic Heritage Month.
You can see what the celebration was about by browsing a “living history book” on the foundation’s website, which tells the story of the county’s Latino heritage and accomplishments. It is a multimedia project with video, pictures, documents and the stories often told by those who lived them.
Maria Velasquez, the founding president of the foundation and the visionary for the event, introduced an impressive lineup of speakers and honorees, as well as three of the project’s many contributors who tell their own stories of struggle and success. The foundation’s goal of a living history book was first announced on the steps of San Diego High in October of 2021.
The initial effort included a narrative about Chula Vista Mayor Mary Casillas Salas and her brothers — U.S. Army veterans from World War II who were awarded two Purple hearts and a Bronze and Silver star. In total, seven of her family members served in the military.
Fast forward to the Prado and the gathering to honor those who helped create a place for storytellers of Latino history, encompassing the aftermath of the Mexican-American War of 1848, the nation’s civil rights struggle, the rise of the Chicano movement and, said Velasquez, the “current momentous events that define the influential role of Latinos today in contemporary America.”
The San Diego Union-Tribune’s former publisher and editor, Jeff Light, was a Latino Legacy honoree for providing staff support, resources and feedback to the project’s volunteers. “These are stories that need to be told and heard,” he said. “What better place than San Diego?”
Toni Atkins, California Senate president emerita and a candidate for governor, was the other Latino Legacy honoree. She has represented San Diego for years in Sacramento after serving locally on the City Council. She secured funding for the Latino Legacy project because “California supports diversity and wants to make sure its history is recorded.”
She noted that the Latino Legacy website is a free resource for use in schools and colleges and filled with “powerful storytelling which aims to bring us all closer together.” Its use of “personal video interviews of community leaders and descendants of former history-makers make their stories come alive.”
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria spoke briefly, saying the event was a “great way to wrap up Latino Heritage Month.” Laughing, he noted that he checked all three boxes for October — Latino Heritage Month, National Coming Out Day, and Global Diversity Day. He thanked Atkins because “I wouldn’t be standing here without Toni Atkins.”
A highlight of the celebration was the keynote speaker, playwright and actor Luis Valdez, whose credits include Zoot Suit, La Bamba, and El Teatro Campesino. Valdez described Latinos as “the descendants of the first people of America.”
The challenges faced through time are exemplified by their name —Latinos, he explained. The word describes the people who were forced to live outside of Rome. These monumental challenges through the years have forged here in this country the Latino culture.
And, he added that even during difficult times, “I believe in the future, I am an American and I love America,” closing with a plea for America to “find your heart and save your soul.”
The final highlight was the storytellers themselves, telling the audience their very personal stories that are part of the foundation’s collection.
They included Arcelia Magana, past president of the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association, who has served as pro bono general counsel for MANA de San Diego since 2022.
Magana’s parents were born in extreme poverty, each leaving Mexico at a young age in search of a better life, and became legal residents under the 1986 U.S. amnesty program. In San Diego County they found racism and jobs that didn’t pay well. But they also found each other, and raised a family with strong grounding in the belief you can do anything you set your mind to.
“My parents instilled in us that education was the key — it was the one thing that no one could ever take away from you,” said Magana.
When she told her parents as a young girl that she wanted to be a lawyer, her mother told her: “You can do that too. Just study hard — estudia duro.”
Magana added, “My father inspired me when he held up his hands — hands with crooked fingers from old injuries, hands calloused from years of gardening, hands permanently stained by the earth. He told me, ‘My hands look like this so yours can hold a pen and paper.'”
Another storyteller was David Valladolid, a U.S. Army veteran of Vietnam, and now national president of the Parent Institute for Quality Education.
“My story is about reflection, true soul-searching. It’s about turning a negative into a positive for the betterment of yourself and the community,” which civil rights leader Cesar Chavez advised him to do after he returned from the Vietnam War.
His tour of duty had been dangerous and life-changing.
Valladolid ended up doing ambush watch patrols. On the foundation website he explained how during a patrol “my eyes were blown out of my face and my eardrums were seriously damaged, leaving me blind and deaf. After several complex surgeries and rehab, I regained my sight and hearing.”
“I witnessed atrocities and vowed that I would never again be in a situation where somebody could control me, tell me what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.”
Returning home, “I joined the Barrio Logan community in its protests and demands for a neighborhood park, rather than the state’s plans for a California Highway Patrol substation,” in what is now Chicano Park.
“I would see firsthand the Chicano Moratorium in East Los Angeles, the first demonstration by the Latino community against the Vietnam War.”
He said he saw how “police were beating people, firing their weapons, and arresting hundreds of individuals. We later learned three people had been killed, including Los Angeles Times reporter Ruben Salazar.”
It was a frightening, terrifying experience, “even for me, a veteran who had returned from a combat zone,” Valladolid said. “Yet, it was also enlightening to realize what it meant to be a Chicano standing up to inequality.”
These experiences, advice from Cesar Chavez and others, led him to a decision to devote 50 years of his life to community work. He became chief of staff for state Assemblyman Peter Chacon, known as the Father of Bilingual Education, and later head of the Parent Institute for Quality Education that has helped Latino families learn how to ensure their children’s
success in their academic endeavors.
Storyteller Connie Hernandez is the co-founder of San Diego’s Ronald McDonald House.
She recalled a time when it was almost impossible to stay overnight at a hospital with a seriously ill baby or child. This was in 1976, when “my husband Nick Hernandez and I had our fourth child, a beautiful baby boy. His name was Matthew. According to the Bible, Matthew means, ‘Gift from God’… and he was bringing so much joy to our family.”
But Matthew fell gravely ill and would die after a long, difficult battle with leukemia. It was a time of despair and deep reflection for the couple until a social worker at Children’s Hospital in San Diego reached out to them to form a parents’ support group.
It was a struggle for each family to deal with their loss, but they began to evolve an idea to build a Ronald McDonald House because “we needed to have a place in San Diego for families to stay with their children [who] were hospitalized.”
They visited other Ronald McDonald homes and began raising the funds needed to build a home away from home for families facing the same thing they did. Nick, who ran a Carpenters Union local, rallied other unions to help. Construction materials and labor were donated. It would become the 19th such home built in the U.S. and now there over 360 throughout the world.
“I say it’s the legacy that our baby Matthew left behind, who started this dream to have a home away from home for the parents of very ill hospitalized children,” said Hernandez. “I am very proud of this accomplishment. And that our Latino community played a significant role in building it.”
