Now some members of Denver City Council want to protect the heart of the Sunnyside neighborhood — La Raza Park — by making it Denver's third historic cultural district, alongside Five Points and La Alma Lincoln Park. The historic cultural designation honors the history of a community and its contributions to the city, while the more common historic designation only acknowledges the architecture and history.
Councilmembers are pushing for the recognition through an ordinance that would officially give La Raza Park — which is located on the border of the Sunnyside and Highland neighborhoods along West 38th Avenue — the historic cultural designation by way of a June 26 vote. The ordinance was introduced on May 22.
"It's a big deal, and for the younger people, hopefully they'll understand that in the past there was a lot of struggle to have it become what it is right now," says resident Diane Medina, who has lived across from the park since the 1970s. "People struggled for [the park], people died here, people fought here. It's historical, and there has to be that message."
Councilwoman Amanda Sandoval, who grew up near La Raza Park and now serves the area, has been pushing for it to receive a cultural landmark designation for several years. Describing its iconic features, including the 45-foot kiosko and other significant art pieces, Sandoval says that "they'll be preserved, meaning that seven generations from now, they'll still be there. It's ensuring that these features of La Raza Park, as the park evolves in the future, are preserved."
The application for the historic cultural designation for La Raza recommends regular cleaning and touch-ups for its murals and the park's "La Raza Unida" metal sculpture created in 2021 by Chicano artist Emanuel Martinez. Murals should get protective coating against rain and graffiti, the application adds, while the kiosko pyramid structure would get regular roof inspections.
La Raza Park is easily recognized by the kiosko, which is modeled to look like Mayan and Aztec stepped pyramids and has murals painted on eight panels on the inside of the roof. Denver artist David Ocelotl Garcia painted the murals, titled "El Viaje" ("The Journey" in Spanish), in 2016 to depict the transformation of Mexicans from plants to Indigenous people to revolutionaries and then finally to Chicanos looking toward their future.
The mural on the inside of the kiosko, "El Viaje," depicte the history of the Mexican people in eight panels.
Bennito L. Kelty
"It's a bigger story than that," Sandoval notes.
"It's not just about the preservation of those features — such as the kiosko, the murals and the sculpture — it's also to highlight in mainstream media and to my colleagues on council and to the public the significance that the Chicano movement played in the makeup of Denver," she says.
"It's not just about the preservation of those features — such as the kiosko, the murals and the sculpture — it's also to highlight in mainstream media and to my colleagues on council and to the public the significance that the Chicano movement played in the makeup of Denver," she says.
Sandoval began seeking the designation for the park after council approved an official name change from Columbus Park to La Raza Park in 2020. As part of that project, the city published a study titled "Nuestras Historias: Mexican American/Chicano/Latino Histories in Denver," which concluded that public officials need to "diversify the Denver Landmark portfolio with more sites and districts for underrepresented groups."
Columbus Park had been known colloquially as La Raza Park since the 1970s, Medina remembers, but council had shot down an effort to rename it in 1988 — one year after the word "Mestizo," meaning a mixture of cultures and ethnicities, was added to the name of Curtis Park.
Sandoval found more support for the renaming after the Black Lives Matter movement and the death of George Floyd, she says.
Home to a large Italian immigrant population in the early 1900s, the park was named Columbus Park in 1931 in honor of the famed but controversial Genoese explorer. However, the neighborhood's demographics after World War II as Italian families moved to the suburbs and Mexican-American and Latino families moved to the Northside and Westside neighborhoods, according to city records.
By the late 1960s, the children of the first Mexican-Americans in the neighborhood had grown up, and "La Raza had become an important location for the nascent Chicano Movement," according to its historic landmark application. Chicanos found a sense of belonging in Denver during that decade by renaming various parks and neighborhoods to reflect their Mexican-American heritage.
The term "la raza," which means "the race" or "the people," gained prominence during the Chicano movement in the 1960s and 1970s. The Mexican American Youth Organization, a Chicano group from Texas, created the La Raza Unida political party in 1970. The Southwest Council of La Raza, a civil rights advocacy group, formed in Arizona in 1968.
"La Raza Unida" is a sculpture by Emanuel Martinez created in 2021 after the park was renamed.
Bennito L. Kelty
"The role La Raza played as a 'liberated' area — under community control — is a source of pride for the community today, as it was in the 1970s," the park's landmark application reads.
Medina says the renaming "was like a confirmation, a validation" and that the historic cultural landmark designation would be the same. "It's a validation saying, 'Yeah, this is a special place,'" Medina tells Westword. "If it's a [historic cultural] district, then there has to be that message that is attached to that."
At one point after the 1960s, the park became the site of rallies and violent confrontations with police. The poor conditions of its former pool sparked "splash-ins" by young Chicano activists in the summer of 1969, when Latino kids would visit public pools in affluent white neighborhoods in southeast Denver to demand equal treatment of city amenities.
One of the activists who had worked as a lifeguard for La Raza Park was Nita Gonzales, the daughter of Crusade for Justice founder Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales. It was Gonzales and the Crusade for Justice that organized the splash-ins just a few months after the group's involvement in the West High School Blowouts in La Alma Lincoln Park.
Gonzales would also host rallies and give speeches in the park, which was used to host graduations for Escuela Tlatelolco, the dual-language alternative school he founded. The Crusade for Justice also opened Servicios de La Raza a few blocks from the park in 1972 to offer the Chicano community affordable, bilingual social services.
Gonzales would also host rallies and give speeches in the park, which was used to host graduations for Escuela Tlatelolco, the dual-language alternative school he founded. The Crusade for Justice also opened Servicios de La Raza a few blocks from the park in 1972 to offer the Chicano community affordable, bilingual social services.
On June 28, 1981, police tear-gassed, and released attack dogs on, hundreds of men, women and children who had come to the park to kick off their summer, according to the landmark designation application. Police had told them to disperse, saying they didn't have permits and accusing them of being part of the Black Berets, a militant Chicano organization.
"Community members threw rocks and bottles at the police," the application says. "Police responded by firing tear gas into the crowd and releasing police dogs."
Medina says she remembers what went down that day and how the tear gas lingered in the neighborhood for hours afterward "like a fog" — which ultimately changed her worldview on police and local law enforcement.
"It was terrible. It was really bad," Sandoval remembers. "That was unprovoked. Nobody did anything to have them come down like that and start swinging and throwing tear gas."
"It was terrible. It was really bad," Sandoval remembers. "That was unprovoked. Nobody did anything to have them come down like that and start swinging and throwing tear gas."
Diane Medina, who has lived across La Raza Park for almost fifty years, saw the 1981 attack by police and remembers the pool that was filled in.
Bennito L. Kelty
On the record, city officials blamed the failing pump and age of the pool, which had been built in 1940, but community members argued that they had been relying on hired community members and activists for decades to clean the pool and keep it safe from gangs, with no issue.
"The summer youth workers used to clean it," Medina says. "They would go around and clean it every day. Every day, they would pick up trash because it was used more. It was a hangout place."
Sandoval says the park played "a significant role" in her upbringing as she attended quinceañeras, Día de los Muertos festivals and summer solstice celebrations there.
The area around La Raza Park has been seen as an example of Denver's changing demographics and lost sense of history. For Medina, the newer residents who've come to town need some way to understand the history of the park, and a cultural landmark designation could really help.
"Just because you moved up the block doesn't mean you're invested. You have to educate yourself," she says. "The Mexican and Chicano people have moved out. The people who are here now don't know the history."
Medina notes that while a historic cultural designation is the ultimate goal, the work doesn't stop there.
"If the park gets a nice plaque and everything, that's fine, but there's a story attached to that," Medina says, noting how learning about the park's history is key. "I don't know about the kids nowadays, if they understand, but it's up to us to keep talking about that."
