Mural Dedication

SACRED HEART MURAL DEDICATION-STREET FESTIVAL: Celebration of Segundo Barrio Culture & History Under Threat of Demolition

Saturday Feb. 10, 2007
12noon – evening
El Paso, Texas
Segundo Barrio
see flyer for schedule of speakers & events

“We held demonstrations whenever we could,” said [Teresa] Sotelo, [UTEP] graduate student in interdisciplinary studies. “We were there with the city council saying this plan doesn’t speak for us. This isn’t our plan. This is a destruction plan; not anything that will actually be fruitful for the local community, for the people that actually live there. Where will they go?"

*

“Historians know the value of that [Segundo Barrio] neighborhood and ... we’ve seen the same thing happen so many times in the past 50 years of the evolution of Mexican American communities,” said Paso del Sur founding member and UTEP history professor Dr. Yolanda Leyva. “We’ve been very lucky to have poets, to have artists, to have very creative people affiliated with this group so we could get out the message in many different formats.”

*Quotes from "Student with barrio roots oppose downtown plan" from The Prospector

for more information, visit Paso del Sur