🏜️ Tucson Tales Tuesday - ✊🏾 Tucson's Westside Struggle: 50 Years of Unity Against Gentrification!
🗣️ "¡El barrio unido, jamás será vencido!": The Battle for Community Unity
¡Órale, mi gente! Maextro Morales back at it again, serving up some Tucson truth hotter than the asphalt on a July afternoon. Grab your horchata and settle in, because today's Tucson Tales Tuesday is going deep into the corazón of our westside struggle.
Let me take you on a little viaje through time, back to the 1970s when disco was king at the Del Rio ballroom and our barrios were under attack down the street. It was then that the El Rio Coalition first rose up, like a mighty saguaro from the desert floor, to defend our community. Picture it: bulldozers threatening our green spaces, developers licking their chops at the thought of turning our barrios into bland, gringo-fied suburbs. But our people? They said, "¡No pasarán!"
This wasn't just about some park, mis amigos. El Rio has been the lifeblood of our westside barrios for generations. It's where your abuelo taught you to swing a golf club, where your tías gather for their weekly chisme sessions, where our youth find alternatives to the streets. It’s where the library is, the community center with its murals, and where Kamala Harris visited, of all places in this city, when she last came to Tucson. It's sacred ground, as essential to our community as tortillas at a family dinner.
It’s our greenspace in the westside barrio, and once it’s gone and paved over, that’s it, no mas.
Fast forward to 2013. Remember that mess with Grand Canyon University? Those privateers thought they could waltz in and turn our beloved El Rio into some bougie, for-profit campus. And get this - their school had the audacity to ban gay couples! In our diverse, loving community! In what would soon be Lane Santa Cruz’s ward, where she was the council aide for then-councilwoman Regina Romero. But again, our gente stood up. We marched, we protested, we made our voices heard. And once again, we sent those developers packing, tails between their legs.
Now, you'd think after fifty years of us defending El Rio, the powers that be would get the mensaje, right? Wrong! Like a bad telenovela villain who just won't stay dead, they keep coming back with new schemes.
In 2022, they tried to pull a fast one on us. Using some political rookie with more ambition than sense, they attempted to redistrict Barrio El Rio right out of Ward 1 and into Ward 3. It was like trying to separate frijoles from arroz - it just doesn't make sense!
And now, here we are in 2024, facing yet another threat to our unity. Our dear Councilwoman Lane Santa Cruz, with all her book learning and her Ph.D. and teaching Mexican American Studies at the UA, seems to have forgotten the very history she's supposed to be an expert in. She's pushing this idea of creating more minority-majority wards, which sounds nice on paper. But let's break it down, shall we?
First, Tucson's city council elections are citywide. That means the makeup of individual wards matters about as much as bringing a chancla to a gunfight. Just look at Cunningham in Ward 2 and Lee in Ward 4—they keep winning despite losing in their own wards. It's like trying to win a corrida de toros with a chihuahua!
Secondly, if they're so keen on minority representation, why do they keep endorsing white candidates in Ward 3? And let's not forget the County District 3 race, where they passed over two Chicanos and a Native American woman in favor of - you guessed it - the lone white candidate. It's like they're playing diversity bingo with a rigged set!
But here's what really gets my sangre boiling. This push to redistrict isn't just about lines on a map. It's an attack on over fifty years of westside unity. Since the '70s, our barrios have stood together against every threat, every attempt to gentrify us out of existence. From the original El Rio Coalition to the fights against Grand Canyon University, to the ongoing battle against displacement, we've been in this together.
El Rio isn't just a park or a golf course. It's the symbolic heart of our resistance. It's where our abuelos played, where our padres protested, and where our children are growing up learning the value of community. Every tree, every blade of grass in El Rio has been watered with the sweat and tears of generations of activists.
And now they want to split us up? For what? Some misguided attempt at political chess that ignores the real-world consequences for our community?
Let me break it down for the folks in the back: Dividing El Rio from the rest of the westside barrios is like cutting the heart out of a living body. It's not just geographically nonsensical (hello, we're already divided by a freeway!), it's culturally devastating. Our strength has always been in our unity. Together, we've fought off corporate vultures, pushed back against gentrification, and preserved our cultural heritage.
To Dr. Lane Santa Cruz and the rest of the city council, I say this: You can't erase half a century of shared struggle with a stroke of your redistricting pen. Our history doesn't begin and end with ward boundaries. It's written in the murals on our walls, in the stories our abuelos tell, in the very soil of El Rio that we've defended time and time again.
And to our new city manager, Tim Thomure - mijo, you're new here, so let me give you some advice. Before you start redrawing maps, take a walk through our barrios. Talk to the abuelitas who've been here since before you were a twinkle in your daddy's eye. Listen to the young activists who are carrying on the fight their parents and grandparents started. Understand that in the westside, community isn't just a word - it's our way of life.
To everyone reading this - we need you now more than ever. On Tuesday, August 27th, we're making our stand at City Hall. Bring your tías, your primos, your vecinos. Hell, bring your perro if he can hold a sign! We need to show these politicians that the westside barrios aren't just lines on a map - we're living, breathing communities with a history and a future.
Remember, mi gente - united we stand, divided they redistrict us. This isn't just about ward boundaries. It's about preserving the unity that's been our strength for over fifty years. It's about honoring the legacy of every activist who's fought for El Rio and our barrios. It's about securing a future where our children and grandchildren can enjoy the same sense of community that we've built and defended for generations.
This is Maextro Morales, reminding you that la lucha sigue - the struggle continues. But so does our strength, our pride, and our unbreakable spirit. From the shadows of "A" Mountain to the bustling streets of South Tucson, we are one community, one voice, one fuerza.
Hasta la victoria siempre, Tucson. See you at City Hall on the 27th. And remember - they can redraw the lines, but they can never redraw our history or our hearts. ¡El barrio unido, jamás será vencido! ¡Sí se puede!
Key Takeaways:
🏟️ El Rio has been the lifeblood of the westside barrios for generations
🚫 The community has fought off developers and gentrification for over 50 years
🔁 Attempts to redistrict Barrio El Rio are an attack on westside unity
📢 A call to action on August 27th at City Hall to defend the community
Bingo Carnal. Divide / Conquer. Disempower / Divide. Dilute / Divide. I was struggling for the right words yesterday, but not today. Thank you. It's about the powerful punching down in my view. Political cruelty. Always has been.