La Raza Park isn’t very big as Denver parks go. Occupying one city block between Osage and Navajo streets, it’s easy enough for drivers on West 38th Avenue to zoom by without thinking about the pyramid-shaped kiosko structure at the center of its grassy lawns.
But the little park has made an outsized imprint on Denver especially when it came to Chicano culture in the city. And now it is set to become a permanently protected part of history by being named the city’s third historic cultural district. It’s a designation that will qualify the park for state funding that could be used to preserve it and its legacy.
The story of the park dates back to 1906 when the city bought it and opened one of the first playgrounds in Denver there, according to Denver landmark preservation staff research. It carries on through the 1930s and 40s when it was named Columbus Park in recognition of the Italian immigrants and their children who settled in north Denver and a public pool first opened there.
In the 1960s and ’70s, as demographics continued to change in the city’s Northside neighborhoods, the park became one of the focal points of the Chicano Movement in Denver. Chicano people gathered in parks to celebrate their unique ethnic heritage, build community, get politically organized and push for equal rights and better economic opportunities.
On June 28, 1981, it also became the site of a notorious police use of force against Chicano residents gathered there to celebrate the unofficial opening of the park for summer. Citing a lack of a permit for the gathering, police officers carrying batons moved into the park that afternoon to shut down a gathering of hundreds of people including women and children. The crowd threw rocks and bottles and police responded by using tear gas, according to city research.
“The history of La Raza Park is the history of Denver’s northside,” reads the application to make the park a protected historic district.
Councilwoman Amanda Sandoval sponsored the landmark designation. The City Council vote on that application this week is viewed as mostly a formality. The park will be added to the city’s historic properties portfolio.
Sandoval was born and raised in northwest Denver. Her late father, Paul Sandoval, served in the state Senate and operated restaurants in the area.
The city last year completed a context study of Mexican American, Chicano and Latino history in Denver. That report delves into the history of La Raza Park. It ends by recommending city leaders do more to work with property owners and partners on opportunities to nominate more places with significant Latino history for historic designation.
According to a 2021 analysis, at least 97% of the city’s historic districts and individually recognized landmarks were associated with white people and history, primarily affluent white men, according to city planning staff, a number that falls well short of reflecting Denver’s diversity.
That same year, the City Council voted to make the La Alma Lincoln Park neighborhood a historic cultural district because of its role in the Chicano movement. It joined the city’s Five Points neighborhood, recognized as an epicenter of Black art and culture in the American West in the middle of the last century, as the only two places in Denver with that special designation.
With the city owning La Raza Park, Sandoval took her efforts to designate the park directly to Mayor Michael Hancock and worked with the parks department and city landmarks staff on the effort, she said.
“I said, ‘Mayor, I don’t want this to be another planning document that doesn’t have implementation behind it,’” Sandoval said. “I told him this story about La Raza Park having a pool and there being a clash between the police department and the people of color using the pool. He absolutely supported it and I got the go-ahead of parks and rec.”
What makes this designation unique in Sandoval’s view is the length of what city planners call the “period of significance.” As the application makes clear, La Raza Park has been a part of Denver’s history going back to when it became one of Denver’s first public spaces more than a century ago.
“I didn’t just want it to be the Chicano Movement story but I wanted it to be about the history of the park,” Sandoval said. “It’s so important because it tells the story of Denver.”
Sandoval played a direct role in the most recent chapter of that story. She sponsored the City Council action in 2021 that finally changed the official name to La Raza Park from Columbus Park. La Raza roughly translates to “the race.” The rallying cry “Viva La Raza” celebrates the unique ethnic history and Indigenous roots of Chicano people in America.
The Columbus Park name was chosen to honor the Italian American population in the neighborhood but a more scrutinous look at Christopher Columbus’s legacy of colonization and brutalization of Indigenous peoples in North America has led to his name and likeness being removed from public places across the county in recent years. A prior effort in the 1980s to change the name, sponsored by Councilwoman Debbie Ortega, failed. The successful effort 30 years later led to a rededication celebration in the park in 2021.
Nita Gonzales has memories in La Raza Park that go back decades. Her father, Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, founded the Crusade for Justice. That organization was at the heart of the Chicano civil rights movement in Denver. Nita contributed to the historic designation application alongside Sandoval.
“I never thought I would live to see the day of the name change. I got arrested a few times for protesting against Columbus Day and calling it Columbus Park,” Gonzales said. “Through the years, many people have come to and rallied around that little piece of land that was known as La Raza Park since the 1970s.”
Gonzales remembers when the pool there was filled in by the city parks department in 1984, something she viewed as direct retaliation for young Chicanos taking back or “liberating” the park in the ’70s. That liberation involved taking over management of the pool so it would be more welcoming to people of color and making sure the jobs there were filled by people living in the neighborhood, not white people from outside the area.
The kiosko, inspired by Aztec architecture, opened in 1990 where the pool and bathhouse used to be. It has become an important gathering place in its own right. A Dia de los Muertos celebration has been held in the park every year since 1982 because that was the year students at Escuela Tlatelolco demanded their celebration be held there, Gonzales said. She would know. She was the school’s principal at the time. Her dad founded that school to provide a place where students could learn about Chicano and Mexican American cultural heritage.
Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, center, speaks at a rally where local residents called for better facilities at Columbus Park on June 18, 1970. He called their recreation facilities improvement demands “beautiful.” (Photo by Dave Buresh/The Denver Post)
Denver Police Chief Art Dill, left, talks to a group of local Chicano residents at Columbus Park on June 17, 1973. (Photo by John Beard/The Denver Post)
Joining others on Sunday, Aug. 17 1981, in the La Raza Park pool were Lee Mondragon, 10, and Joe Mondragon, 11.
(Photo by John J. Sunderland/The Denver Post)
Pictured on Aug. 17, 1981, from left are: Tony Marquez, manager of the pool at La Raza Park, Joe Sandoval and Antonio Archuleta. (Photo by John J. Sunderland/The Denver Post)
Activists who identify as LGBT and two spirit held a vigil and procession to La Raza Park on June 15, 2016, as a tribute to victims of the mass shooting at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando on June 12, 2016. Mourners built an altar of photos of the victims of the mass shooting on the plaza to honor them. (Photo By John Leyba/The Denver Post)
Activists walk down the street holding photos of a mass shooting at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando victims during a vigil on June 15, 2016. Activists who identify as gay, lesbian, trans and two spirit, held the vigil and procession as a tribute to victims of the shooting. They built an altar to honor the victims and then walked to La Raza Park for a ceremony each person carrying a photo of the victim. (Photo By John Leyba/The Denver Post)
Carlos Castaneda stands during a mural dedication at La Raza Park on Sunday, June 20, 2016. The Denver Arts and Venue’ public art program in conjunction with Grupo Tlaloc Danza Azteca dedicated a mural titled “El Viaje/The Journey” by artist David Ocelotl. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
David Ocelotl is presented with incense during a mural dedication at La Raza Park on Sunday, June 20, 2016. The Denver Arts and Venue’ public art program in conjunction with Grupo Tlaloc Danza Azteca dedicated a mural titled “El Viaje/The Journey” by artist David Ocelotl. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
The altar is covered with offerings during a mural dedication at La Raza Park on Sunday, June 20, 2016. The Denver Arts and Venue’ public art program in conjunction with Grupo Tlaloc Danza Azteca dedicated a mural titled “El Viaje/The Journey” by artist David Ocelotl. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Robert Amaya dances during a mural dedication at La Raza Park on Sunday, June 20, 2016. The Denver Arts and Venue’ public art program in conjunction with Grupo Tlaloc Danza Azteca dedicated a mural titled “El Viaje/The Journey” by artist David Ocelotl. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
“La Raza Unida,” a sculpture by Emanuel Martinez gifted to the Northside community from the office of Denver City Councilwoman Amanda Sandoval at La Raza Park in Denver, Colo., on Thursday, June 22, 2023. (Photo by Grace Smith/The Denver Post)
of
Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez will soon be sworn in as an at-large City Council member. She is Nita Gonzales’ niece and Corky Gonzales’ granddaughter. Growing up not far from the park, Gonzales-Gutierrez heard stories about the Chicano movement and the clashes with city authorities in the park. Her mom worked at the pool there as her first job. But by the time Gonzales-Gutierrez was a girl, the park was more known as a stage for cultural performances and events.
“I remember performing on the stage with my grandmother, my mom’s mom,” Gonzales-Gutierrez said. “She kind of formed her own little, all-female mariachi troupe and she would get me and my brothers and deck us all out in costume and we would perform with her.”
The historic designation was designed to be flexible, said Becca Dierschow, a city planner who worked closely with Sandoval on the designation. If neighbors want to see the basketball court or the playground there replaced, that would be possible under the designation, but the kiosko, plaza and public art pieces there will now be eligible for History Colorado grant funding to protect them into the future.
“If anything ever happens to the kiosko or the murals inside the kiosko, that fund could be called up for repairs or preservation work,” Dierschow said.
That’s excellent news for Lorenzo Ramirez. Ramirez got involved with the Crusade for Justice as a teen and was among the young activists who worked at the La Raza Park pool before it was filled in. He also painted one of the murals on the since-demolished bathhouse. He still lives within walking distance from the park.
Among a mountain of community-focused work that keeps him busy, Ramirez teaches Mexican folk dancing and traditional Aztec dance through his studio Grupo Folklorico Sabor Latino Inc. Earlier this month, he joined dancers from across Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California for a 43rd annual Ceremonia Xupantla at the park, a traditional dance ceremony centered on the summer solstice.
“It really is in the heart of the community,” he said.
But the community is changing. Gentrification has driven many families out of the neighborhood. More resources to protect that public space and cultural heritage can only be a good thing, Ramirez said.
“For me, it’s a legacy of a community that is shrinking,” he said. “So anything we can preserve is preserving not just northwest Denver’s history but all of Denver’s history and Chicano contributions and Indigenous people to this region’s contributions to that history.”
