This morning I got together with a friend to discuss my continuing writing a memoir a talk about the exhibit on Ruben Salazar I am helping with at Cal State LA that opens October 23. I wanted him to see the plaque honoring Salazar at the park in East LA named after Salazar that Supervisor Gloria Molina had helped have installed on August 29. We found it vandalized with dirt and grass clods deposited over the plaque with a dry palm frond. I picked up the frond and cleaned up the plaque and here it is. The wording is very apt. A veteran Chicano activist and retired teacher Sal Valdez led a campaign with Molinas and other help to have the plaque because there was nothing at the park telling about him and why the park was named for him. Here are the words on the Plaque. DEDICATED IN MEMORY OF RUBEN SALAZAR March 3, 1928 - August 29, 1970 Ruben Salazar was a prominent and award winning journalist. He was born in Juarez, Mexico and later moved across the river to El Paso, Texas. After attending high school in Texas, he went on to attend the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), served in the US Army for two years and then returned to UTEP to earn his journalism degree in 1954. After graduation, he worked as a reporter with the El Paso Herald Post. In the late 1950’s, he moved to California to report for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat and San Francisco News. He joined the Los Angeles Times in 1959 for an 11 year career that included work as a reporter, Vietnam, Mexico City Bureau Chief and Chicano issues columnist. While at the Times in the early and late sixties, Mr. Salazar reported extensively on equal rights activism and advocacy for Mexican Americans in Los Angeles and beyond. In 1970 he was named News Director of Spanish language KMEX-TV, Channel34, and became a columnist for the Times. On August 29, 1970 Mr. Salazar was covering the National Chicano Moratorium against the war in Vietnam and the disproportionate number of Chicanos and ethnic minorities being killed there. The march drew 30,000 people to Laguna Park (now named Ruben Salazar Park). The demonstration ended in a riot after Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriffs charged the crowd with batons and tear gas. While covering the story, Mr. Salazar and his crew rested inside the Silver Dollar Café at 4995 E. Whittier Blvd. After being struck in the head from a tear gas projective fired by a deputy sheriff, Mr. Salazar was killed instantly. This park is named in his honor, as are other memorials across the country. His legacy lives on not only in East Los Angeles, but throughout the nation and beyond. Come to the exhibit at Cal State LA and learn more of him, his legacy, our history and its trajectory.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 01:29:12 +0000