PLATFORM : Treated Like Peons

We have been treated like peons now since 1953, since the government took control of (Olvera Street). Our voice has been excluded from management decisions, from cultural decisions, and our community seems to have now been excluded in the writing of the (plan). When they wrote the bidding documents (for the restoration project), they didn’t consult with anybody in terms of historians, and our professionals that have significant insight into how those documents could have been drafted.

I think it’s just typical of the Department of Recreation and Parks to let that voice go unheard. I have tried very hard to establish credibility for the merchants, to be able to give them a voice, a real voice in the future of Olvera Street, because that’s been absent.

I question the city’s position that they are not intending to spend a red nickel on their birthplace.

I think that the city has a responsibility as this is their only historical, I should say their primary historical landmark, and the only cultural landmark dedicated to the Latino heritage.