ALAMOSA — A celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month and commemoration of the Maestas Case was held at Historic Zapata Park on Saturday night, and the event was a feast in every way.
A crowd of more than 200 people had no problem consuming 30 gallons of posole made by “Mama Ray”, co-founder of Shooting Stars Cultural and Leadership Center, and 500 biscochitos baked by Nancy Ortiz, mother of Jamie Dominguez, who also founded Shooting Stars.
The popular Latin Pop/Hip Hop band 2MX2 out of Denver, was followed by the headliner and famous Hip Hop artist Brown Boy out of California, who was performing to a crowd where many, especially the teenagers and young adults, seemed almost amazed to be seeing – for free - the same artists they follow on Facebook and watch on YouTube just a few blocks from their homes.
The historic park was beautiful with white lights strung along the trees. But that was just part of the beauty.
Thanks to the artistry of Denver-based Felipe Dominguez, Jamie Dominguez’s cousin, the walls of the building that houses the public restrooms had, within the space of just a few very long days, been utterly transformed from displaying an older mural that had been almost entirely covered up with graffiti to an extraordinary, vibrant and powerful work of art depicting Quetzalcoatl, the Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and has the meaning “feathered-serpent.”
And those who went inside the Shooting Starts Cultural and Leadership Center that backs up to Historic Zapata Park were in awe of yet another remarkable mural, also created by Denver artist Felipe Dominguez and depicting the enormous significance of the Maestas case.
The celebration and commemoration, in its second year, is part of a larger event that began Saturday morning with the Five Star Riders Car Show, which started three years ago. Five Star Riders, a car club in the San Luis Valley, was one of the sponsors of the day’s events and has historically contributed significant resources to the community.
The car show concluded with a poetry reading of “Wheels of Justice” followed by the “Maestas Case Cruise” where cars proceeded down Ross Avenue – the same route that Hispanic students used to have to walk to school – to Historic Zapata Park, where the “Mexican” school once stood.
Once at the park, an entirely different event was held, starting with the unveiling of the Maestas case mural and followed by a blessing of the park by Grup Huitzilopochtli, Aztec Dancers from Denver.
The blessing was followed by an evening of music that was unprecedented in the park thanks to collaboration with Future Town Tour, a creative project powered by the organization Warm Cookies of the Revolution.
The tour brings nationally known artists to small communities throughout the west. They had just finished a recent tour of Walsenburg, Center and Fort Garland with Alamosa as their last stop.
“The artists that came are very, very popular that kids would have to pay to see otherwise,” Dominguez says. “We made it all free and the artists agreed to give away CDs and posters. Brown Boy is very with the youth so being able to see him and meet him was very big.
“This is like a new beginning,” says Jamie Dominguez, co-founder of Shooting Stars Cultural and Leadership Center. “We’re going from a park that was a mess and was ugly to a historic park that includes historic imagery. We’re letting the community know this is how important this is to us. This is not just a park. It’s a historic place. This is our culture. This is what our center represents. A lot happened here.”
Historic Zapata Park instills a sense of community. “This isn’t just us doing this on our own,” Dominguez says. “Back in the 80s and 90s, Zapata Park used to be a place where there were a lot of events going on. We’re trying to bring back things that we used to do as a Hispanic community and southsiders and to show our sense of pride in who we are and in our park. We’re inviting the community, explaining what the murals mean and what they represent. We made the event free because we don’t want anyone to be hindered from coming and participating in what we had planned for the event. Everybody was welcome.”
At the end of this year’s event, Dominguez has nothing but gratitude – to Future Town Tours and Warm Cookies of the Revolution, to the artists who gave away free CDs and posters, to the Five Star Riders, the Boys and Girls Club of San Luis Valley and to the community, for coming to the park at night, for supporting the event and knowing “it’s all about the neighborhood.”
