Group Seeks to Name Park After a Mexican President
When Oaxacan immigrants came to Los Angeles in the early 1970s, they settled in what's now known as Pico-Union and Koreatown.
One of the few things they brought with them was a love of basketball that borders on obsession.
This is especially true among Zapotec Indians from the Oaxacan mountain range known as the Sierra Juarez in southern Mexico.
"Our fever," Otomi Dominguez, a highland Zapotec, calls the sport.
Immigrant life took shape around the basketball court in Normandie Park, at Venice Boulevard and Normandie Avenue. Teams evolved into hometown associations. Today, the village clubs hold tournaments across Southern California to raise money for public works projects back home.
Inspired by their strong ties to the park, a coalition of Oaxacan immigrant groups has begun a campaign to rename it in honor of former Mexican President Benito Juarez, a Zapotec Indian from Oaxaca popularly regarded as the Abraham Lincoln of Mexico.
This year marks the 200th anniversary of Juarez's birth.
"By the end of the bicentennial year, we'd like to have the park renamed," said Martha Ugarte, spokeswoman for the Federation of Communities and Indian Organizations in California.
So far, the group has collected more than 2,000 signatures and met with City Councilman Ed Reyes, whose 1st District includes the park. Reyes said he likes the idea but wants to gauge support in the community, once predominantly African American but now made up largely of Mexican, Guatemalan, Salvadoran and Korean immigrants.
"With history and time, identities change," he said.
The Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Commission has final say on a name change. But community input, officials said, is a major consideration.
Still, naming a public park for a foreign president is an unusual proposal, especially at a time of heated debate over illegal immigration and American identity. Park officials say there is no local precedent.
Father John Bakas, dean of St. Sophia Cathedral, a Greek Orthodox church that stands across from Normandie Park, urged the Oaxacans to reconsider. His church, built in 1952, is a reminder that Greeks also were once a dominant presence in the community.
"In neighborhoods where coexistence is important, we have to respect each other's cultures, traditions and history," Bakas said. Greeks "inherited Normandie Avenue. We didn't change it to Papadopoulos." (George Papadopoulos was a military strongman who ruled Greece from 1967 until he was overthrown in 1973.)
