San Diego Reconquista Gathering With Many Photos, The Future of America is Here (Pics)

Someone who grasps Borders, Language, Culture ^ | 4-23-06 | self

[conservative in nyc]

This thread got mentioned in the April 16 edition of the San Diego Union Tribune:

Decades-old text opposes junkyards, not Yankees (Leslie Berestein):

The old mural on National Avenue is about all that's left to remind people of the great Barrio Logan junkyard controversy, when residents were pushing city officials to clear light industry out of their neighborhood, especially junkyards – or in Spanglish, yonkes.

Painted in 1977, the mural at one edge of Chicano Park depicts protesters beneath the message “Varrio Si, Yonkes No!” Neighborhood yes, junkyards no.

It's been nearly a quarter-century since the junkyard issue was resolved, and most of the offending businesses are long gone. But a different kind of controversy has quietly grown around the mural and its pithy, if antiquated, caption. It highlights the ethnic tension that persists on the edge of the nation's immigration debate.

Some English speakers who spot the mural interpret yonkes as “Yankees” and assume the mural makes a racist, anti-Anglo statement. The author of a recent letter to The San Diego Union-Tribune thought the mural made a statement against “honkies.”

“Is San Diego the United States of America?” the woman wrote. “If the mural stated More houses for Whites . . . Less Mexicans how long would it take you to take action against this racist, discriminatory, in-your-face comment which is painted on government property?”

Messages posted on some Internet sites also claim the mural makes an anti-Yankee statement. Last April, someone on FreeRepublic.com, a conservative chat site, posted several photos from the annual Chicano Park Day festival, billing it as a “San Diego reconquista gathering.” Among them was a shot of the mural with the photographer's interpretation underneath: “Barrio Logan Yes, Yankees no!”

Now that the junkyards are gone, this 1977 mural at the edge of Chicano Park is often misunderstood by people who do not speak Spanish. "Yonkes" does not mean "Yankees." Victor Ochoa, one of the artists who painted the mural three decades ago, chuckles when he hears about such charges. He said it's not the first time the mural's meaning has been lost in translation.

In the mid-1970s, he drew a flier to distribute at community meetings with the caption “Barrio Si, Yonkes No!” (He later took creative license with the spelling of barrio on the mural, using a V for victory, he said.) There was a halfway house in the neighborhood, and many of the occupants were drug addicts. At one meeting, Ochoa was taken aback when an angry ex-con approached him.

“He said, 'Hey Victor, what do you have against us?' ” he recalled. “They thought it meant 'no junkies.' ”

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