Guadalupe Speaks aims to spark revitalization of small coastal town
Larry Alkire, project director of Guadalupe Speaks, one of nine Communities Speak projects CCH is funding under the California Stories initiative, recently talked to Humanities Network about his project.
- What was the genesis of the idea for Guadalupe Speaks?
- Guadalupe has been declining economically since the early 1980s. Until then, it had been vibrant and wide open, but much of the activity was illegal -- gambling, drugs, alcohol. Then federal authorities conducted a raid and everything changed. People just stopped coming to the town and businesses started to dry up. There was a feeling of hopelessness about the future.
When I looked at the town, I saw tremendous potential, particularly for tourism. It has a historic small-town feel and unique architecture, its population is diverse, and it is close to a sand dune preserve with more than 1,000 wildlife species.
Last year, I made a presentation to the City Council about tourism opportunities. They liked what I had to say. Two City Council members volunteered to co-chair a new committee, and I became a volunteer tourism coordinator. Together we started to look at opportunities. We organized a bike race and did a few other things, but we hadn't found a way to bring people together to deal with the problem of revitalization.
Then I heard about the CCH Communities Speak grant program. It seemed to fit so well with what we were trying to do. - Describe some of your activities.
- We're working with 28 major groups and organizations. The Ethnic Studies Department at Cal Poly is playing a big role. Cal Poly students are being trained to interview residents we've identified to gather historical information. We want to tap into all aspects of the town's history to get a vision for the future. So far, they've done two interviews, and 200 are planned. Tom Neuman, who owns a multimedia company, is videotaping the interviews. He will help us turn them into different formats. We want to put TVs in kiosks at various locations in town, so visitors and locals can touch a screen and find out about the history of the town.
One of the interviews was with Harry Masatani. His family ran a grocery store in town before World War II, but then they were sent to internment camps. Later, Harry came back and saved money to buy the same store his parents had operated. His parents never returned here. Now he's one of the few Japanese people in town.
During the interview, he showed us a pair of sandals he and his mother made when they were in the camps. Afterwards he told us that he was really glad he did the interview and that he never talked to his kids about some of the things he told us. - What's the most exciting part of the project?
- I think there's a real opportunity to establish Guadalupe as a cultural center for Santa Maria Valley. The city owns the 400-seat Royal Theater, which it is planning to renovate, and it could become a major venue for events. This past March we coordinated a performance at the theater with a ranchera singer from Guanajuato, Mexico. It was a free concert, all in Spanish, and 130 people came.
We're working with the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission and the Arts and Lectures Department at UC Santa Barbara to bring in performers. This spring when Ballet Hispanico was appearing in Santa Barbara, a group of dancers from the troupe came to Guadalupe and performed for the junior high school. Afterward, they had a salsa dancing practice session with the kids and in the evening staged a full performance for residents.
In 2004, there are plans to bring in the jazz pianist Marcus Roberts, Chicano writer Luis Rodriguez and the San Jose Taiko Drummers. And we also hope to use the Royal Theater for a classic Latino film series.
One of the other exciting things we're doing is handing out 200 disposable cameras to residents -- kids and adults -- so they can photograph their vision of the city. The pictures will show one day in the life of Guadalupe. We plan to put the images up in City Hall, in the main hallway, which is being turned into an art gallery with help from the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission.
In one section we want to have a wall of heroes, so people can put up images of people who are important to them. And we plan to bring in artists to work with kids and help them write stories about Guadalupe. The whole idea is to get people to see their culture in a positive way. - What do you hope Guadalupe Speaks will accomplish?
- At the end of the grant period, we hope to have developed the residents' vision for Guadalupe and an action plan for change to take to the City Council. If we have something positive happening at the Royal Theater, it will be a major step forward. And I'm hoping there will be a change in attitude about the town. I think that will happen if businesses and residents see things happening they didn't think were possible.
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For more information about Guadalupe Speaks, visit www.guadalupespeaks.com. Larry Alkire can be reached at jlbirders@aol.com.