Barrio Rising: The Protest that Built Chicano Park
by María Dolores Águila; illus. by Magdalena Mora
Primary    Dial    40 pp.
6/24    9780593462072    $18.99
e-book ed.  9780593462089    $10.99
Spanish ed.  9780593462225    $18.99

“¡Parque sí, policía no!” This fictionalized account—narrated by a young person—shares the dramatic culmination of efforts by Chicane residents of Barrio Logan to build Chicano Park in San Diego in 1970. When the city began building a police station in the space where the community had long called for a park, residents launched a protest to physically block the construction. Águila weaves together images of daily life in Barrio Logan with community members’ experiences of the city’s lengthy neglect and environmental racism against their community, to tell the story of the fight to build the park, which was ultimately successful. Spanish vocabulary and slogans used by Chicane and other Latine activists are interspersed throughout the text and illustrations. Mora employs a blend of vivid colors, sepia tones, and pastel hues to highlight the intensity of the struggle and the everyday beauty for which the protesters were fighting, ending with depictions of the inspiring murals that residents eventually painted in the park. Although the story seems condensed, an author’s note explains the rapid succession of this phase of the protest and provides more details about the ongoing discrimination suffered by the community. Concurrently published in Spanish as El barrio se levanta.

Pubissue-From the March/April 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.