Ode to the Spanish

The Spanish weren’t particularly kind to San Diego. Walking through the grainy, firm, and glossy floor of Balboa Park, I can see why. History repeats itself. And what do I mean by that? Spain’s culture reverberates through the entirety of the Americas. Throughout California, Mexico, and all the way down to South America, the Spanish were known for imposing their strict religious beliefs and beliefs of superiority over the natives. I remember 6th grade me going on a tour to Mission San Jose in Fremont, California. I wasn’t particularly excited: why were we celebrating some colonizer? 

I’m of Chinese-American descent. I know my history. China has long been subjected to decades of humiliation, colonization, and utter decimation. Hong Kong under the British, Macau under the Portuguese, Shanghai under the French, Manchuria under the Japanese, history was not kind to us at all. After learning about the history of Balboa Park, glorifying the Spanish?

Recalling my 5th grade history textbook, titled, U.S. HISTORY: MAKING A NEW NATION, all I knew was that the Spanish ravaged, savaged, and damaged the fields of the Kumeyaay. The Kumeyaay in San Diego had their land taken away for colonial interests. Why are we paying tribute to a colonizer? This was Kumeyaay land.

I remember the first time I walked through Balboa Park. All of the walls, the white, the red, the crimson, and the soft shades of youthful yellow, everything seemed to glow and encapsulate the beauty of life. The bright flowers, of every single shade of color you could ever imagine in your wildest dreams excelled in their excellence at the Balboa Park greenhouse. The timeless, almost magical nature of everything was untouched by conflict, contradiction. Something that seemed so perfect on paper, magically hiding the violent discourse buried below. It was almost as if that if you didn’t know any of the history behind Balboa Park, you would have thought it was some kind of magical fairytale…

Underneath the shiny roof covering the buildings were reinforcing narratives of colonial power Spain. In 1915, the Panama-California Exposition kicked out Indigenous Kumeyaay communities living in the area to build Balboa Park. The glamor and shazam of it all hides the “ethnographic collections” of it all: as such. To showcase the world about what the hell was going on in California, America decided to glorify Spain. How messed up is that? Is this a history we are celebrating?

Let’s focus on the San Diego Museum of Art. Located inside of Balboa Park, it features over 75,000 documented ethnographic cultural resources. How did they get that? Was it unjust? Inequitable? Surely it was all of the above. We’ve read time and time again that families were torn apart, carvings, inscriptions, etc, all stolen and replaced. Colonizers starved the indigenous, enslaved them, converted them, turned around and offered them food in exchange for hard labor. All under the name of Jesus Christ. What kind of stupid arrangement is this? 

All we do today is simply utter acknowledgements of indigenous lands and call it a day. No repair, no accountability. Thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers.
It’s precisely why I was curious about Balboa Park. This is America after all. We have a history of being a colonial power and upholding the legacies of colonialism. How would we be any different? We in fact pretty much followed the Spanish: remember the Philippines? We colonized them, right after the Spanish did. We are equally as guilty. Are we really the best country in the world at this point?

History repeats itself. We are probably the biggest modern-day colonist today. The number of governments, peoples, and lives we’ve toppled have drastically impacted the global imbalance of power. Look at Guatemala, Cuba, Iran, Vietnam, etc. The list goes on and on. We’ve largely gotten away with this without any consequences so far. Is this fair? No. Is this something that we can educate and fix? Absolutely. We can absolutely educate our next generation.

This fantasy nature of Balboa Park baffles me. Every stone I bestow upon my naked eye uncovered a story waiting to be told. I see the families and all the kids enjoying the park, taking advantage of its nature, its greenery, its fresh air. A soccer ball rolls by my side, and I gently kick it back to the kid dressed in white and green. Oh, what a youthful appearance this kid has. How great life would be as a kid. Untouched, unscarred, unburdened by the knowledge of history. “It’s a nice summer day, isn’t it?” I tell the kid. But little do they know the dark, stabbing history of this place. Should I be the bearer of bad news? Is this “park” really something that should be celebrated? Is it fair that going to Balboa Park somewhat angered me? 

I’m not saying that we should completely break down Balboa Park. Regardless of its intentions, Balboa Park is now a part of our history. Regardless of its attributes, we must educate the young about the legacies of colonialism. We can acknowledge and balance the beauty of Balboa Park with knowledge of its past. We should own up to it. There is no point in hiding our history. It is now in open display. You can’t reverse flowers in full bloom. The evidence is here. It is now up to us to take it all in, to learn from it, and to prevent it from happening again.