September 25, 1998
DENVER (AP) - The newest wave of immigrants in north Denver want to rename Columbus Park to La Raza Park and temporarily did so with a paper banner over Mexican Independence Day weekend.
And there are heated emotions on the issue. There is a bullet hole in the Columbus Park sign.
What had been a strongly Italian neighborhood through World War II now has become at least 80 percent Hispanic, according to the 1990 Census.
``It's just something that hurts me from the inside because I know what the Italians went through,'' said Mickie Lava Clayton, a north Denver widow who hands out calling cards with ``Italian Activist'' under her name. ``There's a radical fringe that has decided they're going to get the park, and as long as I'm alive, I'm going to fight them.''
Nita Gonzales, a Chicano activist who runs a north Denver alternative school, feels equally passionate about her cause. She says she is in the ``early planning stages'' of a campaign to change the name to ``La Raza Park'' for good.
``Columbus contributed to the rape and pillage and death of millions of indigenous people, and subsequent to him came the next wave of conquest,'' she said. ``It's not about attacking Italians. Many of our people intermarried with Italians. It is about this one man. Do people want to embrace Hitler?''
Columbus Park was once the heart of Denver's ``Little Italy.'' In the 1930s, the Italians raised thousands of dollars to improve what then was called Navajo Park. They held their feasts of the saints there.
After World War II, many north Denver Italians began leaving for the suburbs. The demographics of the old neighborhood shifted to Hispanic.
The movement to name the park ``La Raza'' - which literally translates to ``the race'' or ``the people.''
Hispanics didn't want the park named after someone they saw as a conqueror wouldn't do, Gonzales said.
As years passed the park took on political significance.
After heated debate, in 1988 the city council killed a proposal to rename the park Columbus-La Raza Park and hasn't taken up the issue since.
The city did build in the center of the park a large band shell with a small plaque that says ``Plaza de la Raza, Place of the People.''
What does 13-year-old Estrella think, who plays hooky and hangs out at night in the park?
``We call it La Raza Park,'' she said with pride. ``It's our park.''
When asked about Columbus, the girl shrugged, the debate over the political significance of the name is lost on her.
``He was just some guy who was born on a ship,'' she replied.
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