SAN DIEGO — Another local city is looking to right the wrongs from our nation's history. A Christopher Columbus statue was permanently removed from a park in Chula Vista last year and the Chula Vista City Council voted Tuesday night to re-name the park all together.
It was one of the main item's on the city council agenda. The task force that's been focused on this for a year, presented their findings and city council members voted on some of their recommendations, including a new name.
The Christopher Columbus statue that had been standing at Discovery Park on Buena Vista Way for years has been taken down. Now, Discovery Park will be known as the Kumeyaay Park of Chula Vista.
Three other native names were on the table that all highlighted and acknowledged the original founders of that land. The city still needs to decide if public art will take its place.
Council members don't want to erase history, so a plaque will go up to educate all of us, on the Indigenous people, who came before Christopher Columbus.
Scholars, historians and members of the Kumeyaay Nation all believe this is a way to eliminate prejudice, heal from discrimination, return to being good stewards of the land and ultimately be a more welcoming city.
"If we look within the San Diego region, we can recall the Lindbergh image, flying across the nation, was also a violent, anti-semitic and racists. We don't honor that type of thing. We just don't. We've become more enlightened and we have to do something about it," said Chula Vista mayor Mary Casillas Salas.
The Columbus statue went up in 1990, the same year Discovery Park was named.
A local developer, McMillan Company, who paid $100,000 for the statue back then will be taking it back and has agreed to not display it publicly.
Just this year, for the first time ever, Chula Vista recognized Indigenous Peoples Day instead of Columbus Day.
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