The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Now that the sale of the Sosa-Carrillo House has been approved, an important piece of local history is going to be preserved.
As the co-director of the Mexican American Heritage and History Museum, I’m excited to work with the community to educate about the past, to heal the present, and build for the future.
Last month, the Arizona Historical Society board of directors approved the sale of the Sosa-Carrillo House (SCH) to Rio Nuevo. The historic, 1880s home on the Tucson Convention Center Campus is one of three original adobes that survived 1960s Urban Renewal that destroyed 80 acres of the barrio. AHS stewarded the house since its donation by the City of Tucson in 1971, the year it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The home will be sold for $1.05 million; AHS will receive $100,000. The remaining funds will go toward the restoration of the home, estimated at $1.28 million. After Rio Nuevo sunsets in 2035, SCH will return to AHS.
I’m grateful the board members understood the importance of preserving Mexican American history. I hope this will help heal the wounds left by the tragedy that happened 60 years ago. The more access to information our community has, the better our community will be.
I spoke to some of the people involved in the sale and they had some words they wanted to share with the Tucson community.
When AHS Executive Director, Dr. David Breeckner approached the tenants, Borderlands Theater and Los Descendientes de Tucson, with the possibility of a sale, he came into a situation where the SCH needed over $1 million in TLC. He understood Arizona’s fiscal realities, and served as a wonderful liaison between Rio Nuevo, Borderlands Theater, and Los Descendientes.
“From the onset, this has been a conversation about stewardship and the responsibility of care for the only surviving testament to downtown Tucson’s lost Mexican barrio,” Breeckner said.
Los Descendientes, the nonprofit organization that runs the Mexican American Heritage and History Museum at the SCH, is hopeful that Rio Nuevo will follow the community’s lead.
“Los Descendientes will continue to reactivate the TCC area by creating a welcoming and equitable space in the SCH for the Mexican [Americans] and other minorities who were forcibly removed 60 years ago,” Board President Rikki Riojas said. “Through partnerships and community outreach, we will use the remodel to ensure greater access to the histories of the barrio, the way it should have always been.”
Rio Nuevo Board President Fletcher McCusker recognized the error of past city officials’ and developers’ desires to mold Tucson into something it is not. The tenants are grateful to McCusker and Rio Nuevo for working collaboratively to populate the TCC Campus with historical information and the fact that each organization will pay $1 per month for the next five years to provide them the financial freedom to spend organizational money on community education and cultural engagement.
“The 19th century roots of Tucson’s story need to be told and retold,” McCusker said. “We believe there is a unique balance in Tucson between economic growth and historic preservation that differentiates us from many southwestern cities. There is not a property downtown more deserving of renovation and cultural relevance than the Sosa-Carrillo home.”
Borderlands Theater is encouraged by the investment in culture, history, and community that this sale and the extensive and much needed improvements that come with it represent.
“We have seen the potential of this important site since our first Barrio Stories project in 2016 animated the TCC with history and culture. With the proper support from stakeholders and the community big things are happening,” said Marc Pinate, Borderlands Theater’s Producing Artistic Director.
The evening of the vote, the UArizona Confluence Center hosted a panel at the Sosa-Carrillo House where Mayor Regina Romero discussed “Re-Activating Tucson’s Downtown History.”
Mayor Romero surprised the audience at the SCH by officially apologizing on behalf of the City of Tucson to the people displaced from 1960s Urban Renewal.
Mayor Romero’s efforts paved the way for TCC locales to bear the names of two Mexican American women from Tucson: Alva Bustamante Torres Plaza and Linda Ronstadt Music Hall.
These symbolic gestures will hopefully aid in healing generational wounds and inequity that La Calle’s destruction initiated. The mayor then shared one of her father’s sayings: “You have to know where you come from to know where you’re going.”
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