HISTORY • Goal is to educate new generation

will be available at the museum, but the stories are posted on its website.

Talamantez said the new project is the next step in those efforts.

“(It’s) education for the next generation,” she said. Talamantez grew up in the area and remembers when residents had unfettered access to the San Diego Bay — before the shipyard industry moved to the area and before there was a bridge over the community.

That history is something new generations of San Diegans don’t know, she said.

Siguenza, co-founder of the performance troupe Culture Clash, spent years recording oral histories and transforming transcripts into plays in the 1990s. Now he is gathering volunteers.

“I want the people of the community to present something to the world that they’re proud of and that they’re part of,” he said. “And you don’t see that in theater.... It’s usually outsiders reporting something. To get the point of view of someone who actually lives there is going to be powerful.”

The project was announced last week, but there has already been interest from people who feel a connection to the community and its rich history.

Beatrice Zamora has been a volunteer in Chicano Park for the last 40 years. She served on the Chicano Park steering committee and led an Aztec dance troupe at the park. Recently she released a bilingual children’s book, “The Spirit of Chicano Park/El Espíritu del Parque Chicano,” about the park’s history.

Zamora, one of four current volunteers with the oral histories project, was born in Logan Heights but was raised in Los Angeles before moving to Chula Vista. Although she does not live in the community, she has always felt a special connection to the neighborhood and the park, she said.

“The park itself is an important landmark, but Barrio Logan is so significant to San Diego and the Chicano community, so anything that preserves that is so important,” Zamora said.

Siguenza hopes to get about 20 volunteers for the project, because he wants to collect at least 80 stories.