TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Traces of the old Tucson barrios circle the convention center downtown.
KGUN9’s archives show journalists have tracked the city’s plan back in the 1960s, when leaders rolled out the Urban Renewal plan and eventually built the venue.
A consequence of this project was hundreds of displaced men, women and children had to find new places to live. Generations later, people like historian Pedro Gonzalez still carry that scar.
But on the corner of Granada and Cushing, across the street from the TCC, there’s a testament to a bitter-sweet story that’s party of the community’s fabric.
A closer look at the statue will reveal small details that mean the world to Gonzalez. “You have the grandmother pointing where it was, the homes stood, and she has a tear. She’s crying…See how we have it bare footed? Because we’re rooted (here),” he said.
Old newspaper articles give a sense of the scale of the Urban Renewal project, but it’s the look in the woman’s eyes that Gonzalez will never forget. He is the boy holding her hand.