Last year, a sculpture honoring Los Seis de Boulder was installed at the site of the 1974 TB-1 occupation, making visible a significant part of CU Boulder’s Chican@ history. Created collaboratively by CU students and the Boulder community, the sculpture marks the determined fight for Chican@ rights to quality education at the institution. Additional efforts to commemorate the memory of Los Seis resulted in a landmark placed in Chautauqua Park and a sculpture (installation forthcoming) at the intersection of 28th Street & Canyon Boulevard–the two sites of the car bombings.
To the resounding approval of Chican@ community members, the installation on campus was recently acquired by the University Libraries’ Special Collections, Archives, and Preservation department. The once-temporary sculpture has now earned a permanent place in campus history, signaling the power of an organized Chican@ community to force the university to recognize a history of resistance and self-determination.
Chican@ communities in Boulder, Colorado are reclaiming the very spaces that inspired the original student movement. Their example comes at a time when communities are increasingly activated to engage their own histories in the fight for justice and empowerment. As confederate statues fall across the country, people’s histories rise.
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Courtesy of the UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Library.
Courtesy of Juan Espinosa.
