... wait a minute... that's not how it went... scratch that, let me try to explain what's going on in better context.
About twelve thousand years ago, humans crossed the Bering Strait from Asia to the Americas. Some of these people, bringing with them an ancient and little known culture and language were eventually the first humans in history to Discover San Diego. These natives continued to spread out from family to family and tribe to tribe, eventually reaching all across the southwest of the future United States. This landmass was called "Atzlan". Though humans continued to spread south and create new cultures, the cultures that developed in Atzlan lasted possibly thousands of years until climate change had the natives suffering from a drought. There is some evidence of this drought in San Diego, where the native village of Cosoy, next to Mission Valley lived. The word "Cosoy" is translated to "The Drying Out Place", and Mission Valley shows evidence that it was once carved by a mighty river that eventually dried into the creek-like thing we have today.
With the climate drying out, natives across the southwest began a great exodus south to Meso-America. This is supported by Aztec mythology which claimed that the land that would become the new Aztec home, would be marked by an eagle on a cactus. They saw this eagle perched on a cactus in the Valley of Mexico and claimed it as their home. The site would grow into the great city of Tenochtitlan until the Spanish came and ate everything up.
In 1846, the United States picked a fight with a Mexico that was newly freed of Spanish influence. Mexico had recently lost their state of Tejas, and the two were amongst a border dispute over the territory of Coahuila when Tejas joined the Union. Mexican troops were dispatched to protect their borders and American Troops invaded the disputed territory, starting the Battle of Palo Alto, kicking off the Mexican American War, which the United States would win and as a reward, take all of Alta-California, as well as a the rest of the Northwestern half of Mexico.
Over twenty years later in 1871, an Illinois Representative named John Logan wrote a federal bill that would give money to build a transcontinental railroad ending in San Diego that was never completed. In honor of this Congressman, who later became a senator, the city of San Diego laid out a street called "Logan Heights" near the shores of San Diego Bay in 1881. The 1910 Mexican revolution pushed many Mexicans north into the Logan Heights area in order to escape the fighting. The area soon became known as "Barrio Logan".
After pushing out the Natives, Chinese, Italians and vice people, San Diego City and California State officials were ready to gentrify the Mexican infested community of "Barrio Logan". However, by this time the Mexicans had developed a cultural respect for the native Americans who had previously inhabited the land, and who had by then been pushed into the Mountains. These Mexicans learned that about 70% of their bloodlines contained Native American ancestry.
However the City didn't care, they were trying to rid themselves of minorities. The first step to pushing the Mexicans away was for city officials to rezone the Logan district as part residential and part industrial in the 1950s. This laid the groundwork for much of the district to be taken up by junk yards and auto wrecking plants.
From the fifties into the sixties, the five freeway came through and split the community right in half. Then at the end of the sixties came the construction of the Coronado Bay Bridge. With each new project that cut through the barrio, homes were torn down and many residents were displaced. Then in around 1967, with the rise of civil rights movements for gays, African Americans and Chicanos, Latino activists in the area demanded the city give them a recreational park.
The city rolled their eyes, but pretended to hear the community. As the Coronado Bay Bridge was built over the area where they wanted to park to be, large pillars that would hold the bridge were constructed and erected. What the city hadn't told the community was that the area under the Bridge had been picked out by the State for a CHP substation since August of 1969. Rather than try to compromise with the residents, the city kept quiet about the CHP plans, passing legislation that opened the land under the bridge up for a park, but without the intention of actually following through with it. They city kept up their charade until April 22, 1970, when bulldozers were sent to the area to level the land for the substation.
Continuing with Bordertown Patriots version of events, aka Bullshit: "The Brown Berets did not feel this was right having law enforcement so close and on April 22, 1970 they overthrew the construction site by force with weapons, seized the land and immediately raised the Mexican flag, claiming the land for Mexico until the city and state agreed to build the park, but never relinquished the 'Mexican ownership' of the park".
What actually happened was this: Resident Mario Solis, on his way to school, saw the bulldozers, learned of the city's true intentions, then ran door to door, telling everybody he could what the city was up to decades before social media was invented. For the first time, but not the last, Barrio Logan residents would stand up against city and state officials to defend the land that was promised to them. Students and residents met at the construction site and formed a human chain around the bulldozers, forcing construction to stop. They then began planting native plants on the site and raised not the Mexican Flag over the area, but a Chicano Park flag.
Negotiations then began between State, City and Local Officials. The state agreed to stop construction of the CHP substation, but still claimed the land belonged to the CHP and that the Chicanos would have to negotiate with the city to claim the land. The Chicanos were not willing to give up the land they occupied to the State, insisting on building the park they had asked for since 1967.
Negotiations were hard. The CHP demanded an alternative site for their station and the city had to come up with a new plot of land for them. During this time, the city made an agreement with the newly established Chicano Park Steering Committee to vacate the land while negotiations took place. This was respected, but residents warned that if the transfer didn't happen soon, that they would reoccupy the land. But the director of transportation at the time warned that negotiations would stop if they community reoccupied the land.
It wasn't until July of 1970, when the contract for the park was negotiated. The State approved the terms and the city allowed the land to be acquired. In return, the city would assume full responsibility for the park's development. The park was never claimed with weapons under the "Mexican flag" and Mexico did not own the area after relinquishing it in 1848.
"Is seizing a portion of U.S. soil by force for a foreign land not un-American enough for you although nations have gone to war over such actions", asks the ignorant fool who was using this history to solely condemn Chicanos? He goes on to try his best to tie the Chicano movement with Nazi Germany, but because he really doesn't understand anything, his efforts were left with many people telling him to STFU online.
Maybe that will be what this fool realizes when he steps foot on Chicano Park today. He will learn that while he may have arrived a few hours early to make a racist statement, Chicano Park residents have been there for generations and stand tall and proud against all bigotry against their community. The bigots will attempt to usurp the park, only to learn that the culture they're fighting against is much larger than them.