Los Angeles Breaks Ground for Plaza Honoring Oscar Romero

Romero, an outspoken advocate for the poor and a revered figure for many Central Americans, was shot while celebrating Mass by an assassin with suspected ties to right-wing government security forces.

El Salvador’s bloody 12-year civil war claimed tens of thousands of lives and sparked an exodus of Salvadorans.

The new plaza is in MacArthur Park at 7th and Alvarado streets in the Westlake neighborhood.

“MacArthur Park has a lot of history and a lot of memories for the Central American community,” said Carlos Vaquerano, executive director of the Salvadoran American Leadership & Educational Fund. The nonprofit organization has been overseeing the project, which was first envisioned about seven years ago.

Vaquerano, 52, who said he fled his country after his three brothers were killed by death squads, was among hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans who settled in places such as Los Angeles, Houston and the Washington, D.C., area during the 1980s.

“I had no choice but to leave,” Vaquerano said.

In Los Angeles, many of the refugees ended up in the Westlake and Pico-Union neighborhoods west of downtown.

The area was a focal point for protests against the civil war and home to several nonprofit organizations that formed to assist the burgeoning Salvadoran community. Today, the area has one of the largest concentrations of Central Americans in the United States.

The Romero monument will cost about $350,000 and feature a circular plaza with quotes from the archbishop’s speeches and writings, organizers say. A statue of Romero will stand in the center of the plaza, which is expected to be completed in three months.

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From a press release describing the plaza:

Surrounding the plaza will be a low, curved, crescent wall reinforced on the outer edge by a shrub planting bed and four trees, and containing a centrally-placed statue of Monsignor Romero. A Spire of Doves, or “Arbol de la Paz y la Esperanza” (steel post with extending branches with doves flying) will be installed, representing the desire for a long lasting peace and a better future of the Salvadoran and Central American immigrant community in Los Angeles and their countries of origin.

Los Angeles hosts the largest concentration of Salvadorans with approximately one million Salvadorans, living outside of San Salvador, capital of El Salvador intrinsically linking the two cities together. A Los Angeles-San Salvador Sister City relationship was established in 2004 to promote the exchange of culture, economic and education opportunities between the two cities.