Paz-Cedillos: Heritage is what we inherit, legacy is what we build

On Oct. 31, families will gather at the Mexican Heritage Plaza for Avenida de Altares, our annual Día de los Muertos celebration.

In the weeks leading up to Avenida de Altares, artists will transform La Plaza with altares honoring loved ones who have passed — beautiful, deeply personal works filled with photographs, marigolds, candles and objects that carry memory and meaning.

Día de los Muertos reminds us that remembering is an act of love. And lately, I’ve been thinking about what else remembrance asks of us.

Two years ago, my first column for San José Spotlight asked, “What’s in a name?” I was thinking about identity — about being Mexican, Salvadoran and American, and about the imperfect words we use to describe a community as diverse as ours.

Earlier this year, I returned to that question when we reclaimed the Mexican Heritage Plaza’s original name. That experience reinforced something I’ve come to understand more deeply: Names matter because they carry memory. They tell us who was here and what we choose to carry forward.

But this Latino Heritage Month, I’m thinking about the other side of that responsibility. It isn’t enough to remember what previous generations built. We have to make sure there is something left for the next generation to inherit.

For me, that means thinking differently about preservation in East San Jose. Preservation isn’t about freezing a neighborhood in time. Communities change. The question is whether the people who gave a place its identity have enough power to shape what it becomes.

For generations, Latino families and other immigrant communities have built lives along Alum Rock Avenue. They opened businesses, created organizations, raised families, made art and created traditions that became part of San Jose’s identity.

But contribution and ownership are not the same thing.

We can celebrate Latino culture while Latino families are priced out. We can commission murals while longtime businesses struggle to remain open. We can honor East San Jose’s history while making decisions about its future without the people who created it.

Cultural preservation has to create the conditions for people to remain, prosper and shape what comes next. That thinking is behind our effort to establish La Avenida Cultural District along the Alum Rock corridor. La Avenida does not become a cultural district because the city designates it one. Generations of East San Jose residents have already made it one. City recognition is about acknowledging what is already here and committing to its future.

Imagine a district where investment strengthens longtime businesses rather than displacing them. Where artists can make a living. Where housing allows working families to remain. And where community institutions own assets and participate in the economic future of their neighborhoods.

We’re already working toward that vision at the Mexican Heritage Plaza and across Mayfair.

Through La Placita, we’re transforming an underutilized property into a place for arts, health, small businesses and community life. And through the Mayfair Neighborhood Trust, alongside the Sí Se Puede Collective, we’re advancing a broader strategy to champion affordability — from affordable housing and community ownership to preserving the spaces, businesses and institutions that make Mayfair home. Because cultural preservation means little if the families who sustain that culture cannot afford to stay.

Perhaps that is what Latino Heritage Month should ask of us.

We should celebrate our history and honor the people whose sacrifices made our lives possible. But we should also ask what our children will inherit and our role in building what comes next.

Will they inherit neighborhoods where they can afford to live? Businesses and institutions that belong to their community? The ability to shape their own city? Or will they inherit photographs and stories about places that used to be ours?

On Oct. 31, we will build altares to people we love and remember where we came from.

Honoring them also means accepting responsibility for what comes after us.

Heritage is what we inherit. Legacy is what we build.

San José Spotlight columnist Jessica Paz-Cedillos is the chief executive officer at the Mexican Heritage Plaza. Her columns appear every first Monday of the month. Contact Jessica at [email protected] or follow her on LinkedIn.