By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO — In 1915 when Balboa Park officially opened under its new name (previously it had been called City Park), it was the site of a great exposition intended to announce to the world that San Diego County was open for business as an international port and trading center.
The Panama-California Exposition celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal and trumpeted to the world the fact that San Diego was the first U.S. deep-water port located north of the canal. City leaders were intoxicated with dreams of becoming a major trading port from which products of Latin America, Europe and the Far East all would be shipped to the rest of the continental United States. Unfortunately, from the standpoint of economics, it made more sense for overseas companies to use the ports of Los Angeles and San Francisco, which were terminuses of transcontinental rail lines. San Diego was then, as it is now, connected by a spur line to Los Angeles.
Nevertheless, the dreams of San Diego/ Tijuana to become recognized as an important international region advanced over the years, especially as the area began to attract high-tech businesses and maquiladoras at the international border. Notwithstanding the recent collapse of the committee planning the centennial, the two cities and their suburbs still have the opportunity to use the occasion of the 100-year anniversary to show the world just how important to the global economy we have become, all the while bringing tourist dollars and more visitors to our city.
I take the liberty of making some suggestions based on the experiences I had in the 1980s directing three important festivals — the Homeport San Diego Festival, which officially launched San Diego’s cruise ship industry; the Waterfront Festival, which was a reprise of Homeport’s large civic gathering at the Embarcadero, and the Bring Home the Cup Festival, which urged Dennis Conner and other San Diego sailors to recapture yachting’s America’s Cup and to give it a home in San Diego. Some readers may recall that I served for nine years as the executive director of the San Diego Cruise Industry Consortium.
The Homeport San Diego Festival–which saw Pacific Princess of the “Love Boat” television series fame begin a season of roundtrip cruises from San Diego to the Mexican Riviera — was planned under the auspices of the late Bill Cleator, whom I had the privilege of serving as communications director during his tenure as San Diego’s Acting Mayor.
Afterwards, while Cleator was still a member of the City Council and while my public relations agency guided the nascent San Diego Cruise Industry Consortium, regular planning sessions brought together various city and county departments (police, fire, health, and so forth) with industry and labor partners (provisioning companies, hotels, Longshoremen), the Convention & Visitors Bureau, the Old Globe Theatre and other arts organizations, to sculpt a plan for the Festival which eventually spread over the Broadway and B Street Piers, attracting a single day crowd conservatively estimated at 50,000 by the San Diego Police Department.
Similar leadership from Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s office today–with a staff person assigned full time to the planning of the Centennial and the mayor personally attending some of the meetings–should revive interest in creating a memorable year-long celebration of San Diego’s cultural jewel.
The theme of San Diego and Tijuana comprising an international region can help planners conceptualize what to do during the celebration. The two cities and their suburbs have innumerable international connections that can be showcased each week. For example, Tuesday, July 14th, 2015, will be a special holiday in France — Bastille Day — and that week (or longer if that proves more practical) can be dedicated to a celebration of French connections in San Diego County.
There should be close consultation with the museums of Balboa Park, so that they can give emphasis to French components of their collections. The Museum of Art, for example, could draw special attention to works by French artists; the automobile and air & space museums could highlight French contributions to their fields; the Museum of Man might address interesting French customs (why do they say “merde” when they wish someone good luck?); the House of France can invite people to taste croissants; French restaurants can be encouraged to sell samples of their foods in the now-cleared-of- automobiles plaza; French language schools might be interested in renting booth space to advertise their programs, and so forth. San Diego businesses with trading connections in France can be invited to become overall sponsors of the week, or, vice versa, companies in France seeking more business in San Diego could do likewise. The stage of the organ pavilion can be made available for music concerts, folk dances, and other cultural events of France.
As goes France, so too can go other countries. This publication, of course, is most interested in emphasizing Israel’s relations with San Diego, and perhaps no better week for that would be that including May 14th-15th when David Ben-Gurion proclaimed that Israel would become an independent state upon the expiration of the British Mandate the next day. There are no end of Jewish organizations that would be proud to participate in an Israel Independence Day celebration at Balboa Park, and which themselves have ongoing relationships with Israeli institutions that can be showcased to city residents and its many tourists. The Jewish Federation could perhaps bring exhibitors from Sha’ar Hanegev, its sister region in Israel; the Jewish National Fund could tell of the many San Diego sponsored improvement projects in Israel; Qualcomm could boast of its relationship with a subsidiary company in Haifa and the Technion; and the House of Israel, of course, is a permanent presence in the park.
In very short order, with the city government’s cooperation, all 52 weeks of 1915 could be accounted for, some having single country celebrations, others, in different parts of the park, accommodating multiple celebrations. Regional celebrations also could be encouraged, for example “Latin American Month,” “African Month,” “East Asia Month,” “Middle Eastern Month,” and so forth, all depending on the interest expressed by the cultural and business institutions of our county.
There are an endless array of international connections between the San Diego area and the rest of the world. There are, for example, the Sister Cities with which San Diego and Tijuana have established relationships. San Diego alone has 14 sister city relationships, though not all of them are active. They include Jalalabad, Afghanistan; Perth, Australia; Campinas, Brazil; Yantai, China; Tema, Ghana; Yokahama, Japan; Jeonju, Korea; Leon and Tijuana, Mexico; Cavite, Philippines; Warsaw, Poland; Vladivostok, Russia; Alcala, Spain; Taichung, Taiwan; and Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Similarly there are special relationships between schools in our county and counterparts in other countries — the Sister School relationship between Cabrillo Elementary School and the Grundschule in Neuhaus a.d. Oste, Germany, comes immediately to mind because both are connected to the life of Louis Rose, San Diego’s first Jewish settler, who arrived here in 1850.
The Port of San Diego has ongoing relationships with cargo and cruise ships that fly the flags of numerous nations. The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps could be giant components of such a celebration, given our country’s military alliances and bases around the world. Our high tech and scientific/ medical research companies draw on global research and sell their products to markets the world over.
So, there is practically no end to the internationally-focused exhibitors and cultural organizations that could be encouraged to participate in what would be a memorable, and largely privately financed year-long celebration that would also have the benefit of teaching San Diegans and Tijuana residents about the rest of the world, while bringing people from around the globe to us.
What is needed is leadership from the mayor’s office, fast, decisive leadership such as Mayor Faulconer showed when he picked Shelley Zimmerman to be our new police chief, instead of dilly-dallying around. The longer we tarry in organizing a centennial celebration, the more difficult the task will be.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com