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Baja California's New Leaders Join AMLO's Preservation Push
By Maria E Curry
January/February 2022
 In October 2021, newly elected Baja California Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmedo was honored with a purification ceremony and the "command baton," both presented by Indigenous people in San Quintín. She is the state's first female governor. |
 Alma Delia Ábrego Ceballos, Baja California's secretary of culture (center), at the border fence in November 2021. She joined musicians for the event The Border that Sings, or La Frontera Que Canta. Photos courtesy the Baja California Secretary of Culture |
Baja California elected a slew of new leaders in late 2021. Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmedo is the new governor; Alma Delia Ábrego Ceballos is now the secretary of culture; and five new mayors have taken office. The governor, who is considered a rising political star, shares the cultural policies of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (or AMLO) to improve conditions and opportunities for all. They reject the attitude that cultural and artistic endeavors and assets are the sole responsibility of the wealthy elite. The secretary of culture considers it important to promote art and popular culture for girls and boys, youth and adults, and natives and migrants.
In preservation and cultural heritage, Governor Marina del Pilar supports revitalizing historic missions and the creation of several museums and cultural centers. These include a conservation program for the Baja California missions to reinforce their role as historical and touristic sites, and the first history museum in Mexicali. She also backs an Indigenous culture center in San Quintín, for training, dissemination, and research of traditional cultures; and a water museum in San Felipe, which will preserve the history of the Gulf of California fishing trade and present different forms of care and recycling of the vital natural resource.
Secretary of Culture Ábrego invited me to coordinate the state historic archive and to support historic preservation projects and policies. I will help inform residents on how to improve their nominations for historic landmarks and to analyze nominations stuck in the system. The archive is part of a national project called Historic and Cultural Memory of Mexico, an initiative of AMLO's wife, Beatriz González Müller. It coordinates the efforts of federal agencies in preserving public and private libraries and archives of Mexican history, and the creation of a national digital platform for information storage, consultation, and sharing.
Ábrego wants to solve bureaucratic issues that block pending designations of cultural resources and hinder new nominations. Many people have waited for years for someone with her leadership abilities to take office and safeguard the future of the past in Baja California. Some private owners of historic buildings are approaching the new secretary to have their properties designated under the state preservation law. Tijuana's 1930 Hotel Caesar's and the 1930 residence of former president Abelardo L. Rodríguez in Ensenada could be nominated as state cultural resources in less than a year, and approved not long after.
Preservationists are hopeful that more historic buildings and areas can be saved during Ábrego's six-year administration. This could be done by officially surveying and documenting historic buildings, and stopping demolitions. One case that deserves attention is La Rumorosa heritage area proposal, which has not progressed toward designation because some property owners oppose it. La Rumorosa could qualify as a UNESCO World Heritage site or as a natural protected area under federal law. We need to determine the best strategy to protect it, working hand-in-hand with local residents and the three levels of government. This approach could be a model for preserving other endangered sites in Baja California.
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