Amid laughs, memories and history, a small group of Dallas community members and SMU students gathered Thursday to walk the streets of the Los Altos neighborhood in West Dallas. The PASEO urban walk culminated a semester of extended research conducted by SMU Meadow students. Mapping of the area, interviews with people from the area, and bringing guest speakers to class were among some of the activities that provided significant insights about the neighborhood.
SMU students worked closely with the children from the West Dallas Community Centers, families from the neighborhood, and the Dallas Mexican American Historical League. This last group researches, collects and educates the public on historical and cultural experiences, and contributions of Mexican Americans in Dallas from the early 1900s.
The PASEO walk started at The Dog House restaurant on Singleton Street around 5 p.m. Everybody gathered in a small circle that represented a skating ring that used to be there in the 50s. From there the group walked through the neighborhood streets stopping nine times at different historic sites .
At each stop students and community members performed different acts. Some, sang, skated, recited the history of the place and others taught the audience how to dance Rock n Roll.
Children from two middle schools, Zavalla and Carr, made about a 100 memory flags that were placed at every stop. The flags contained written memories from people who live or used to live in The Alamos neighborhood.
Bernardo Diaz, artist-in-residence at SMU, said that events like this benefit artists by opening a window to another side of the city, which also reveals real problems. “Then the artists know how they can contribute to society instead of waiting for society to contribute to them,” Diaz said.
Jeffrey Moffit who was leading the group explained these events also help SMU students go outside their bubble and see the cultural diversity that exists in Dallas.
Before the event ended at the McMillan Center, the group crossed Canada drive towards the river. They nailed the memory flags on a hill before the levee, which revealed a beautiful view of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, and the contrasting division of West and downtown Dallas. A division that as Moffit said, “is not good or bad, just different”.
