Themajorettes are thought to represent San Diego's history
By Rondi Collins, Contributor
Beside blacktop, kettle corn and consumers, the College Grove andCampus Plaza shopping centers are home to nine miniature majorettes(baton twirlers) and their super-sized leader.
The original four-story tall neon majorette was constructed in1947 as part of the Campus Drive-in Theater and is now hailed as ahistorical site. The large, nocturnally luminescent figure and someof its replicas are located in the College Grove Shopping Center atthe intersection of Interstate 94 and College Avenue. Additionalreplicas are at Campus Plaza, located on the former site of thetheater at El Cajon Boulevard and College Avenue.
Today they are open to more scrutiny. Levels of awarenesssurrounding the use of Native American symbols and culture haverisen, according to a 2001 article in the Chronicle of HigherEducation. Most symbols that are considered racist or vulgar by theconcerned groups have been altered or removed, as San Diego Statestudents have seen with the disappearance of Montezuma.
The neon majorettes, as they are referred to in historical andcurrent documents, reside within a few miles of San Diego State. Itis thought that the majorette donning high boots, a tight shirt, aheaddress that is uncharacteristic of Native Americans and a twirlingbaton was modeled after former SDSU majorette Marion Caster HeatherlyBaker, according to the Save Our Heritage Organisation Web site. Whenthe theater was demolished in the mid-1980s, the majorette spent sometime in storage and at other shopping centers. It was re-installed atCollege Grove Shopping Center in May 2000, according to San DiegoMetropolitan.
"My own view is that that's a type of historical art piece thatdoesn't have anything to do with San Diego State," Richard DelCastillo, chair of Chicana and Chicano Studies said. "It represents apopular cultural view. There may be some groups that have a problemwith the use of certain symbols. It's not an Indian, not identifiedas Aztec and is irrelevant to SDSU. "
SOHO received the neon signs in 2001 as a donation from the ownerof the property, Vestar Development Company. The company wasunavailable for comment.
"The neon majorette has been identified as an important historicalartifact because it is an artistic representation of a certain periodof San Diego and SDSU history," President of SOHO David Marshallsaid. "The majorette was even featured in Life Magazine in the early1980s. The only criticism I've ever heard of the neon majorette isbased on her exaggerated proportions, which some view as sexist bytoday's standards."
SOHO supports the protection of historical buildings and artifactswhether they are politically correct or not, Marshall said. He addedthat the politically incorrect aspects of the signs make them evenmore historically significant.
The San Diego Business Journal's annual Women Who Mean Businessawards ceremony graced the sign with a special award in 2001. It isdescribed as symbolization of a "long-awaited economic revival for anentire community and that the reinstallation of the majorettesymbolized an entire new era of business development and communitypride," in the SOHO newsletter of December 2001.
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