How my Barrio was Born

HOW MY BARRIO WAS BORN 

1959 —Founding neighbors posing in front of the first 

community center of the Prolongación San Isidro Barrio

Alejandro and Elsa, my parents, were married in Trujillo in 1955, and Roger, the first of their eight children, was born there. Later, my father went to Chimbote to seek his fortune as a baker, and shortly after, my mother joined him. Over the next three years, they lived in four different places as tenants.

The last of these places was in the old part of San Isidro Barrio. While they were there, my father stepped out to the street one day and saw people passing by carrying palos and esteras—eucalyptus poles and woven reed mats. He went back inside to find my mother and said, “Looks like an invasion is starting nearby.” It was 1958, and by then they already had three children.

Back then, San Isidro only went from Ramón Castilla Lane, on the edge of the 12 de Octubre neighborhood, to what used to be Sáenz Peña Street (now Perú Avenue). It was just three blocks facing Aviación Avenue, with a few blocks stretching back to San Martín Lane, the settlement’s rear boundary. The avenue got its name from the old landing strip nearby, which later turned into the 21 de Abril development.

One night in 1958, my father loaded up his palos and esteras and joined the pobladores—the new settlers. He had just turned thirty-five; he was a baker, an avid reader, and a follower of Haya de la Torre. Life placed him in this decisive moment, and he took it on with the same tenacity that stayed with him throughout his life. Alongside Don Julio Guzmán González, a fellow party member, they led the invasion from start to finish.

The invaded lands lay just past San Isidro and belonged to comunero Miguel Grimaldo Huaraz Loli. Over several weeks, the settlers built their shacks time and again, and four times the police burned them down. The Indigenous Community of Chimbote and Coishco filed criminal charges against the leaders, Guzmán and Quevedo, before Judge Leoncio Valderrama Herrera for Trespassing and Damages. The defendants turned to a brilliant young lawyer who had just arrived in Chimbote and ended up staying because of this case. His name: Cupertino Foronda Macedo.

Every time the settlers were evicted, they camped out at the landing strip, watching and waiting. At the same time, the first founding families of the 21 de Abril housing development were arriving on-site. After the fourth attempt, the Huaraz family fenced off their land with barbed wire and planted corn to refute the settlers' argument that the fields were fallow and abandoned.

Other leaders also stood out alongside Guzmán and Quevedo, including Carmela Cabrera de Rodríguez, Eugenia Guevara de Ugaz, Dagoberto Campos Reyes, and Lino Vargas Panduro. Together, they planned the fifth attempt and set it in motion; this time, neither the police nor the barbed wire could stop them. The Indigenous Community sought protection from the Ministry of Labor and Indigenous Affairs, which was granted through Sub-prefect Héctor “Manco” Valdivia. As a result, Guzmán and Quevedo were seized and held for forty-five days in the old central jail, near the Plaza de Armas.

The settlers held their ground. The leaders of “Old” San Isidro, Manuel García Vidal and Anatolio Toledo Campos, backed their counterparts in the newly formed Barrio (then called Prolongación San Isidro). The Provincial Federation of Neighborhoods, led by Don Julio Guzmán González himself, called on hundreds of people to face the police and demand the release of the two imprisoned leaders. In Lima, Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre and Ramiro Prialé worked in Congress to pass a law to settle the situation of the settlements and invasions across the country; they also handled the logistics for the community commissions sent from Chimbote.

While my father was in jail, my mother walked every day from San Isidro to the prison to bring him his meals. She carried my sister María in her arms and was pregnant with my brother Fernando, who would be born the following March. On her forty-fifth visit, she walked back to San Isidro with her husband by her side, newly released.

My father took charge of the layout for the newly formed Barrio. With rigorous care, he drew and organized every detail. His only tools were a pencil, paper, a reed pole, and a rope to set measurements and distances. The precision of each block stands as witness to his work. He also chose the names for some of the streets; for example, he named ours Jirón Unión, after Unión Street in Trujillo, where he had lived for part of his life.

The site plans were finished on February 15, 1959, the day before the birth of the barrio’s second child, Julio Víctor “Tobi” Rodríguez Cabrera. The first baby, Luis “Cachema” Prieto Ángeles, was born on February 8, 1959, and the third was my brother, Fernando, born on March 25 of that same year.

The criminal trial was dropped by the comuneros after it reached the Superior Court of Huaraz. Finally, in 1961, the Law for Marginal Neighborhoods (Law 13517) was passed, legalizing land invasions that had occurred through 1960. This law committed the state to granting property titles and supporting the neighborhood’s consolidation.

At the start of this story, I mentioned that “Old” San Isidro had three blocks facing Aviación Avenue. After the invasion, four new rows of blocks were added to the settlement: the first stretching from Perú Avenue to Jirón Unión; the next reaching Jirón Huáscar; then the row ending at Leoncio Prado Street; and finally, the blocks concluding at Benavides Street, the very edge of the San Francisco de Asís Barrio. All of them were framed by Aviación Avenue at the front and San Martín Lane at the rear.

I am the fifth of eight children, born in Prolongación San Isidro in 1960. I left Chimbote decades ago, but my steps always lead back to the corner of Aviación Avenue and Jirón Unión, where it all began. Today, San Isidro is a modern community with paved streets, sidewalks, and houses in vibrant colors. My father is no longer with us; my mother still keeps the house. Every time I travel to Chimbote, I visit the old neighbors; I listen to them, and it fills me with joy to see how they remember him.

Searching for information to write this story, I visited the old lawyer, writer, and activist, Don Cupertino Foronda Macedo. At the end of a long talk in his office facing the Chimbote sea, I asked him: “What is your personal opinion of Don Alejandro Quevedo Acosta?”

He replied: “He was steady in the struggle, consistent with the class he represented; people trusted him. He was outstanding. He was promoted to the Federation. He had an eloquent oratory, simple and sound. He was recognized by leaders from other neighborhoods. As a man, he was devoted to his home, upright, friendly, respected, and highly regarded. His wife, Elsa, was his loyal companion.”

New Hampshire, USA

July 2013

1958 —Alejandro Quevedo Acosta speaking at a 

Provincial Neighborhood Federation rally in Chimbote

 1959  —Plaza Bolívar, Lima,  in front of the Congress of the Republic of Peru. 

Demanding the enactment of the Barriadas Law: Sara Sánchez, Dr. Cupertino 

Foronda Macedo,  Julio Guzmán González,  and Alejandro Quevedo Acosta

1959 —Julio Guzmán González, Manuel García Vidal, Dr. Cupertino 

Foronda Macedo, Sara Sánchez, and Alejandro Quevedo Acosta

2011 —Jirón Unión in the San Isidro Barrio. Right corner, the Quevedo family; 

left corner, the Guzmán family. (Intersection with Aviación Avenue)

LIST OF FOUNDERS OF THE PROLONGACIÓN SAN ISIDRO BARRIO:

Julio Guzmán González & Dolores “Lola” Manrique La Madrid

Alejandro Quevedo Acosta & Elsa Serrano Rodríguez

Sofía Carmela Cabrera Chávez & Gonzalo Rodríguez

Eugenia Guevara de Ugaz & Augusto Ugaz Nuñez

Dagoberto Campos Reyes

Raúl Alcalde Linares & Juana Rodríguez Díaz

Isabel Rodríguez Díaz

Rosa Zavaleta

Rosa Marrú

Irene Vásquez 

José Lino Vargas Panduro & Angélica Morales

Etelvina Pérez Pinedo & Jacinto Acosta

Mariana Pérez Pinedo

Modesta Peláez Milla

Amador Maza Polo & Irene de Maza

Felipe Quezada & Juana Maza de Quezada

Luis Prieto González & Narcisa Ángeles

Eulalio Rafaile Lino

Juan Eufemio Cano Roque

Arminda Barreto Rafael

Alejandro Reyes Barreto & Elena Manrique de Reyes

Norma Rojas de La Peña & Jorge La Peña Cáceres

Avelina Bocanegra Aguilar & Andrés Pinedo

Juanita Caballero Cribillero

Amanda Flores de León

Teodoro Paredes

Catalina Paredes Acosta

Cirilo Paredes & Andreíta Pinedo

Wenceslao “Venchi” Castillo Corales

María Eliza Romero Cortez.

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