About this tour
Before it was San Antonio's West Side, Guadalupe Street was already the block where the city's Mexican-American community built its own institutions — a house of mercy, a corridor of murals, a drugstore that became a civil-rights organizing office, and a movie palace that became the arts center anchoring it all. This half-mile walk traces the birth of Chicano San Antonio's public arts and organizing tradition, ending at the theater that still hosts the country's longest-running Latino film festival and co-hosts the world's longest-running conjunto festival. It's a short walk, but it covers the ground where San Antonio's West Side found its voice — in paint, in film, and at the ballot box.