Oscar Romero Los Angeles in Honor of Memorial to assassinated Archbishop of El Salvador

THE ANGELES - community Salvadorans in Los Angeles on Saturday celebrated the opening of a plaza in honor of a Catholic Archbishop who was assassinated in 1980 during the bloody civil war in el Salvador for 12 years.

The monument's $350,000 in MacArthur Park Monsignor Oscar a. Romero, who was loved by his defense of the poor, will feature a statue of him and his contributions. He is expected to be completed in three months, the Los Angeles Times reported (http://lat.ms/12gKvRM).

'MacArthur Park has lots of history and a lot of memories for the Central American community, ' Carlos Vaquerano told the Times.

Vaquerano is the executive director of the Salvadoran American educational leadership & Fund, a non-profit that has been monitoring the project, which was first imagined seven years ago.

Many of the refugees of the war fled to the United States and some settled in Los Angeles Westlake and Pico-Union neighborhood. The area organized protests against the civil war and it has become one of the largest concentrations of Central Americans in the United States.

Mayor-elect Eric Garcetti said the monument will show the support of the city at the beginning of the Rosemary.

"This is more than a monument of a man," he said in a statement. "This is a memorial that salutes the courage, humanitarianism and the rights of the poor."

___

Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com