 Hello, everyone. And thank you so much for joining us today for the innovations and preservation Latino Latina Latinx Heritage Session. My name is Salem with the CASPER and as the executive director of Latinos and Heritage Conservation, an organization that is deeply committed to the advocacy and public education on preserving Latinx heritage sites. I'm delighted to serve as a moderator for this panel. As we gather virtually for past forward and this session, I invite each of us to acknowledge the Native peoples whose ancestral homelands we currently occupy. I reside in Bastrop, located in Central Texas, and wish to recognize and honor its original stewards, including the Tonkoa, Sana, Apache, Guaruit Beccan, and others. Recognizing this land is an expression of gratitude and of appreciation to those whose territory we reside on. And a way of honoring the Indigenous peoples who have been living and working on the land from time immemorial. Land acknowledgements do not exist in the past tense or historical context. Colonialism is current in an ongoing process. And let us celebrate the ancestral grounds and extend our gratitude to these nations. As we come up the heels of Hispanic Heritage Month, ending just two weeks ago, for me this conversation is both exhilarating and a time of deep reflection. It's a time where we celebrate the accomplishments of Latinx communities, elders, leaders, and activist, and those doing great work to preserve our thriving and living history. What are creative and innovative ways that folks are preserving Latinx heritage? How are we creating a practice that is centered on people and community? And what can building trust with Latinx communities look like within the field of historic preservation? In this session, we'll hear from four remarkable leaders who will help answer these questions and share their great work in finding new and innovative ways to preserve Latinx history. First, we'll hear from Shannon Stage. Shannon is the manager of grants and preservation services at Historic Denver. In her role, Shannon manages the Action Fund program and outreach engagement for historic districts, including the recently created Malinkum Park Historic District, which we'll hear more on. She also manages the state historical fund grants and the facade easement program. Shannon seeks equity within the field by ensuring that all of Denver's community stories are told. And with that, I will pass it on to Shannon. Thank you, Sayla. And as she mentioned, my name is Shannon Stage, and I am the manager of grants and preservation services at Historic Denver. For those of you that are not familiar with Historic Denver, we are a preservation nonprofit here in Denver, Colorado. And next slide. Today, I'll be talking to you a little bit about the Malinkum Park Historic Cultural District, telling you a little bit about the history of the neighborhood, historic Denver's role in this effort, as well as, of course, the community involvement. Next slide, please. This land and space we are talking about today was once occupied by various Native tribes, including the Yut, Kamanshi, Arapaho, and Cheyenne peoples who lived in seasonal encampments along the South Platte and Cherry Creek. We would like to start off by acknowledging this, but it is also important to note that we acknowledged this throughout the historic context effort, as well as the historic cultural district effort. In 1858, when gold was discovered in nearby Cherry Creek and South Platte River, European immigrants from the East Coast, as well as Hispanic and Mexican American families, began to settle along the river banks, quickly transforming this vital indigenous migratory route into the town of Araria and Denver. The land we now know as Laoma Lincoln Park was plotted by Alexander C. Hunt, and permanent structures began being seen on the land around the 1870s. Hunt brought Burnham Yards Railroad to the area, and many working class immigrant communities began building homes so they could live within walking distance of their work. Next slide, please. Just to give you an idea of the homes and what the neighborhood feels like and looks like, I wanted to show you some of the images of the various different architectural styles seen throughout the district and throughout Laoma Lincoln Park. The most original residences of the district are single-story cottages and modest versions of Italianate and queen and architectural styles, constructed between 1879 and 1889. Among other styles seen throughout the district are terrace, Dutch revival, four-square, bungalow, Victorian cottages, and classic cottages, and these homes were mainly built in the late 19th century through the 1920s. The buildings were not built by recognized architects, but still reflect the popular architectural styles of their time in a simplified manner, making this vernacular architecture among many other reasons, and this idea of vernacular architecture played a key role in the discussion of the custom design guidelines. Next slide, please. Jumping ahead to the mid-century history of the neighborhood, the Chicano movement. This was a key piece of the history of this neighborhood and of course Denver as well. The Chicano movement represents the convergence of independent issues, land rights, labor rights, long-term discrimination, opposition to the Vietnam War, civil rights as embodied in the civil rights movement with cultural identity, lack of equity in education, and inadequacy of the dominant political institutions to represent or address Chicano-Chicana issues. The Law Olmalingham Park Homes were safe havens, where Chicano movement organizers and supporters lived, worked, and gathered. The movement grew out of a number of inequitable circumstances that pushed Latinos, Hispanos, and Mexican-Americans communities across the country to push for change to government and systems. The increased activism led to high school walkouts that began in LA in 1968. This helped spark the blowout at Denver's West High School of March of 1969, with marches from the school to Lincoln Park through the neighborhood. And as you can see here, a still image of a documentary of the West High blowout. This was right in front of Smith's Chapel, where police brutality really began in that area right near the school. And in a moment, I'll show a map of kind of that general route through the neighborhood. Emmanuel Martinez sparked the mural movement at the same time. He saw the power in creating Chicano murals to inspire his culture in the neighborhood where he lived, La Olma Lincoln Park. And the first Chicano mural, as you can see here on the slide on the bottom, is titled La Olma, painted on the then Lincoln Park Toolshed. The toolshed was demolished and so was the mural itself at that time. He then, eight years later, painted the current day La Olma mural that is on the current day rec center and was on my first slide. And we'll talk a lot about in my slides, as well as Lucia's slides here coming up. Next slide, please. And this is just a general route from West High to the park. So you can really see that the Chicano movement, this neighborhood was really the heart of the movement. And many activities and protests happened right here. Also going on at the same time was the city of Denver decided that the town of Ereria, north of La Olma Lincoln Park, as you can see on the left hand map, kind of north of that 70 street line, in their eyes was what they said was blighted. It would be the location of the new higher education campus. The city forced out hundreds of families from their homes, many who relocated to La Olma Lincoln Park, as well as the north side and other areas of the city. And I should also note that the west side of town, this area as well as a couple other surrounding neighborhoods, was just one of the red lined areas identified by the discriminatory maps created by the homeowners loan corporation act of 1933. These maps resulted in inequitable housing and financial policies that were both punishing and you know, you know, manipulative in red line neighborhoods for decades to come because of this deep and complex history of the neighborhood and many individuals who still live in La Olma Lincoln Park, as well as outside of La Olma Lincoln Park, but may, you know, may not live right in this direct area, but still really consider this home. It was vital to engage all of these different individuals to tell the firsthand accounts of this time period. Next slide, please. And I did want to note there are modern architectural styles in the district. Here are two examples with Denver inner city parish on the right, which was built in 1966 and a neo-mansert style. And then the Mariposa Health Clinic featured on the left that was designed and built in 1976 in a Pueblo Deco architectural style. There are a few architectural architect built and designed buildings in this neighborhood. And I think it's also key to understand the very long and complex history of this neighborhood. Next slide, please. So you can really now see the many layers of history of the neighborhood from the tribe, the tribes to the early permanent settlement history to the mid-century Chicano movement. And to understand these layers when working on the district effort, it had to be viewed through a very large period of significance. We push the envelope in terms of the traditional way of looking at architectural integrity as well as the period of significance. The POS established for this district spans a century from 1873 to 1980 to capture the full story of this place. Second, due to the long POS, the lens used to evaluate the integrity was broad, honoring the changes and modifications that had taken place in the 20th century, which gained their own significance through time. And as you can see here on the screen, the blue home has a porch that was enclosed a little later on after it was initially built. And then the Italianate yellow home to the left on the upper left, that had an addition of a porch and then that porch was enclosed. And then a second story deck on built on top of that. And then the lower image actually you can see changes of fence materials even as well. So many different physical layers, not only the history layers, but the physical layers can be seen on these buildings. And it was really important to preserve in this effort. Next slide. And here you can just see the outline boundary of the district. This includes 194 homes, as well as the park itself. It was vital to include the park in the district boundaries. And next slide. There was a group of neighbors from Laulma Lincoln Park that knew the neighborhood had a special history. They appreciated its buildings and close-knit culture and were concerned it could be lost based on what was happening in other neighborhoods of the city. Not knowing the full depth of history in Laulma Lincoln Park, they wanted to uncover this story and determine if there was enough interest in preserving the neighborhood through a historic district tool. A handful of neighbors reached out to Historic Dumber and asked if their project to research the history of their neighborhood would fit within the Action Fund program. And it did. The Action Fund program at Historic Dumber is a small funding source to kickstart community-driven projects that include things like districts, design overlays, historic context, as well as educational signage. And currently we have a project in partnership with Lucia Martinez de Luna and the Chicano-Chicano Murals of Colorado project to figure out ways to preserve Chicano murals. So in 2016 the group applied to Historic Dumber's Action Fund and the project was awarded funding. This funding was applied to hiring ultimately two consultants to do research on the neighborhood's history, conducting oral interviews, as well as assembling information into a robust historic context spanning from 1870s to 1980. It also updated the individual building forms for all the buildings in the district. The second consultant was actually brought in from within the Chicano-Chicano community to fill in the gaps of the stories being collected and told in the historic context. Next slide. You can see here examples of one of the flyers that we had for one of the community meetings. We always had the flyers in English and Spanish. And the Action Fund partnership between the neighbors and Historic Dumber provided the neighbors technical assistance throughout the project. So that included community outreach engagement, things like coordinating community meetings, coordinating flyers, printing the flyers, as well as collecting a data of information to collect for the effort. And I also want to note that we tried to break down as many barriers as possible, and we always had translators as well as child care at our meetings. Next slide. Over the course of five years, the community members worked with Historic Dumber, consultants, neighborhood associations, and the city to strategize ways to protect and honor the cultural heritage of the neighborhood. To identify the right approach, the groups hosted meetings and listening sessions to collect stories and discuss ways to honor the neighborhood's heritage. Next slide. Through these sessions, the community said they wanted the homes, spaces, and Chicano murals in Law Olmelincom Park honored and preserved to avoid both loss of identity and loss of place that anchored the neighborhood. To help preserve the neighborhood while providing greater flexibility and equity in the process, the city worked with the community to create custom design guidelines. And these custom design guidelines also address the vernacular architectural styles and the physical layers seen on the buildings that gained their own significance through time. Next slide. The first Historic Cultural District, Law Olmelincom Park was the first Historic Cultural District to honor the Chicano movement in Denver, and there were at least 30 community members at the City Council public hearing who spoke in support of this district and just a couple images of some of those community meetings, or community members as well as us at the City Council itself. Thank you so much. Thank you, Shannon, for sharing your work. We appreciate sharing all of the great, fantastic work that you and Historic Denver and the community did. Next we'll hear from Lucha Martinez de Luna. Lucha is an archaeologist specializing in Meso America in contemporary archaeology. She serves as associate curator of Latino heritage at History Colorado and is a PhD student at the University of California Los Angeles. Lucha is also the executive director of the Chicano-Chicana Chicano Experials of Colorado Project, a grassroots organization that advocates for protecting historical and legacy community murals in Colorado. Lucha, I'll pass it on to you. Hi, my name is Lucha Martinez de Luna. I am the director of the Chicano-Chicana-Chicanx Murals of Colorado Project. Today I will be talking to you a little bit about the actions we have been taking to preserve historic Chicano murals in Colorado. So just a little bit of background about the Chicano murals of Colorado Project. It is a consortium of scholars specializing in archaeology, art history, and social anthropology, artists, and community members working together to protect, preserve, and promote the visual legacy of Colorado. We started this grassroots organization in 2018. However, in the early 2000s, I essentially began to document murals that I remember essentially growing up in these neighborhoods that were painted in the early 70s. I started realizing that a lot of them were starting to be erased at a very rapid rate. So I started working with some of the artists. I did oral histories and started collecting some of their archives to hopefully preserve this very important visual legacy in our community. We meet every once in a while with the artists. There's been a few opportunities to have a exhibit that CMCP has curated and also we've had several meetings discussing how to move forward with bridging the younger generations with the older generation of muralists in Colorado. So just a little bit of background. Community murals are essentially what we would call permanent. They're paintings that are directly painted on a permanent structure. And why this is so significant is because it becomes actually very important to create some kind of criteria as we move forward to preserve these murals. There's a lot of right now murals that are portable murals that are not necessarily part of this project because of the fact that they are portable and they are not as at risk as much as the murals that were painted on permanent structures. So I always like to point that out when as I move forward discussing the murals in this project that we consider at risk. Murals were created in communities. A lot of the murals were in historically marginalized communities and they were a way to give a sense of permanence in a neighborhood and in the landscape and also it was a way for the community to claim a sense of ownership in a lot of these communities where they were redlined and it was very difficult for families to get mortgages to purchase their homes. So there was a lot of sense of impermanence in these communities. So the murals allowed communities to fill a sense of space and place within their neighborhoods. And a lot of these murals they are visual text really accounting the local and regional histories in specifically in Colorado but also in the country. As I mentioned before the sense of permanence, I actually have a personal connection to the murals. My father and mother were very active during the civil rights movement and in addition to their activism they were also very instrumental in bringing murals to the community. My father was worked in with three different movements that was happening in Colorado and New Mexico with the land rights movement with Reyes López Tijerina and in California with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers. Early on he was creating a lot of protest art and then later after traveling to Mexico to do an apprenticeship with David Alfado Cicados on a very large project he was working on in the polyforum in Mexico City. He returned to Denver in 1968 and created one of the created a mural in a what was a crusade for justice building that was where a lot of activism was happening in Denver and it was in the conference room or banquet of the the building and that was his first real permanent mural and as I mentioned before portable murals were created before but this was really the very beginning of bringing muralism to communities and shortly after that he moved into the Llama neighborhood and this is actually a picture of one of the first community murals created at Llama Park and as I mentioned before it was very important to at this time to really kind of claim a sense of permanence in these spaces. A lot of parks and swimming pools even though they were in the neighborhoods they were very restricted in terms of access and they're heavily monitored by the police so this was an opportunity to to really fill a part of the spaces that they lived in and they did that through muralism and once again as I mentioned the community ownership filling a part of the community also meant that they had a say in in what was happening in the parks and the swimming pools a lot of these swimming pools they were restricted in terms of who could swim in the pools and at what days so what essentially the community started demanding is that they had not only access but that they could work in the recreation centers and in the pools and this image is essentially some of the early lifeguards that were hired and the community that that were getting involved in their public spaces and in the backdrop you can see some of the murals that my father created at several of the city parks in in 1970 and then once again this sense of space in this particular picture this is the mural by Carlotta Espinosa painted in 1976 at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. Our Lady of Guadalupe Church was not only a church but also a place for the community to to have discussions about a lot of social justice movements that were going on this was the headquarters for the United Farm Workers in Colorado and in addition to that there was a lot of mural activism happening here there was approximately 13 murals painted on the interior and exterior of this of the church and unfortunately all of these murals have been erased and the only one left is the mural that you see here that is currently behind a wall. And when once again I mentioned this importance of visual text where this is becomes very critical during the civil rights movement where communities are demanding that they are included in the local and regional narratives that describing the history of this country and of the state. Specifically people of color were rarely recognized in these histories and in the curriculum and in textbooks so the way the community responded and artists as they became storytellers in their community where they started creating the history and telling stories of the history through muralism so some of these murals are very complex because our history is complex and they become very inclusive describing the diversity of this country so here you see some details of this mural is painted in pueblo of the beginning of pueblo and in fact pueblo was the border between Mexico and the United States and this is kind of remembering that history and from the very beginning because a lot of these murals were painted in red line communities and in historically marginalized communities many of these murals were not really considered important so they have been very much at risk even though they are a work of art and historical to visual text they are still very much at risk and a lot of times these murals were created a lot of the community and actually business owners and non-profit organizations helped fund a lot of these murals but what's interesting is that even though they were very much celebrated and considered part of the community when these murals are erased there's no conversation with the community and that is what is so disturbing about the erasure of these murals this mural that we're seeing here was the largest mural painted in Colorado in 1978 and to the far right is the Sun Valley Homes where a lot of the youth that lived in these homes helped paint the mural and they could see this mural across from their home and in the early 1990s there was a new building owner and he approached the city of Denver to let them know that the mural had been partially tagged and asked how he could fix it and the city of Denver came to the location and essentially painted over the mural so once again this lack of respect for these artworks in the community and this was another mural that was very much cherished in the community and during quarantine in 2019 I started receiving calls one morning the community was reaching out to the Chicano murals of Colorado project to let them know that the paint the mural was being painted over and by the time I got to the site the image on the right is what I saw just within within 30 minutes an hour this mural was completely painted over and once again this was a very much cherished mural in the community painted by Davido Saloto Barcia who this was his very first mural and painted by youth in the community so this was an opportunity for the first time to really confront the people responsible for painting over this mural and really to try to agree on how we could to possibly restore the mural and fortunately we reached an agreement and rapidly looked for solutions to restore this mural this as I mentioned before the Our Lady of Guadalupe church had several murals on the exterior of the building this was one painted by Carlos Sandoval on the left and this mural describes really the settlement of San Luis which was the first town established in the state of Colorado and it was established by hispanos Mexican Americans and what we now also call chicanos in the mid 1800s now this is a very important history and this mural is describing this history and to the right you can see how the wall looks today now the mural we see what we decided to do the one that was whitewashed during quarantine was to we had heard about this another organization in Los Angeles called the social pop public art resource center that have been bringing back murals that have been erased essentially whitewashed in in LA so David the artist went to LA to learn the technique and he came back to Denver and these are images of us essentially bringing taking off the white paint and bringing back this mural this much this very cherished mural and this is the first time that we have ever done this in Denver so it was really an incredible experience to see this mural come back and we intend to do this with a few other legacy murals that have been painted over including the one that I mentioned that was painted in 1978 we are currently working towards and doing fundraising to try and bring back that mural as well and another big part of what CMCP does is building awareness the only way that we can save these murals and protect them is to do precisely what I'm doing today is talking about these murals and explaining how important it is to preserve them we also do work with students integrating the the murals into their history classes and into their literature classes we have found that students very much like to learn history visually and when they can actually walk to a mural in their neighborhood and look at this history it's it's very powerful for them especially because they see themselves in these murals so we really like to make these murals accessible to students in the community that want to learn more about them and an amazing thing that happened to us at the very beginning of this year is last year I applied to the national trust 11 most endangered places to try and get the the murals of Colorado on this listing and they were actually selected by the national trust so this is the very first time in the nation that murals have been recognized by the national trust and of course this elevates the importance of these murals and also the very much the reality that they are very much at risk and this designation is essentially for approximately 40 murals throughout the state of Colorado and one thing that we are also doing we have a website and we are asking the community to reach out on the website to let us know of murals in their community that they would like to see on this list so I highly encourage you to visit us on our website and thank you very much for listening to the presentation and joining us today thank you thank you for sharing your probable important work Lucha we really appreciate it for our last presentation I'm delighted to introduce two speakers who will share their collaborative work on Route 66 Kaiser Barthouli and Dr. Anjelika Sanchez Clark both with the national park service Kaiser Barthouli has worked with the national park service for 30 years in cultural resource management she manages the Route 66 corridor preservation program where she works with various entities such as private non-profit and government to help develop strategies for interpretation conservation and management of the 2400 mile historic road we also have Dr. Anjelika Sanchez Clark who joined the national trails office of the national park service in 2014 she previously worked for the Spanish colonial research center a partnership with the national park service she is the co-editor of the historic Route 66 and New Mexican crossroads essays on the Hispanic heritage of old highway 66 her work with the NPS national trails it centers on historical research and community outreach to underrepresented and underserved Hispanic and other traditional communities along the national historic trails so with that I will pass it on to my colleagues hello and thank you Shannon and Ducha for sharing your projects with us and thank you national trust for this opportunity to share ours I am Kaiser Barthouli I live and work on the lands of the Tewa people and I have the privilege of managing the national park service Route 66 corridor preservation program I'm here with my wonderful colleague Anjelika Sanchez Clark who is lead historian for our office and in our presentation I will be sharing some background and context for the project while Anjelika will talk more in depth about the project itself so the Route 66 program launched in 2002 to provide financial and technical resources for preserving the places and stories of Route 66 we work along the entire length of the road through eight states from Chicago to Santa Monica and all of our work is done through partnering partnering with those who live and work along the road or own and manage its many many parts since the beginning of the program we recognize that many of the common narratives or themes of Route 66 have focused on things like car culture the family vacation colonial perspectives of indigenous and Hispanic culture and the American dream among others when we look more closely at the road as an icon of 20th century America however we know that Route 66 can tell us so much more about the complex social racial political economic and other values and events of its time that are really important critical to understanding our lives and society today in 2012 we partnered with World Monuments Fund Rutgers University and American Express to undertake an economic impact study that included demographic research what the data showed is that American Indian people live along the route at three times the national average and Hispanic people live along the route twice the national average in other aspects of the study however we learned that visitors and travelers on Route 66 are 97 white and non-Hispanic what this told us is that while American Indian and Hispanic presence is strong along the route heritage tourism and other interests related to Route 66 have been primarily white and non-Hispanic this reality is often reflected in the imagery and visual iconography of Route 66 as well one of the key conclusions of the study was that there is major potential to better synthesize the celebration of Route 66 with the history and culture of Hispanics and American Indians as a result of program priority became partnering with American Indian Hispanic black and other communities in the history and storytelling of Route 66 with one of these projects being the Hispanic legacies of Route 66 the goal of this project has been to use traditional historical research as well as community engagement to shine light on the under told stories of the roles that Hispanic people played in the history and development of Route 66 culminating in an online ArcGIS story map interpretive presentation and Helica will take it from here to share more about the project and Helica thank you Kaiser so in 2015 the National Park Service partnered with the Environment for the Americas and the Hispanic Access Foundation to create the Latino heritage internship program which we refer to as LHIP this program aims to engage the next generation of conservation stewards while raising awareness of the need for Latino involvement in the preservation of national parks and historic sites from 2015 to 2017 the National Trails office was selected to host two LHIP interns both University of New Mexico students Lena Guidi and Gianna May Sanchez both born and raised in New Mexico served as Route 66 Hispanic Heritage Study interns during her internship Lena visited and interviewed Hispanic community members across New Mexico capturing their Route 66 experiences after countless hours of primary and secondary research Lena produced a 34 page report that narrated the experiences of these New Mexican Route 66 communities for her internship program titled sharing our history Hispanic legacies of Route 66 Gianna used her background in Latino history community outreach and digital media to work with Lena's data and research to develop an initial story map during her 10 week internship Gianna also had the opportunity to meet with Route 66 community members in New Mexico to ensure that their Route 66 experiences were reflected in the final project throughout the projects we also partnered with UNM Spanish Colonial Research Center directed by Dr. Joseph Sanchez one outcome of that partnership was a 2017 anthology in which Lena's research findings were published during their internships Lena and Gianna traveled to Tucumcari, Santa Rosa, Moriarty, Los Lunas, Grants and Gala to meet with community members who were eager to share their Route 66 experiences Kaiza and I were able to make this initial outreach because of our professional and personal connections so through the Route 66 quarter preservation program and the Route 66 oral history project undertaken in partnership with UNM Kaiza had gained the trust of many of the people Lena and Gianna met with and interviewed and my own family's connections to Route 66 through my father Luis G Sanchez resulted in a wonderful meeting in Santa Rosa with community members that had worked, lived and owned businesses along Route 66 we had a similar positive experience in Los Lunas where we met with staff and community members at the Los Lunas Museum of Heritage and Arts everywhere we went we encountered people that were eager to share their often overlooked stories and connections to Route 66 these are people who know their history and they're just waiting for an opportunity to be given to them to share their stories with us this project like many community based preservation projects is all about building trust we went to the communities we went to their suggested meeting places we were able to share a meal with them and engage them in conversation so even though Lena and Gianna had a set of questions to help frame the interviews we made sure to give the people we were meeting with time to share their photos memorabilia documentation and stories so I'd like to spend a little bit of time describing what a story map actually is a story map is a digital platform for sharing stories as they relate to the places where the story happened through maps gis point data photographs videos oral histories and more it allowed us to touch on the complex history about the indigenous and hispanic roots of the southwest and to try to connect that past to the coming of the automobile and Route 66 that proved to be challenging because we had to find a balance between honoring those multi-layered histories without losing our audience and so here I'm going to demonstrate just the first few moments of the story map so after the introductory information the story map begins with context and background on traditional hispanic culture in New Mexico using photos narrative and videos it then moves on to talk about transportation routes leading up to Route 66 through GIS map technology to help with understanding the evolution and relationship of historic trails and roads to each other the other story map sections include no easy road new transportation new opportunities making connections misconceptions the coming of interstate 40 and legacy and I also want to touch on terminology throughout the project we struggled with whether to use latino latina latinx or hispanic we settled on using using hispanic because most people in New Mexico use it widely when they self-identify along with the term Spanish and hispanic so we included an explanation about terminology at the beginning of the story map along with more information and resources at the beginning at the end for those that were interested in learning more respecting how and more importantly why people self-identify in these types of projects is key to gaining the trust that we talked about earlier some common themes that emerged throughout the projects included Route 66 as an economic lifeline encounters with new people and human connections Route 66 connected rural New Mexico to the outside world especially during World War II New Mexican residents were able to diversify their work and access new forms of income including buying gas stations and restaurants along Route 66 it also brought New Mexican residents into contact with many new people traveling through New Mexico because hispanics and American Indians were often presented as tourism spectacles interactions between travelers and locals often resulted in cultural misconceptions and stereotyping in interviews with Ralph Moya and others for example they shared the travelers often asked them what it was like to live in Mexico asked them if they spoke English and asked them if they went to school many of them were children at the time that this happened and they expressed feeling uncomfortable and really not being sure how to respond to these travelers interests but these encounters also highlighted what New Mexicans had in common with people traveling on Route 66 especially during the Dust Bowl era many Hispanics identified with those fleeing their homes suffering from hunger trying to survive in Santa Rosa they often told these travelers where they could fish and bathe in the many surrounding lakes and help them with car repairs throughout this project the theme of adaptation and survival was a constant one Hispanic residents living on or near Route 66 adjusted and transformed their ways of living to take advantage of new forms of transportation commerce and tourism in this clip Albert Gallego so 15 year old boy at the time from a ranch near Tucumcari describes how he and his cousin often went to Tucumcari to play for tourists when this automobile club would come through they would have almost all of the hotel motels booked of course in the evenings and at night they used to have some really good parties in there in there in their rooms so maybe and I would go from room to room with our guitars and we would play for tips even after the road was bypassed and decommissioned many living in these towns continued to conduct businesses usual to serve locals and tourists interested in exploring Route 66 as an American experience and hopefully with projects such as this one tourists and travelers will also learn about the communities and people that were here long before the advent of the automobile and about their contributions to historic Route 66 and so this is just sharing a link to the actual story map and this is Kaisa's and mine contact information thank you very much thank you both so much for sharing um your work this community preservation work happening along Route 66 we really appreciate it um so with with that behind us I would love to ask you all a few questions I think that's okay with you um but first I want to thank you again for sharing your projects your passion and for helping us rethink new ways on how to approach the preservation of Latinx heritage um so Shannon I would love to open this up to you first um can you talk a little bit about one key challenge you face during your project yes definitely thanks for asking that uh mural protection was our key challenge working through the Lauma Lincoln Park Historic Cultural District uh we did work very closely with lucha uh and the Chicano Chicano murals of colorado project and if you could show slide 15 please just to give a visual reference of the two murals within the district boundaries these two murals um were key components to our conversations about murals and how to preserve these uh so right now the city views murals as paint and the city's preservation landmark ordinance does not include paint in the landmark purview of protecting and and preservation so therefore in their current policy they cannot protect murals because they are viewed as paint and it seems so simple but that is you know the way the ordinance is written um so despite this limitation though with um the ordinance we had numerous conversations and discussions throughout the effort with the city lucha historic dammer and the community um to determine how to protect murals in the district while conversations were unable to identify specific tools to physically preserve the murals at this time it is creating more awareness of their importance and provides additional platforms to continue to problem solve on how to preserve these heritage murals but one aspect i do want to note uh we were able to complete during this district effort we were able to recognize these two specific murals as character defining features of the district which again elevates their significance and puts pressure on the city to figure out policy to actually physically protect and preserve these murals so that's just the one key um challenge that we faced for the district thank you thanks for sharing um dr. sis clark i thought i wonder if you can reflect on one key challenge that you faced as um you're working throughout any of these projects on route 66 sure i i can respond so one of the key challenges that we encountered early on was the complexity of hispanic identity so as lena began her research she quickly discovered that census data did not differentiate between uh among hispanic identities and while she was researching business directories she discovered that surnames were often not the best way to identify hispanic business owners some hispanics have anglo or middle eastern surnames and but they identify as hispanic and some american indians have spanish surnames so she really had to figure out how to go around actually identifying the people that she wanted to meet with and to make sure that she wasn't overlooking um any of those community members um we also quickly discovered that many hispanics in new mexico identify very strongly with their spanish european heritage and they often self identify as spanish but as a result they will sometimes distance themselves from more recent immigrants from latin america so we really try to find a way of balancing all that yeah thank you for sharing we appreciate that and lucha i would love to hear one key challenge that you faced in working with the murals um well definitely uh shannon alluded to some of that um for me as an archaeologist suddenly going into this world of preservation you would think that i would be more knowledgeable about it but i'm using with prehistory so um when i started attending the meetings and quite honestly when i heard for the first time how murals are classified in the preservation world in dember was um it felt like a stab in the heart for me because i was i grew up around these murals the community um cherished them they're a treasure for all of us so moving beyond that and really trying to um to teach people that don't live in our community about the importance of these murals um has has has been somewhat of a challenge but at the same time to um many interesting conversations and a lot of interest in protecting these murals wow yeah well i have a follow-up question if you don't mind i i'd love to hear if you can share what makes these murals so important and why they should be preserved well as i mentioned before in in the presentation to the community these are really historical textbooks for us because we didn't have access to these stories and it's it's not just chicanos it's not just hispanos it's um all communities of colors that color did not have access to their stories and these murals do not just reflect uh the chicano hispano heritage it's the heritage of colorado so i think that that is is is really important because you're not you don't have to go into a museum to see this history it's just in your community it's it's accessible to all absolutely that's fantastic thank you great well i have one other question i have a few other questions but um this question i would love to toss over to kaiza and dr sanchez-clark i'd love to hear what innovative tools you used or methodologies that you came across when you're working on your projects thank you salah um i guess i guess you could say that the story map platform itself is somewhat innovative um maybe considered innovative in that it it allowed us to ground the stories in place and land across space and time which is so important in terms of trying to convey the complexity of of these of stories and and histories um and and it also has allowed us to share the stories in in a variety of ways that included like the actual voices of those who experienced it directly um and and so as a multimedia platform it's very cool and in fact was one of the reasons um why the project was selected um by the organization of american historians for their 2022 award for excellence in national parks service history which was which was uh really uh an honor um but that said even as we tried to pick an innovative platform we absolutely recognize that digital platforms are not always that accessible you know i mean they they make things accessible and on the other hand you know for those for elders who um may not have access to um you know digital technology you know they're the one and they that our elders are those who might be especially interested in these stories so you know we we recognize the barriers that that it presents as well um and just one other aspect of the project that i wouldn't say is necessarily innovative but which is so critical is that um the project um attempted to prioritize you know the different perspectives and difficult subjects around racism and land appropriation colonization and indigenous histories and how indigenous histories are integral to hispanic history in route 66 um and how really you know how important indigenous histories are in in relative to the fact that hispanic and route 66 histories are overlays to these much bigger stories so um so yeah those are some of the aspects that may be considered great thank you you know yeah i totally feel you know the gis problem sometimes i feel the same way it changes so much day to day uh but i love story maps and i loved um playing around all the work that you did and just i did find it to be so innovative and creative so we appreciate you sharing that i'm sushi and i would love to invite you to share any thing that you came across that you felt like were innovative tools for your toolbox as you were working um on your project yeah so definitely the custom design guidelines would be the one uh one of the innovative tools that we used in the district effort uh in talking with the community we really heard they wanted flexibility in how materials on their homes were preserved and um you know we talked with the city about how to address that desire to preserve certain aspects of the neighborhood that may not be allowed in traditional uh historic districts such as use of vinyl windows or perma stone siding uh and it was important to the neighborhood but also the city to honor these layers through creation of the custom design guidelines um the layers of materials gain their own significance through time especially on you know vernacular buildings when the buildings reflect the economies and uh the needs of the people so the idea of vernacular became a key piece and a key component in this discussion of custom design guidelines um and i like to just kind of you know we all have our own idea of the definition of vernacular but we brought um the encyclopedia of vernacular architecture of the world a quote from that in the district effort and the conversation of this uh is all forms of vernacular architecture are built to meet the specific needs accommodating the values economies and ways of life of the cultures that produce them so not only was vernacular styles important in the creation of the custom design guidelines but it also played into one of the criterion so we have 10 criteria that a district can be designated for uh we need to meet three out of 10 and uh that was for this district the district represents an error of culture or heritage that allows an understanding of how the site was used by past generations so these different approaches and ways of thinking about the district really all came together in innovative ways yeah i i love that and allowing community feeling and the value that community has for these places to lead with that uh yeah thanks for sharing so lucha um can you share any types of innovative tools that you found that were successful um as you were working with your projects um throughout colorado uh definitely probably two that were really really helpful is really um having these um spaces where we could um talk to the artists and hear about all of their concerns but at the same time too um we created uh we curated two exhibitions where we were celebrating muralism in colorado so we reached um a lot of people a larger audience and we were able to be in this space all together and really really really highlighting the significance of these murals and of course by doing that we were able to to promote the murals through um not only social media but also in uh traditional media so that was very helpful for us that's great thank you and so i'd like to move on to my next question regarding outreach um so we know that community outreach is such a key component in building trust and trust building as we're doing our work i would um invite you to share how it is that you worked on building trust um and how your outreach in the community was handled and how you did that and shan i will invite you to go first so yeah historic dimmer and the community members that were really leading the effort took a methodical approach to really build and foster community relationships we really took the time to understand the dynamics of the community first before jumping in to build those relationships too um and and the groups that made um that make up that we so we made sure that the engagement was successful um and really that built relationships that would last well past this district effort um which in the end makes long lasting relationships with the community and really a key piece of the outreach for the district was also including residents you know that lived in the district boundaries but also those that lived in the city or in the dember metro area that still considered law all malincoln park home but no longer lived there that was a huge key piece of our outreach and always inviting them to all the community meetings the custom design guideline uh working groups all of that even city council at the end um and another key piece was our hosting community meeting uh listening sessions asking the community to come and tell us their stories what history they thought was important for us to hear about the neighborhood and then also what spaces and areas of the neighborhood were important to them and there was also a lot of hand delivered flyers um we did a lot of you know door to door outreach as well and i think one key piece at the very end when the individual building inventory forms were completed we printed each of those and that was um for every single building in the district and we put that in an overall package that talked about the historical cultural district what it was what it meant and then also a summary of the history of the neighborhood and put that as a package and delivered it again that to door to door um so that they had that information about their home and about the neighborhood as a whole so kind of customizing that outreach and engagement um as well great thank you yeah let me share on building trust in your work with the community yeah well for this one uh i think what is really key here and very critical is to really have local that it really our organization is very much grassroots and what i mean by that is that i i am part of this community and being part of the community you already have that trust you have that knowledge and i i strongly feel that um as we expand and throughout the nation we really need to acknowledge that that we have our storytellers in our community and we have our histories that even though we haven't been able to have it and these kind of platforms or even in the preservation world that it's there and if we have working we're working with local um storytellers then it's just going to be that more powerful and the community already will feel part of it from the very beginning instead of outside entities coming in and saying you know we want to do this i i think there's we're out of this really critical point where we we need to acknowledge that we need to work with these communities because they've been doing it for a long time they just haven't been hurt yeah that's so well said lucha thank you um i absolutely agree um thank you so um let's see here kaiza and dr senches clark can you share on your work on building trust um within the outreach in your communities yeah for sure i lucha and shannon i i think we identify so much with everything that you just shared with us about building trust so in our you know in our presentation we touched on how through the root 66 quarter preservation program we already had uh many established connections in these communities kaiza and her predecessor had spent a lot of time on the road traveling to these communities and they worked really hard to build these relationships with community members we also had other connections with trail partners through the national historic trails that we administer so for example several of the partners that worked at the los lunes museum also volunteered to work with el camino real de tierra dentro and so they were more than willing to meet with lena giana and with us to discuss the history of route 66 in that community as well as about its historic um connections to the camino um and i touched on um my family connections but i think it just underscores how important it can be to build on uh already established relationships and i think it helped that lena and giana were from new mexico and so when they went to these communities in new mexico the people there kind of just took them under you know under their arms and and and they they were eager to share with you know these young women a part of their history and so that was really cool to see uh but we did want to share that in a later phase of the overall project kaiza and lena actually did encounter some trust issues in amarillo texas um they discovered that a lot of recent business owners from latin america had actually taken over some of these vacated um route 66 businesses the buildings and so these business owners they weren't necessarily familiar with route 66 and some of them showed a little bit of distrust like wondering who they were you know who are these two people from the government that were asking them questions you know they're they're trying to run a business and so they weren't necessarily eager to answer a bunch of questions so we definitely have more work to do there thank you thank you for sharing um great so i would like to think about the future and you know consider how it is that these projects in the community look moving forward so i would like to start with lucha if you don't mind reflecting on how it is that communities are are going to be benefiting from the murals and how it is that the community will live alongside of these projects moving forward well definitely over the past month this is where we're finally seeing results we are covering murals with this mural shield clear coating and then for the first time what i call resurrecting a mural has been so powerful for our community and so just continuing to do that where we're bringing back some of these murals we're protecting them putting plaques on them and then the next step is okay how do we get landmark status for these murals that national register changing how preservationists think about murals especially here in dember where they're still considered paint on a wall and that's just blows my mind but those are the next steps and i really feel confident that it's going to happen fairly quickly and of course national trust their support in in this as we move forward the path forward is is really going to be powerful for us absolutely we will be crossing our fingers for you and supporting you and these next steps and so i'd love to pass this on over to kaiza and dr sanchez clark and just learn what's in the future and how the communities will be benefiting from this work moving forward thank you salah and honestly this is where we have work to do our our final project release was delayed due to the pandemic and there was a temporary hold on story maps in the national park service due to technological issues and so there has been a real lag in reconnecting with community members since the research phase of the project and also since the launch of the the actual story map since last october and so we are thinking about you know reengaging and also planning a phase two and some of our ideas are to and again these are our ideas are to dig deeper into the stories of the individual businesses and families along the road and to possibly develop a travel itinerary of sites and also perhaps to identify places that are eligible for listing in the national register as ways of potentially benefiting the owners the property owners in the communities however regardless of what our ideas are what will be most important for phase two is to engage with community members in the planning of what would interest and benefit them most and and the larger effort of course is really about substantially and meaningfully expanding representation in the imagery understanding and storytelling of route 66 so that as an icon of america everyone can find themselves and their story there and also looking at how communities can read more of the economic social and other benefits of route 66 that they may not have historically so we've been in really good conversation with this about the national with this about this with the national trust who designated route 66 is a national treasure and we we absolutely know that this will happen through relationships and looking to community members for the answers and for leadership and it it must be community informed community belt community led and involves building networks of resources and support and it just can't be about throwing money at a few projects and moving on right absolutely thank you great and shannon we would love to hear your thoughts on how communities will be benefiting from this designation there in denver yeah so you know we're still learning how what it's like to live with this project because it's so recent it was actually designated a historical district one year ago yesterday so it is very exciting but very recent too so still learning kind of where we're going from from this designation but I think what we are all saying to you know each of our projects have kind of brought this to light is that it's important with projects like this there's no end date and that our involvement in the community will ever be evolving with how we can support them and that what they would like to see so a couple ways that we still remain engaged with loma lincoln park and the community is of course our partnership with jacana jacana murals of colorado project with not just the two murals within the district but murals outside of the district in the greater loma lincoln park neighborhood and then also outside um in the greater denver area and how to protect and preserve the murals um through physical preservation and policy policy is the key thing that lucha and i keep talking about in denver and i think statewide too obviously there are murals across the state that policy needs to happen in terms of seeing the murals beyond just paint that they are heritage pieces and sites that need to be preserved just as much as buildings and there have been other ideas thrown out there from the community of things like signs around the neighborhood to talk about the history and talk about the chacana movement and why the neighborhood is so important and special to the community and and to really bring awareness to those stories so some ideas thrown out there but again so we're going to be um had and and of course the idea is coming from the community themselves and not us putting it on them and working with the community to see where they want to kind of go from from here with this in this neighborhood great you know well we can't wait to see what you do and we appreciate you sharing um so with that those are the end of my questions i would like to thank each of you our panelists for inspiring us with this creative work and challenging us to think intentionally i heard the word intentionally so many times and that's so true this work is intentional um but i also want to thank you for helping us to think critically about preserving latinx heritage we also want to thank the national trust preserve preservation for hosting this session and with that i'm going to ask bill to turn on the powerpoint great i'd like to invite each of you to reach out to us if you have any thoughts or questions about these specific projects on um that you heard today or just in general latinx heritage here's our contact information we invite you to reach out ask questions we would love to connect to you and our biggest thanks goes to our audience we are grateful that you've joined us in this conversation and we look forward to hearing all of the great work that you're doing with latinx heritage over the coming weeks thank you