 Okay I think we can go ahead and get started. Eddie would you like to introduce our topic and speakers? Sure. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to remind everyone that you're at you're in the session called activating Latinx cultural heritage for social and environmental justice. I will be monitoring my name is Edward Torres. I'm an architect, preservation architect in Chicago Illinois. I serve as an advisor to the National Trust. I am also a board member of the Latino Heritage Conservation which is hosting this session. I'm just going to briefly tell a summary of what you're going to hear today. It's a very exciting and very current topic and also I'll just give a brief vial of this presenters. There's a more in-depth detail vial on each of the speakers on the website. So again this session is going to be discussing how communities are recently relying on cultural heritage resources to mobilize the individuals into action, define solidarities and work towards a social environmental justice. And the three speakers Dr. Mankau, Hector Hernandez and Dr. Sarah Gould will be talking about actually three different sort of case studies or three different stories I guess and some experiences that they want to share. The first one, the first session from Dr. Mankau will be exploring the ways that which activists for immigrant rights mobilize a diverse repertoire of historic resources to organize a migrant trail walk. This was 75 miles seven-day pilgrimage march to commemorate migrants who died at the Sonoran Desert. This is going to provide a unique example into the understanding how heritage resources may promote social change and justice. Hector Hernandez will address Puerto Rico's need for traditional construction trades and craftsmanship to preserve their built environment while rebuilding more resilient and sustainable communities to mitigate the effects of climate change which we all know in Puerto Rico. They've been they've suffered two major hurricanes, Hurricane Irma and Maria, and they even had a recent earthquake. So Hector will be talking about what his work, the work that he's doing there now to combat some of these challenges. And finally, Dr. Sarah Gould will close the session discussing Inred Robligus, a 1897 landmark case which affirmed that Mexican Americans have the right to vote in Texas. She's going to examine the challenges faced by those of us seeking to commemorate and interpret Mexican American civil rights history, and particularly when the sites are no longer there and have been demolished. And she'll talk about some of the challenges and maybe even some addressing how she's I'm really excited to hear about how maybe how she's addressing that and how her group is. This session is organized, as I mentioned, by Latinos in Heritage Conservation. Founded in 2014, LHC is the leading non-profit national organization for the preservation of Latinx places, stories, and cultural heritage in the United States. We're a diverse network of intergenerational advocates conserving Latinx sites and living cultures in the fabric of American society, affirming the values of our history in the hemispheric struggle for social justice. I'm proud to be a board member and I see a few members of LHC here on joining us. And just a brief bio on our speakers. As I mentioned, Dr. Magda Mancao is an anthropologist and ethnographer. His research interests include cultural heritage, heritage trails, cultural landscapes, and transnational migration. Her dissertation explored the intersections between border enforcement policies, cultural heritage resources, and immigrant advocacy in the Arizona Sonora borderlands. Hector Viseria Hernandez is an architecture conservator and founding director general of La Escuela Taller de Conservación de Patrimonio Histórico de Puerto Rico. He's an adjunct professor in preservation building technology and building materials, conservation and graduate program in architecture conservation. And he's also co-chair of the Climate Crisis Environmental Sustainable Working Group. He's got double gurus, but it would be too long for me to read all of his accolades, but he's a, he'll be a great speaker and great topic. And finally, Dr. Saragud is a longtime public historian and museum worker. She was formerly founding director of the Mocio de Westside, a community participatory museum and lead curatorial researcher at the UTSA Institute of Texas Cultures, both in San Antonio. She also serves on the Board of Latinos in Heritage Conservation, Friends of Texas Toral Commission, Council of American Associate State and Local History. And she's also an advisor to the National Trust. So with that said, oh, again, I want to mention you, if you want to learn more about Latino Heritage and Conservation, you can visit our website at latinoheritage.us. And later on, I'll talk about an upcoming exciting conference we have coming in Denver next year, and I'll get more details on that. But now let's move on to our speakers. Our first speaker will be Dr. Magda Mankel, who will be talking about the migrant trail walk. Is that the order? Yeah, right. Yeah. So hi, everyone. I'm Magda, and then I will be having some assistance with my power hopefully uploads right now so that we can follow along. There we go. All right. So yeah, welcome, everyone. I'm honored to be here. I'm so glad for the invite. Yeah. So let's get started. Mobilizing cultural heritage and commemorating migrant deaths on the migrant trail walk. So today I'll be sharing what I did with my dissertation research, which I wrapped up really recently in May. For years, oh, we can go to the next slide, please. Since I would say, when did I start? 2016, I've been walking the migrant trail, which as Eddie mentioned, is a 75 mile pilgrimage that begins in Sasa Besonora, and it ends in Tucson, Arizona. And overall, it takes folks seven miles to go on this walk. And throughout those seven days, there are a lot of traditions that are unique to the borderlands that are incorporated into this event. And the whole purpose is to commemorate those migrants who have died in the Sonora Desert. It gives folks an opportunity to mourn and grieve the loss of life, but also to raise social consciousness about what is happening out here in the desert as a result of our very stringent immigration and also border enforcement policies. Okay, so just a little background about myself. Actually, can we go back to the other slide? I just have a lot of pictures here showing that this is a conversation, a topic that is being talked about by a lot of scholars. We often see the belongings left behind by migrants on the news. They're showing up in museums, the National Museum, for example, on the Smithsonian, various art galleries. So just to talk a little bit about heritage and how I think about it in my own research as an anthropologist and also as an ethnographer, I tend to look at heritage as very holistically. I look at the intangible and the tangible, so not just the material and symbolic side of heritage, but also all the practices and knowledge that go along with it. And so throughout my presentation, hopefully I highlight some of that, how those two things go hand in hand. And I also wanted to mention, oh yeah, wonderful, that's great. Yeah, just thinking about heritage a little bit more broadly, so thinking about it as a cultural resource that groups can mobilize, that they can put it to work when they have to solve a social problem. It's part of human's adaptation strategy, so to say. And it's something that many groups possess and that we can mobilize to achieve our goals. And lastly, I just try, I also think about heritage as a tool that has a rhetorical edge, meaning that it has the ability to persuade and mobilize people into action. It helps us create really compelling narratives and form arguments that are meaningful and that get folks to think about things differently. So that's how I'm thinking about heritage, and hopefully that carries through this conversation that we're having today. Okay, next slide please. Okay, so a little bit more about the migrant trail and what that looks like. As I mentioned earlier, it starts in Sassaby, ends in Tucson. It takes place over seven days, and throughout that, we traverse the landscape that in popular media is often portrayed really negatively. The narratives are also tend to be dehumanizing towards migrants. So by walking through this place, we get the opportunity to kind of flip the script or interrogate the dominant narratives that we hear. And it's also an opportunity to bear witness and hold space for this community. Let's see. And okay, next slide please. Oh yeah, I'm not sure that'll upload, but it should be, or maybe if you click it again, oh there it is. So this red dot was created by Humane Borders and it shows the deaths in the desert. So next slide please. Okay, so here, getting at the mobilization of heritage, old and new. So on this trail, we see really a mixing of Catholic and Catholic indigenous practices, especially pilgrimage that have been part of Sonoran culture for centuries. One of the most popular pilgrimage traditions that happens here in the Southwest, for example, is the pilgrimage to Magdalena de Quino that happens to just happen in October. So yeah, like here I have a lot of photos about what happens, what some of the symbols that are used throughout the walk, we use white crosses that have the names of those who have deceased, who have passed away. We have prayer ties created by an elder filled with medicines that we carry throughout the walk. At the beginning of the walk, we also have like a symbolic funeral procession and that's why those coffins are there. We also have a picture of an elder there giving a story. So it's overall, like throughout these days, like people have the opportunity to speak about their heritage, to incorporate existing heritage practices and renew them in a way that speaks to this new contemporary issue, which is clandestine migration. And throughout that experience, folks really get the ability to not only raise consciousness, but also forge community and establish new routes for solidarity, which are important if we want transformative social change to ever happen. All right, next slide. I'm sorry if I'm moving through this really fast, I just want to be respectful of everyone's time. So another thing I want to point out about this trail, this pilgrimage, this gaminata, there's many names for it, but is that it's not just a private experience that each individual gets to hold. And it's not just within the group, but it's also public facing because it takes place on public land. And one of the things I think it does very well is kind of it takes back public space, whether it's the highway, national wildlife reserves, for example, public camping grounds, and it uses it and it kind of subverts the use of space and it and it uses it for, you know, like non recreational purposes, but rather to hold community and hold space for migrants, which is important because a lot of times these stories are not told or they're forgotten or they're not part of the official narrative. So for example, if you go to the National Wildlife Refuge, you can learn a lot about the birds and the wildlife fauna that exist there, but you're not going to hear about the folks who traverse that area and who have passed away there. And the only like signs of migration that you might come across are well, people themselves or signposts saying that illegal immigration takes place and that you should be cautious. So just different narratives are happening in these spaces. Let's see. Oh, yeah. Let's see. And so here I also have a picture of Baba Kiwiri in the background. I think that's really important to point out. So it's a sacred peak to the ta-ta, the ta-na automation, and it figures prominently throughout the walk. So it's just another example of the ways that this one event is able to pull from different traditions and kind of bring them together to speak about this contemporary issue. Okay. And then I guess next slide, please. Okay. And here I'm ending with a quote by Gloria Anzaldua. I'm not going to read it, but it's there because I think it really captures this borderlands perspective of trying to understand social change and just transformation from the periphery or from a person of the borderlands, which I myself identify with as so it's all about picking up the pieces. And I think that translates really well to heritage or those who do heritage work because a lot of times we are picking up pieces and trying to understand how it all fits together. Like how is it that all these little events, all these happenings, all these symbolic practices that we are inventing, but also how our past is being dredged up into the present so that we can move forward. So I really find this quote by her to be really interesting and I think it translates well into heritage work. But yeah, I just wanted to end by stating tying this back into social justice, which I tend to associate with equity and also transformative change. And at the end of the day, the migrant trail may not change border enforcement policies or immigration policies, but it does a lot of other work. Like I mentioned earlier, it's an active recognition and recognition sometimes can be very powerful at a time when things tend to be forgotten or erased. It's a healing space, so it temporarily reclaims public spaces and creates an ability to create an alternative public memory. It also proposes an alternative and humanizing narrative about clandestine migration and international boundaries. So for example, the migrant is no longer labeled as criminal, rather they are seen as human beings. This walk also works to situate human migration as a natural process rather than a criminal act. So yeah, it's not about labeling human migration as criminal, not at all. And it also situates the border as porous because throughout the walk, we literally walk through the international border, so it proposes this idea that borders can be porous. And lastly, I think it strikes a very important conversation about the solidarity that citizens can demonstrate towards non-citizens, and it works to create solidarities and a sense of belonging that goes beyond national identity. So it's moving more towards transnational solidarities, which I think is really important. And it's all happening with the help of heritage, and I hope that all comes through in this. All right, so I think I'm at time, so I'm going to stop here. Thank you. Yes, we have Hector is up next, talking about Puerto Rico and the climate change. Thank you, Ari. Let me share my presentation quick. Good afternoon, everyone. Greetings from La Isla del Encanto, Puerto Rico. Glad to be here sharing our project and what we're doing as part of the recovery and reconstruction process here in the islands. The recovery and protection of our built heritage goes beyond saving historic buildings rather than making new ones. The way our buildings were constructed in the past centuries embraced sustainable practices that today's industry has forgotten. We can still learn from them to help mitigate the effects of climate change in our communities. This presentation provides an overview of current traditional trade training projects as part of the rebuilding, recovery and resiliency efforts following the recent natural disasters in Puerto Rico. The Scualata year program at the Conservation Restoration Center of Puerto Rico seeks to develop a skilled workforce while helping our cultural heritage be more resilient to the effects of climate change and also fostering the creation of good paying jobs and specialized construction industries. The Caribbean region is one of the most prevalent regions by climate change in the world. The fourth national climate assessment published in 2018 along with other studies predict that there will be the following changes affecting the whole region in the next 50 years including more extreme rainfall events which will negatively negatively affect the ecosystem and fire infrastructure. Change in ocean surface and temperature will also lead to ocean ocean acidification, sea level rise in changes in frequency and intensity of storms and hurricanes. Also sea level rise projections indicates an increase up to 3 feet by 2050 and up to 8 feet by 2100 representing a danger for coastal towns which hosts 60 percent of the island's population. New paths and diseases may attack also archived materials and cultural institutions and historic buildings. Traditional repair materials are also becoming increasingly difficult to source. In 2017 Hurricane Maria Anirma passed through Puerto Rico, Hurricane Maria category 5 hurricane left more than 4 000 deaths and billions of dollars in damaged infrastructure. Between 2019 and 2020 earthquakes on the south side of Puerto Rico also affected many historic urban centers. Since 2017 Puerto Rico has begun a recovery process that has been impacted by the 2017-2019 tremors and the COVID-19 pandemic. Still there is a need for a generally inclusive recovery process where historic preservation can be seen as an asset for rebuilding our communities. Besides this one of the significant issues we face on the island is the need for preservation professionals and trained artisans to repair and restore the island's built heritage. Increasing frequency and severity of hurricane floods and fires will also increase the need for preservation specialists to help communities repair and rebuild historic structures. Both the government of Puerto Rico and the construction industry has already warned of a shortage of construction workers for all the reconstruction and recovery projects in the island. But I have to ask a question about what is this cultural heritage and preservation sustainable? Well yeah, historic preservation maximizes the use of existing materials and infrastructure, reduce waste and preserve the historic character of older towns and cities. Preserving a building is often called the ultimate recycling project, yet preservationists and the cultural heritage sector commonly fight the stigma of historic buildings of obstacle to climate change of the patient and that are inefficient and require daunting corrective measures to retrofit energy saving devices and systems. Historic buildings were traditionally designed with many sustainable features that responded to their climate and site. When effectively restored and reused these features can bring about substantial energy savings. So what about the value of traditional trades practices? The value of traditional construction trades in times of climate change change is more than just saving and restoring historic buildings instead of building new ones. The construction practices from past centuries foster sustainable practice neglected by today's industries. Much of we can still learn to tackle pollution, waste, carbon footprint and other pressing issues. Some of the sustainable practices that traditional trades actively fostered and got lost over time include dismantling and building rather than demolition as a way of recycling and salvaging historic construction materials for preservation projects for new construction. Using techniques that reuse carbon footprint should such as retaining our original building in the sites rather than demolition and construction of new building in the same location. Also learning and incorporating vernacular construction techniques that effectively reduce unsafe energy costs that have been displaced with the use of machinery and disproportionate amount of manufacturing materials. But also maintenance practices since maintenance of the building were part of the life cycle of the people. It was common to be prevented maintenance to building once or twice a year. It was not a hassle to maintain because the original idea was to build something durable, not something that will go out of style and have a short lifespan like today. Traditional crafters and construction artisans knew that each beam, each brick, each tone entailed exhausted labor and pride in its construction tasks last. Everything was repaired before demolishing or rebuilding what was lost. Today history building owners definitely seek to find qualified constructors and craft people for preservation projects. Why were these traditions abandoned for the new? To what extent it is relevant to know in depth that the traditional building technologies or those passed down from generation to generation and the use of natural or raw materials? I think more often than an intellectual curiosity, we need this knowledge to intervene in a compatible way to restore, rebuild, repair and conserve an existing historic building. So considering this an after-natural disaster, how is Puerto Rico addressing the need for skilled artisans? Founded in September 2020, the Conservation and Restoration Center of Puerto Rico, Shancord, is a non-profit that serves as a hub for the research, training and movement in the disciplinary study of tangible, immovable and immovable and intangible heritage and its preservation. It focuses on preservation of buildings and sites, archaeologies, objects and collections, conservation and heritage science. The center hosts the Squalata Year program, which is the traditional trades apprenticeship program. The Squalata Year is a program for the training and movement in the disciplinary study of historic preservation, the applied arts and the construction trades. Six and six do advocate and train preservation craft people to protect and preserve Puerto Rico's built heritage. The center, through the Squalata Year and the building and sites department, focuses on different areas. First, continued education and professional development, including education of professional school institutions, homeowners in all aspects of the historic preservation field, including sustainable practices and resilience. Research in different areas such as building technologies, materials, impacts of climate change and sustainable practices. Also consulting services by doing conditions assessment, feasibility studies, conservation management plans. And also the traditional trades program training, which is a project-based learning and asset curriculum with courses, both theoretical and practical. The first six projects have already a projected and impact of almost 400 apprentices from 2022 to 2026, and we want to impact the job, technicians and professionals and the general public, including homeowners and businesses. The social and economic impact include the emphasis on heritage and sustainable tourism, emphasis on urban revitalization, recovery projects, creation of new jobs with specialized construction industries and preservation firms, and also exporting services to other areas of the U.S. and in the Caribbean. For the long-term impact, we ambition to develop a solid mesh and storage network for the reuse of story building materials. Also, fostering the construction program and watching changes public policy to create a positive economic and environmental outcomes for residents and business on the island focused on developing circular economy. And also developing guidelines for maintenance, the construction standards, reuse of building materials, and sustainable practices for property owners. This quality year program seeks opportunities to promote historic preservation's positive role by responding to the challenges posed by climate change and promoting traditional building techniques for a more resilient construction. Well, at the year program, not only addresses the recovery of our cultural heritage, but seeks to provide critical tools to our local communities so they can protect our core resources in a more resilient way by fostering sustainable economic development. In this way, we build a conscience of innovation for both our built and natural heritage. Thank you. Thank you, Hector. Very interesting work. We're going to move on to Sarah, a presentation on Envei Ramiz. Hi. Great to be here with everybody. Always exciting to see what other people are up to. I'm going to talk a little bit about a case that is connected to Mexican American civil rights, and in particular, voting rights, the case in Ray Rodriguez. Firstly, I just wanted to make sure everybody understands that civil rights are expansive and significant sets of rights designed to protect individuals from unfair treatment. And when we're talking about Mexican Americans or Latinos, oftentimes people, you know, they think, oh, that has to do with immigration or something. And sure, that's one of many things, but we're talking about all kinds of rights, you know, to be free from discrimination, including in areas of education, employment, voting, housing, public accommodations, yes, immigration, economic opportunity, as well as, of course, on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender and sexuality. When we're trying to locate where exactly does Mexican American civil rights history start nationally, but I'm primarily working here in San Antonio, there are many layers to where, where are we talking about in history that civil rights start to become an issue. And I would actually say that it starts incredibly early. So San Antonio was officially founded in 1718 by the Spanish. There were, of course, already people here and had been here for thousands of years. People from interior Mexico then move here in 1718 to help create this settlement. And they do live among local peoples and they build missions. And so a lot of those local peoples are incorporated into daily life through the missions. In 1731, we see the arrival of some new people, these people from the Canary Islands, up until this time, San Antonio was out in the middle of nowhere. And so it was very dangerous and it was very difficult to attract people to San Antonio. The one thing that we had that was land, land right along drinkable water, agua dulce. And so when these Canary Islanders come and help boost the local population, which is something the Spanish wanted, they were given the best parcels of land. And so those people who had already set roots here find themselves already having to navigate these very complicated social strata that are just common to Spanish society at the time. However, the city grows and by the late 1700s, San Antonio is the center of Spanish Texas. And then when Mexico gained independence from Spain, San Antonio is the center of Mexican Texas. That all changes in 1836 when Texas gains independence from Mexico and Tejanos and Tejanos means people of Mexican descent in Texas. Tejanos almost immediately see their social standing, their political standing in Texas eroded. That is further, their standing is further diminished in 1848 when the U.S.-Mexico war ends and the U.S. claims Mexico's northern territories. This is despite the fact that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hivalgo, which is signed at the end of... I'm in the conference. I'm sorry, I don't know what that was. This is despite the fact that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hivalgo guarantees Mexican Americans the right to their property language and culture. Across the southwestern United States, we start to see people of Mexican descent see just systematically their disenfranchised. And this really is evident in the kinds of violence that occurs. Texas unfortunately leads the path with having the most number of lynchings of people of Mexican descent. And we see that in 1851 to 1860, we get a big uptick and the number of lynching. So this is in the decade following the end of the U.S.-Mexican war. And we just see these waves of violence, right? That violence is not ignored. It is something that people do attempt to respond to, but they respond to it in a way that they hope will not bring more violence upon themselves. So most notably, what you see happening is that people start organizing mutualistas or mutual aid societies. And so, for example, here in San Antonio, which is considered a significant cradle of American civil rights history in 1885, Sociedad de la Unión is founded. This is a mutual aid society that also does a little bit of advocating for Mexican Americans in the political scene. At this time, you do have people of Mexican descent legally voting in Texas, as well as other states. Their votes were often, and this is absolutely true in Texas, their votes were frequently manipulated or outright bought by local Anglo politicians. And for more recent arrivals from Mexico, people who arrived after 1848, they could vote if they declared their intent to naturalize as a U.S. citizen. So here you can see the form that Ricardo Rodriguez filled out to declare his intent to become a U.S. citizen 10 years after he arrived in Texas from Mexico. Now, this is just his intent card. Three years later, he sought to complete the process to become a citizen. And at that point, he became basically the test case to deny that Hannell's the right to vote. So in May of 1896, he went before the Fudgell District Court of Judge Thomas Maxi to request final approval of his application for citizenship. Some local lawyers who had been looking for an opportunity to challenge the right of Texas Mexicans to vote tried to stop his request. And in fact, this shouldn't have been a surprise because there have been attempts to disenfranchise the Hannells for years. Ever since 1836 happened case after case of attempts to disenfranchise the Hannells. So this was a case that was 60 years in the making. For one whole year, Judge Maxi moles over this case because whatever he decided would set a huge precedent. Ultimately, he ruled in favor of Rodriguez on May 3rd, 1897, thereby legally affirming the civil rights of the Hannells to vote. In addition to citing the 1836 Constitution of the Republic of Texas, which granted citizenship to Mexicans living in the Republic as of the day that they declared independence from Mexico. He also cited congressional resolutions, federal congressional resolutions that further extended citizenship to Mexicans after the annexation of Texas to the U.S. in 1845. Plus, he cited Article 8 of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hevalgo, which had in fact granted Mexicans who stayed in the seeded territory U.S. citizenship, as well as the 14th Amendment, which granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States regardless of color or race. And so he said in his ruling, we have freely received immigrants from all nations and invested them with rights of citizens. The conclusion forces itself upon the mind that citizens of Mexico are eligible for American citizenship and may be individually naturalized by complying with the provisions of the law. This was hugely important and at least for a while, for a number of years, Judge Maxi's decision prevented further attempts to use the courts to deny the Hannells the right to vote. Where all of this happened is extremely important. It happened directly across the street from the Alamo, one of the most charged symbols in Texas and U.S. history. This is the site of a battle that pitted the Mexican army against a group of people who wanted to overthrow the government. Those people who wanted to overthrow the government lost this battle, ultimately did win the war, though. And almost immediately, they start to use the Alamo, well, not immediately, but what we see over time is that the Alamo starts to be used as this symbol of freedom, despite the fact that the people who were trying to win independence from Mexico went on to institutionalize slavery in Texas and systematically disenfranchise the Hannells from the very communities that they built. So what you see in this postcard, which is from approximately 1905, is the building where this court case was built. The bottom floor was the post office, the U.S. post office for the city of San Antonio, and the top two floors were the federal courthouse. This was a fairly common model in places like San Antonio. What you see in front of that building in this postcard are the famous Mexican chili stands in Alamo Plaza. So what's interesting here is the way that people of Mexican descent in this Mexican city were, over time, continually pushed out of the city. So for a number of years, there were these chili stands that were run by the Hannells, Mexican Americans, and they served chili. Over time, Alamo Plaza became more of an Anglo space or a white space, and so they were actually forced out of Alamo Plaza, forced to move west into what was called the Mexican downtown. And you can't actually see the Alamo here, but it is just to the right of where the postcard gets cut off, but it's right there. So diagonally next to this. Over time, the building that the court case was argued in was demolished to make way for a new structure. So here is, on the far right of this building that was taken in the 1910s, you see the building, and then on the photo on the right, you see the same location, but new building. So that courthouse is gone with this new building put in the place, and what we know is that this was, in fact, a truly important landmark civil rights case, but unfortunately it really can't be seen in our landscape. Now we did, very fortunately, get a historical marker a few years ago outside of the new building that's there. This is far more than we have for most of the Mexican American civil rights sites in San Antonio. So one of the things that we have been working on at Macri is documenting where all of these Mexican American civil rights organizations started, as well as other important civil rights moments in San Antonio, with a goal of trying to take advantage of a new local program for local historic markers to highlight this history. One of the challenges, this is a state historic marker, and state historic markers, not without reason, are incredibly difficult to get, and Mexican American history is just vastly underrepresented in the state historic markers. So we're hoping to take advantage of a new local program that is just a little bit easier to access. We've also been creating digital exhibits. This one is called Chispas, Mexican American Civil Rights Trailblazers in San Antonio, which is available on our website, SomosMacri.org forward slash chispas. And we also regularly host virtual talks. We have one coming up on November 15th. That will be about the borderlands history of racial violence and its impact on Texas history. And finally, just because it is election day, I want to quote one of our civil rights trailblazers, Willy Velasquez, and encourage you to all vote if you haven't already. And Ray Rodriguez is just one of many court cases that reminds us that we have to be vigilant about defending our right to vote, understand that it is a very fragile right. And so please honor our ancestors by using and defending that. Great. Thank you, Sarah. Wow. Very exciting. Well, all three presentations and I did put it on the chat or we had questions to put in the chat, but I'm going to open up to any questions we've got about maybe five minutes, five or seven minutes, five minutes. Are there any questions? I saw one in the chat for Magna. And I'll just start off with that question. How often are the Tamanitas, how often are they held and how do you reach awareness to the community? Well, they're held every year on Memorial Day weekend, and they've been happening since 2004. And because of COVID, the last two have been virtual events, and it may be that the one in 22 may also be virtual. So it's been opened up to a broader audience in terms of creating awareness. Mostly it's just word of mouth, social media, and then some public, like public media releases. But yeah, it's pretty small event. Okay, thanks. Another question was about the postcards. I think, Sarah, you use that postcard. And I know I've used postcards in my, I use Kirtite, which is a postcard company that made many postcards all over the country. And our museum here is locally near Chicago, the Kirtite postcard. And I've used many of those. I've gone to the museum and go through them. But what's your resource, Sarah? A lot of the postcards of Mexican American life have been documented in a series of books by Daniel Arriola. But also, I will just tell you, there are all these postcard collectors. And if you go to, like ephemera sales, there's almost always some vendor there that's selling postcards. So and also eBay, can find them on eBay. But Daniel Arriola has a whole series of books with these postcards from the Southwest documenting Mexican American life. Thank you. One question for Hector, regarding traditional trade sometimes is used to meet indigenous traditions and sometimes is used to meet early American colonial Caribbean traditional buildings. The question to Hector is, can you expand what may happen when these traditional trades and there, I got to move this, move this down. I guess what will happen, I lost the question, but I guess the question is about traditional trades that you were referring to, Hector. Sure. One of the things with Puerto Rico and Kultura Heritage in Puerto Rico is that most, I will say the majority of our built heritage is from our Spanish colonial era. So the relationship between indigenous communities and the Spanish colonial era, it's a little bit different and difficult than the US because here in Puerto Rico, we don't have living indigenous communities, or at least we have descendants, but it's not the same. So what the Latin America and Spain specifically we refer as traditional trades are mostly trades that were brought by the Spaniards to Puerto Rico in their early, in the 400 years we were a colony of the Spain, but also some traditions that the Spaniards also embrace in building construction, for example, patch buildings and other materials, local source materials that they use, but we're mostly referring in Latin America when we talk about traditional trades mostly related to Spaniards trades. Thank you. I think at the last part of that was the clash between, but I think you answered that. And Sarah, there was a question about the markers. You showed that marker that in front of the courthouse, and someone asked about that program and how, I know Texas is big about markers. Yeah, so that marker that I showed you the photo of is a state one. So that's run through our SHPO, the Texas Historical Commission, but we do have this brand new local program, which is run through our city office of historic preservation. And I think, you know, I was fortunate to be part of the conversations about creating that program because it is so hard to get a state marker. And what we know is that people of color in particular just are not well represented in those state markers. So we were looking for something that was a little bit easier to achieve because the state ones have such a high threshold and they can only take so many a year. So our local office of historic preservation is doing that. Great. Well, we have about two minutes and I've got it. I've got some housekeeping at the end here. But thank you for the questions. And if you have any more, we can make sure their contact information is on the website. But, Phil, if we can go to the last slides, I do want to mention, I mentioned this in the beginning of our session here, we are going to host a conference called Congreso in Denver, April 28, and through the 30th. If you want to continue, or if you're very interested in Latinx preservation and cultural heritage in the United States, and it's going to be a three-day conference. It's going to have educational presentations, workshops, tours of Denver. We typically, we're right now scheduled to have 20 plus speakers from highly respected national leaders in the Intermountain region. We've had, this is our, this will be our fourth gathering. Our first one was in Tucson in 2015, and then we met in Houston. And then recently, 2018, right before COVID, we met in Providence, Rhode Island, New England area. And now this will be located in Denver. And we selected this because it will be a significance to the 20th and 20th century Latinx history and movements. And we did that intentionally, but it's going to be exciting time. We're just finalizing some of the details and speakers, but it's April 28 to the 30th. And we hope that some or all of you can join us in Denver come the springtime. I want to thank everyone for joining us. I see that we had over almost 350 attendees on this session, Latinos Heritage and Conservation. Oh, keep with the next slide until I think I have one last one. And if you do want to connect with LHC, you can sign up for our newsletter. There's the information there, Latino Heritage Conservation, Latino Heritage, Latinos and Heritage Conservation. The end, we also have a website, as I mentioned, LatinoHeritage.us. And we have a Facebook page. Our newsletter is called La Irencia. And you can find out all the happenings that's going on in Latinx heritage. But thank you very much for attending here. I think we're at 1220 and we did this perfect. Thank you for our speakers. Very interesting. We never have enough time for any of this, but it's really great to hear all of the how we're addressing in different ways. And in particular in Puerto Rico, I went there a couple of years ago and before the hurricane, Maria, and a fascinating place. I recommend everyone to go to Puerto Rico and go spend money there and look at the heritage culture that's there. Thank you very much. And Phil, I guess we sign out. I'm not quite sure what happens here. I guess your next session is starting soon. Thank you very much, everyone.