Memories of Migration: New Mexico, Part 4

Putting Out the Welcome Mat

Exhibit Design Class students from New Mexico Highlands University's Center for Cultural Technology had a big challenge in prototyping the rural education and outreach component for Memories of Migration. One point made to them early on from our evaluator, Brian Crockett, was that banners on the outside of museums are the single most effective strategy for attracting visitors. This engendered an intense conversation about the lack of visibility of their venue, the Las Vegas Citizens' Committee for Historic Preservation (LVCCHP), even for people walking down the sidewalk, and what could be done about it.  The ideas that they came up with are replicable and adaptable for any venue.   

To create a feeling of welcome, the students designed banners and a sandwich board sign to attract passersby. 

They created an interactive house to display in the window of the storefront location. Much thought went into the design of the house to relate to the historic architecture of the town. From the sidewalk pedestrians saw silhouettes in the windows depicting family members in different rooms engaged in different activities. The windows lit up at night. The scenes were also visible from inside the exhibit, as seen here.
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Also visible from outside and inside was a fingerpost sign. Instead of arrows pointing to destinations, the arrows pointed the way to exploring the migration theme: “Are you from here?”  “Where are you from?”  “How did you get here?” “Where is home?” “What did you bring with you?” What did you leave behind?”

The students were allowed to rearrange LVCCHP's existing exhibits, and maps were rehung with labels that tied them to the migration theme. 

Memories of Migration: New Mexico, Part 3

From a cultural and historical perspective, Las Vegas, New Mexico, was a great place to prototype Memories of Migration. Today the community includes descendants of the founding families, Jewish merchants, and health seekers, as well as new arrivals—Hurricane Katrina refugees from New Orleans, “Dreamers” from Mexico who come to attend New Mexico Highlands University, artists, and retirees.

Originally settled by land grant families from Mexico in 1835, Las Vegas became a bustling stop on the Santa Fe Trail after New Mexico became a U.S. Territory in 1846. In 1879, the arrival of the railroad transformed the town into the largest city west of the Mississippi. In its heyday, Las Vegas boasted two opera houses, an electric trolley, and the Southwest’s first telephone system. Immigrants from all walks of life flooded into town—from the upper classes to low-lifes, including outlaws like Jesse James and Doc Holliday, who owned several Las Vegas businesses, including a dentist office.

Las Vegas became a major tourist destination, luring visitors with promises of spectacular scenery, hunting, fishing, and exotic cultures—a world away from industrialized life in the big city. A growing reputation for a healthy climate and healing hot springs gave rise to health resorts and sanitariums for tuberculosis sufferers and others.

During the 1920s and 1930s, many people migrated away from the once prosperous community. A new railroad line had bypassed the town. A major drought disrupted the agricultural way of life, and many people were forced to leave in search of greener pastures. The drought and economic downturn were important factors contributing to the town’s decline in importance and leading to the Las Vegas of today.

Memories of Migration: New Mexico, Part 2

Exhibit Design Class

To create a Memories of Migration model for rural education and outreach, an Exhibit Design Class at New Mexico Highlands University was enlisted to prototype concepts. The community partner was the Las Vegas Citizens' Committee for Historic Preservation (LVCCHP). The students were media arts majors specializing in graphic design, photography, videography, and physical computing. The majority of the students in the class were Las Vegas  natives descended from some of the town’s founding families, who wanted to make sure that their work would have appeal to their relatives and friends. Their enthusiasm was also grounded in their pride in the community and desire to share that pride with visitors. For the students who came from other places, the project provided new ways to connect to the community that they live in but don’t really know.

The class divided into teams, and each team assumed responsibility for one or more aspects of the project. Exhibit Design Class members included: Ashley Arellanes, Kendra Alderete, Mario Griego, Christopher Killion, Nickolas Lormand, Gloria Lovato, Mariam A. Perez, Jacobo Rael, Natasha Rudolph, and Andrew Shepard. The instructor was Mimi Roberts, Director for Media Projects, New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, with design assistance from AmeriCorps Cultural Technology intern Eli Menchaca. Martha McCaffrey, LVCCHP board member and retired school librarian, advised  the students with research and served as liaison to LVCCHP.

Funding and In-Kind Contributions

In addition to the grant from NewMexico Humanities Council, support has come from LVCCHP thanks to a private donation, the Susan and Conrad De Jong Fund/Santa Fe Community Foundation, the New Mexico Makerstate Initiative of the NewMexico State Library, and  the AmeriCorps Cultural Technology Internship Program.

The Theme: Migration

Currently, the theme of migration is receiving a lot of attention from cultural institutions because the flood of people moving from one place to another has created a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented proportions. According to the most recent figures from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, nearly 60 million people, about half of whom are children, have been dislocated from their homes by conflict, persecution, and economic hardship—more than at any other time in human history. This is placing an immense burden not only on the refugees themselves but also on the communities and countries absorbing them.
In New Mexico, several museums are participating in the National Dialogues on Immigration, a consortium of leading history museums and cultural centers across the country presenting local public dialogues on immigration, including (Ex)Change at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, and in Santa Fe the New Mexico HistoryMuseum (Routes and Routes) and Museum of International Folk Art (Imagining Home). The resources for all the program models are downloadable here. 

Humanities Scholarship

Most of the research for Memories of Migration: Las Vegas involved consulting with family and community members. In addition, the class included guest lectures from four nationally recognized humanities practitioners: Jon Voss (Historypin); Candace Kanes (Maine Memory Network); Meredith Davidson (New Mexico History Museum); and Estevan Rael-Galvez (former New Mexico State Historian).
A mid-point presentation by the students provided the opportunity for feedback from Professor Jon Hunner, interim director of the New Mexico History Museum at the time, as well as community historians and LVCCHP board members. Finally, a field trip to Santa Fe to see the exhibits Unsettled Landscapes at SITE Santa Fe and Between Two Worlds at the Museum of International Folk Art provided the students with the opportunity to see how others had dealt with related themes in museum exhibits.

Memories of Migration: New Mexico, Part 1

Memories of Migration is a three-year national demonstration “memory gathering” project funded by a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to a group of library partners and the interactive map website Historypin. The project is designed for libraries that serve new immigrant communities, to help them build local cultural heritage collections related to their changing demographics, and to encourage community dialogue and ease tensions between old timers and newcomers.

Thanks to an invitation from Jon Voss, Historypin's Director for Strategic Partnerships, New Mexico was invited to participate in the project. Jon reached out to the Center for Cultural Technology, a program of the Department of Media Arts & Technology at New Mexico Highlands University and the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, to develop a model for rural education and outreach. 

Last fall, an Exhibit Design Class created the prototype based on the university’s hometown of Las Vegas, New Mexico, about 60 miles from Santa Fe. The community partner was the Las Vegas Citizens’ Committee for Historic Preservation (LVCCHP), a local non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the architectural and cultural heritage of Las Vegas. It’s storefront museum also serves as a Santa Fe Trail Interpretative Center, highlighting Las Vegas as an important hub along one of the nation’s major migration routes. LVCCHP was the venue and fiscal agent for the project. In addition LVCCHP served as the primary research resource. The students created a multimedia exhibit and profile on Historypin. 

The students' prototype will now be adapted for travel around New Mexico to public and tribal libraries holding “memory gathering” events, bringing to life local stories of migration and immigration. Over the next few years, stories from Las Vegas and other rural communities in New Mexico will be documented on a profile on Historypin and connected to stories from other communities across the nation to tell the collective story of the American migration and immigration experience.

Food Heritage

Here's some food for thought. I recently came across the League of Kitchens, a great social practice project by artist Lisa Gross. Another great artist project is Favianna Rodriguez's installation for the recent exhibit at the Oakland Museum of California Art entitled "Who is Oakland?".  I'm also remembering years back when I directed the traveling exhibitions program for the Museum of New Mexico, and a museum in Arlington, Virginia, presented a retablo show that we were traveling as a way of targeting their new immigrant community. Opening night was a celebration they called "Meximania", including Mexican food, drawing many immigrants to the museum for the first time.

The Highlands students were enthusiastic about food heritage and were disappointed that they didn't have time to develop the theme in the way they would have liked. The students from local families who live in town reported that almost all of their families also own farms and ranches outside of town where they grow food and raise livestock. One of them talked about the local tradition of making jerky, a skill their ancestors learned from Native Americans. Mariam, the international student from Spain, talked about how she and her fellow international students bring spices from home, and we talked about the relationship between food and homesickness and how hard it is for New Mexicans to survive in other places without green chile.

One of the guest speakers for our class, Estevan Rael-Galvez, former New Mexico State Historian, spoke to the students about his work at the National Trust and the importance of providing multi-sensory experiences, including smell and taste, and how he instigated the revival of cooking and sharing meals at some of their properties as an important strategy in bringing historic houses and the past to life. Similarly, sharing cooking skills and food traditions seems like a great way for communities to welcome new immigrants.

With all of the emphasis on "local" in the food world these days, it's worth remembering the often forgotten historical diversity of what is now considered local, and showing some sensitivity to how the locavore movement lands on immigrants, whose memories of migration might be intimately connected to their food traditions, the aromas and flavors of their native cuisines and places of origin, and families left behind.

Community Outreach

4th of July Celebration at Centennial Park

The Santa Ana team spent Independence Day mapping migrations and capturing stories of our community members. Here is a short video of our booth, produced by our CTV3 department.

As with our previous event, we had an information table, a mapping migration station, and a photo booth area. We made some slight modifications to our setup and activities. 

Information Table and Booth Set Up

What worked:

• At this particular event, we had a large enough space to spread out our activities. We set up three canopies, one for the information table, one for the mapping station, and one for the photo booth area. This large set up was nice, because it allowed many people to interact with us without being too crowded.

What didn't work:

• We were battling with intense wind throughout most of the event. Unfortunately, our acrylic sign displays were continuously blown over. We ended up putting water bottles on the backside of the stands to keep them up. 

Mapping Migration Stories

What worked:

• For this event, we decided not to use the 6.5ft x 4ft map we originally used, because it was just too large. Instead, we brought a smaller world and a map of the United States. The maps were large enough for many people to pin their stories, but small enough to not require extra tables. Both maps fit on the tops of two tables.
• The map of the United States made it much easier to pin the migrations of our community members who have migrated within the country. Through this, we identified a key migrant community that we would like to track, Military Families. 
• We created a Santa Ana,CA/Orange County flag attached to a dowel, which was able to withstand the pulling of the strings being wrapped and tied around it.. This was much more effective than the pin we had used at our first event. 

What didn't work:

• We tried using the name flags to label each individual migration, but the wind made it difficult to keep them attached. We stopped using the flags about half way through the event. 
• We began to notice that the thickness of the yarn we were using made it difficult to see the locations and map below. In the future, we will use thinner string. 

Photo Booth

What worked:

• The photo booth was a success. People enjoyed participating and sharing their stories. 

What didn't work:

• There weren't really any issues with the photo booth at this event. We were under a canopy, so the lighting was a little bit of an issue, but we were able to correct the photos by using the flash on the camera. 
• We are still trying to find a solution to the short backdrop problem. 

The 4th of July event was a great success for us! Many people signed up to come in for interviews or to get involved with our Teen Community Historians program. Click here to view more photos from this event.

An interesting resource from the Library of Congress (via Mimi Roberts): Immigration, from the Student Discovery Sets.