Colorado’s overlooked Hispanic history

Transcript:

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

October is Hispanic Heritage Month, and let’s head now to Colorado. At one time, most of Colorado was part of Mexico, even though today the border is hundreds of miles away. For some Coloradans, that history is still woven into the fabric of life, and others don’t know it at all. From member station KRCC, Shanna Lewis reports.

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SHANNA LEWIS, BYLINE: The Arkansas River runs through the city of Pueblo, Colorado. From its south bank, you can see a kayak course, vivid murals painted on the levee and smokestacks on the horizon. It’s pretty American around here these days. But before 1848, the river marked the international border. This was once Mexico.

DIANNE ARCHULETA: Colorado became a territory of the United States, and a lot of people who were living in Mexico at the time suddenly became United States citizens.

LEWIS: That’s Dianne Archuleta, the director of the El Pueblo History Museum here. She says this geopolitical change happened across the region, and it didn’t just affect people of Hispanic origins. History Colorado’s Eric Carpio says these were the homelands and sacred spaces for dozens of Indigenous tribes.

ERIC CARPIO: It’s an area really where people have come together. It’s a space of convergence. It’s a space of changing borders. And this convergence of people, I think, lead to that borderlands culture.

LEWIS: You’ll find green chili, lowrider cars and Chicano art in the borderlands, including here in Pueblo. But Carpio and Archuleta say while visitors may not know the story behind this heritage, some people who grew up here don’t either.

ARCHULETA: It was not part of our history classes. Hispano history was not taught. Indigenous history was not taught.

LEWIS: Carpio, Archuleta and others say that needs to change.

ARCHULETA: To navigate life in the borderlands, when people are telling you, you don’t belong here, but your ancestors have always been here – and that’s the reason to explore what our presence here means.

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LEWIS: One of the places to literally step into this borderlands history is at Grupo Folklorico Del Pueblo, The People’s Folk Group of Pueblo, where Sara Roybal teaches Mexican folk dancing along with history and culture.

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SARA ROYBAL: Chicos and pequenas in the middle. Juvenal in the back ’cause you guys don’t know this dance. But I want you guys to follow along, OK? OK, you guys ready?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah.

ROYBAL: OK, here we go.

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LEWIS: Many longtime Hispanic families in this part of Colorado say they didn’t cross the border. The border crossed them.

ROYBAL: The border crossing us means that we just have generational routes here to this land. This has become part of the United States. We are very excited to be in the United States. At the same time, we also don’t want to lose who we are culturally in our identity.

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ROYBAL: And so we’re reaching back and just holding onto our culture to make sure that it stays alive and celebrated.

LEWIS: This dance studio, History Colorado and other groups are working to keep Hispanic heritage vibrant and vital by offering experiences that weave the story of the borderlands into everyday life. Here, in this place that once was Mexico, the past is reflected in the present, even if some folks don’t know the history.

For NPR News, I’m Shanna Lewis, in the borderlands of southern Colorado.

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