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Telling it Right

History detectives look to uncover story of Latinos in Phoenix

Fading memories and demolished sites are just two obstacles a local team of experts will try to overcome as it surveys places and people who are important to the story of Latinos in Phoenix.

Financed by up to $40,000 in bond funds, plus a $10,000 grant from the Arizona State Historic Preservation Office, the team will site important properties through archival research, community outreach, oral histories, field reviews and photos.

A key to the success of the project will be long-time residents coming forth to provide information to the surveyors, says the enthusiastic team leader.

“This is a passion for me to document this history,” says historic preservationist Jean Reynolds. “It’s really fun, something I like to do.” Reynolds works for architectural historian David Dean and his company, Athenaeum Public History Group, which won the job of conducting the survey.

The group has conducted a survey of historic places for African Americans in Phoenix. The city also has plans to survey for Native American sites.

Other members of the team include ASU Chicano Archivist Christine Marin, Phoenix College history professor and documentary filmmaker Pete Dimas, historian Santos Vega and long-time Phoenix resident Frank Barrios.

DISAPPEARING LANDSCAPE

Anyone who has been fascinated by the sleuthing skills depicted on the PBS show History Detectives will know it’s not always easy to dig up facts about old buildings, housing structures and the people who lived and worked in them. That will hold for the Phoenix project as well, because redevelopment has eliminated many of the older downtown structures.

“The gigantic difference is there is not much left,” Reynolds admits. “There’s hardly anything left of the buildings that were significant. We’ll be identifying what is left and also other buildings and places that people haven’t thought about being significant.” 

People often think of churches or major buildings as being significant, Reynolds adds, but they “don’t think about parks, or sometimes homes where community leaders live.”

Once eligible properties are identified, they will be nominated to the Phoenix Historic Property Register and the National Register of Historic Places.

One example: The home of Phoenix’s first Mexican American councilman, Adam Diaz. Another: The site where social service organization Chicanos Por La Causa was first located.

“People like Pete, Frank, Santos and Chris, they know a lot and are very familiar with the community. They have the research skills and academic standing, bringing another level of scholarship to this project,” Reynolds says.

But the list also has to come from the community, she adds.

“Our main goal is to do presentations at different community forums,” she says. “We’re targeting people who are at least 60 or older, whose memories can go back, and who have lived here in Phoenix from at least 1950 to1960. Grown children can participate.”

Select oral histories will be done with a few community elders, who will be questioned about how their neighborhoods have changed.

Photographs will be a vital element of the survey, not only for the people in the images, but the depiction of structures at that time. For examples, Reynolds said pictures might show children at Grant Park, a wedding at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, a first communion at Immaculate Heart, or an event at the Friendly House or American Legion Post 41.

“We’d like to see them from 1960-1950 and before. The photos are part of that historical record. It really helps to tell something about that building, how it’s changed, and so forth.”

FINDING MISSING PIECES

“We (Latinos) had a very major part in the history of Phoenix,” team member Frank Barrios says. “From its beginning, we were here in large numbers, yet very little to nothing is known about the Hispanics’ contribution to the building of Phoenix. The history is fairly well documented for the Anglo community. They had strong political positions throughout the (city’s) history.” In contrast, he adds, Latinos lagged in political representation until the 1940s and ‘50s, yet populated Phoenix since its founding in 1868.

The absence of documentation is worrisome, Barrios says, because evidence becomes important to try to identify and preserve sites for future generations. Without a paper trail, memories fade, erasing the virtual existence of places, and therefore, the people who lived before.

Barrios is eager put on his detective cap to track down the missing pieces of history. Family ties and personal knowledge, he believes, will provide clues to the past.

“I think part of what will make this contract work is you’ve got a few old-time Mexican families who know the history of those people. If we were starting from square one, and didn’t know where to find those people, it would be different.”

Athenaeum has until Sept. 30, 2006 to conduct the survey. Once completed, the survey will help fill the historical gap, an important step to acknowledging the Latino culture’s contribution to the development of Phoenix. It may have been a long time coming, but Barrios believes it’s overdue.

“You know, there’s Mexican blood in every piece of dirt in Phoenix,” he says.

If you want to nominate a site for the team to consider, contact the team at (602) 488-9435 or the Phoenix Historic Preservation Office web site, www.ci.phoenix.az.us/NBHDPGMS/histpres.html.