Catching up on family history

With November we enter one of the best opportunities to be reunited with our extended family members, a time when we can catch up with each other.

Whether we realize it or not, we are orally documenting our recent historic activity by getting in touch with each other. I say "historic" because our everyday lives are filled with the stuff of future history - business transactions, homework essays, even jokes we tell in conversation. Most of these are not recorded; some events, like births, weddings and deaths, are part of official government documentation.

Latino Perspectives' involvement with distilling the historic contributions of Latinos to the development of Phoenix led us to a great idea: the series A Legacy Lost & Found could be expande to include the family stories of thousands of Valley Latinos.

We recognize that most of our readers are very busy, and while they might think sharing their family history is a nice notion, the thought of spending a lot of time writing is daunting.

That's where our Web site www.latinopm.com comes into play. We have tried to make sharing your stories as easy as sending an e-mail. With the Legacy project as a guide, we are asking you to help us fill in the gaps of the series' timeline, which is divided into five distinct eras.

As part of this Web package, we also developed a multi-page print guide on preserving your family's history through scrap booking, saving images in digital format and conducting oral interviews.

Speaking of interviews, you may recall the Legacy series was based on more than 100 oral interviews and research compiled by Athenaeum for a special Hispanic Historic Site Survey. The survey, commissioned by the City of Phoenix, paints an overwhelmingly positive portrait of the Latino community's contributions.

We seek to expand this portrait with simple stories of your families. You can read a step-by-step tutorial on page 38 on how to send in your history, or visit us online to find instructions there.

Just before press time, we learned that 10 local sites of importance to Latinos had been added to the Phoenix Historic Property Register. Among them are the Braun-Sacred Heart Center, a church that was once the heart of a thriving barrio; Santa Rita Hall, where the late activist Cesar Chavez began his historic fast; and American Legion Post 41, a place of community activism.

These places have been part of our Latino history for generations, and now are officially recognized as having historic value.

"We have always been proud of our rich Hispanic heritage," Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon says in an official news release. "Because of this first-ever study of historic Hispanic properties and neighborhoods in Phoenix, we now are designating and protecting 10 of these sites for future generations to enjoy."

In addition, a short documentary based on the survey was created as part of a special exhibition presented at the Phoenix Museum of History, "The Mexican American Mirror/El Espejo México Americano." The show opened Oct. 12.

Hispanic Heritage Month may have been a convenient time frame in which to experience these historical presentations, yet members of the Latino community have made and continue to make history every day of their lives.

Latino Perspectives is simply asking you to share a part of your family's history with us, and with the community at large. The holidays offer an opportunity to interview your family members. Beyond that, without your participation as historians, the telling of our community's story falls to someone else – a risk we have seen become reality in such big vehicles as Ken Burn's The War.

Here at latinopm.com, you'll have a chance to tell your family's story in your own words. We encourage you to join us in building an archive of history that accurately reflects our community in Arizona.