Photo released by the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) showing a sunset over Medano Creek, the dunes, and the San Luis Valley in Colorado (USA). EFE/NPS
Denver (USA), May 23 (EFE) – Hispanic leaders in Colorado are raising funds to promote the construction of a museum dedicated to preserving and disseminating the stories of the Hispanic, indigenous, and Mexican communities that participated in the historical formation of the state, ahead of the 250th anniversary of the United States.
The initiative, promoted by the Colorado Hispanic & Latino Heritage Fund, will create a museum and educational laboratory on the Auraria campus in Denver, the state capital, where they will address everything from the first Hispanic settlements in the San Luis Valley to the Chicano movement and the displacement of Latino communities.
The organizers held a fundraising event this week, according to former Denver councilwoman Ramona Martinez, one of the project coordinators.
“We want to clarify that this is not yet the opening to the public of the Hispanic/Latino Museum of Colorado. We have made significant progress in building a Colorado museum that will tell the stories of the state’s first inhabitants and settlers,” Martínez told EFE.
The project was approved in 2023 as a ‘Flagship Initiative’ by the state commission ‘America 250 Colorado 150’, created to mark the celebrations of Colorado’s 150th anniversary as a state and the 250th anniversary of the independence of the United States.
However, according to Martínez, the community itself will have to bear the financial burden to complete the museum.
“They told us that if we wanted to build it, we had to create our own organization (…) to raise the money,” he explained.
Stories excluded from the historical narrative
Martínez maintained that the future museum, which is under construction, will seek to rescue stories that have been left out of many educational and cultural spaces.
“The construction of this museum will be the first comprehensive effort to tell the hidden and forgotten stories of the connection between indigenous peoples and Spanish colonizers, fundamental elements to understanding the history of Colorado,” he said.
The leader added that the museum will also include the social and cultural movements that occurred before and after the official creation of the state and the contemporary contributions of the Hispanic and Latino communities.
Patricia Barela Rivera, another of the promoters of the initiative, told EFE that the project seeks to integrate different historical and cultural memories.
“We want a complex of social, cultural, and historical voices that shaped our state and our nation since the 1500s,” Barela Rivera said.
As he explained, one of the objectives is to build a space where new generations can learn about aspects of history that do not usually appear in other museums or educational programs.
A different experience from the traditional
Martínez assured that visitors will find a different experience than that of traditional museums because “they will see stories that have been left out of other museums.”
“The interior design and curation will surprise the public with interactive and emotionally meaningful experiences,” he asserted.
The campus would be located on a plot of land of about six hectares recently reserved by Auraria Higher Education Center (AHEC), near Auraria Parkway and Speer Boulevard, a place that was formerly the largest Hispanic neighborhood in Denver, demolished in the 1960s and 1970s to build the current university campus.
Barela Rivera noted that the organization is seeking to raise around $21 million, of which they have already secured $3 million, for the construction of the building, and emphasized that the project will depend on both institutional contributions and small community donations.
Martínez stressed that the goal is to ensure that the museum remains under community control and functions as a legacy for future generations, something that did not happen with similar projects in the recent past.
The leader added that the museum could also generate economic opportunities for Hispanic and Latino communities in Colorado.
Exhibition about Spanish friars
Simultaneously, History Colorado, the state history museum, is exhibiting ‘Expedition 1776’, an exhibit about the expedition of the Spanish friars Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, the first to travel through and document the region.
The exhibition explores the journey undertaken in 1776 in territories that are now part of Colorado and the western United States, as well as the relationships between Spanish explorers and indigenous peoples and the historical impact of that journey.
Francisco Miraval
