South Tucson awarded $30K grant to preserve Latinx cultural and historic heritage

The Tucson League of Mexican-American Women was awarded a $30,000 grant from the nonprofit, Latinos in Heritage Conservation to protect historic landmarks and preserve cultural traditions and oral histories throughout the City of South Tucson.

Selina Barajas, is the project lead and a community engagement strategist for the city.

She said that with this grant, residents will be able to share the narrative of their own stories that are not rooted in stereotypes.

“We don’t have a museum, a historic museum, we don’t have a cultural preservation department, we don’t have someone specifically focused just on the historic and cultural preservation elements. So what this grant is going to help us do, it’s going to help us start putting all of the rich history here together and being out in the community to tell people of the importance of historic and cultural preservation,” Barajas said.

The city is small and contained within a 1.2 square mile radius and is inhabited by less than 5,000 residents.

South Tucson Mayor Roxanna Valenzuela said the grant will help move the city to the next level of community engagement.

“A lot of poverty is concentrated here, a lot of the crime is concentrated here, a lot of the homelessness is concentrated here so most of the time when people talk about South Tucson, it’s in a negative perspective and I’m excited to change that and show them that we’re here,” Valenzuela said. “We’re not going anywhere, we’re going to reclaim our city and this grant signifies that.”

Only .65% of sites on the National Register of Historic Places are dedicated to Latinx history according to an equity study completed by LHC, despite the fact that nearly one in five Americans identify of Latinx, and only 7% of federal preservation funding supported Latinx projects between 2014 and 2025.

Asami Robledo-Allen Yamamoto, director of education and outreach with the organization said Latinx histories are largely absent from American History.

“Sites that are going to make up the bigger percentage are going to be dedicated towards white heritage and also colonization. So things like the Alamo, which might often be referred to as a Latinx site, but it’s really a site of colonization and different monuments as well as sculptures, those are really dedicated towards the oppression of communities of color,” Yamamoto said.

A significant portion of South Tucson’s population is 18 years old and younger.

That’s why the Preservation of South Tucson’s Historic and Cultural Heritage project will be driven by young residents like Naomi De La Rosa, who have grown up and lived in the neighborhood.

“I’ll be taking the lead and knocking on doors, talking to folks in the community to get their stories, the storytelling part and writing it down because it’s really important to preserve the history and the culture especially in South Tucson,” De La Rosa said.

And Julian Quijada Montiel.

“Deeming what they think is historic, stories that they have about little markets or churches or whatever it may be and just figuring out what the community values the most in the City of South Tucson and what they want to preserve,” Montiel said. “Memory fades over time, so it’s just important to keep those stories and those pictures and those moments down in family and also the community”

Barajas said that the end goal is to create something that is tangible within the community.

“Also hopefully implement some policy around identifying, maybe if it’s a corridor or if it’s a actual site or if it’s a commission, we want to leave something that ‘s going to be long, lasting impact here in South Tucson,” Barajas said.

The project is funded through the Nuestra Herencia grant and is one component of the larger initiative called Untold Stories of the Borderland which will, “spotlight sites threatened by erasure and border policy, centering Latinx voices” through community driven storytelling from people across across Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, according to LHC.

Yamamoto and a team of historians, documentations and cultural workers are traveling on a road trip stopping in cities like Tucson, Phoenix, Nogales, Albuquerque, El Paso, Socorro, Marfa, Valentine, Marathon and Alpine.

“It’s two weeks of oral history, site documentation and really bonding with community members so that we can first of all tell them LHC is here for them but also so that we can start building that trust that has kind of not been established because we’re been told our history isn’t important,” Yamamoto said.