“As an Arkansas native and first-generation Mexican American artist, I am interested in exploring how Latine/x communities have historically been challenged for their place of belonging within our state yet have grown in their presence and connection to the Northwest Arkansas region. With the increasing population of Latine/x communities in the South, it is important to understand immigrant and geographic perspectives as well as the political, economic, and racial impact of these migrations in Arkansas. Especially given the current treatment and discrimination towards Latine/xs related to our place in this country, and the differing perspectives on our right to belong on the U.S. soil.
As part of our course objectives, we are encouraged to use creative practices, dialogue, and reading material to expand our understanding of historical and current forces or systems that impact one’s relationship to place. In this zine, I address the growth and retainment of Latine/x communities in Arkansas, and the barriers to access that influence Latine/x identity formation and everyday life. Through creative research and mixed-media collages created with photographs taken by my family throughout our lives in this area, I investigate the historical context that Latine/x communities are placed in within this region and the realities of our existence here, including reflections on my personal and familial connections to Northwest Arkansas.”
Finding Santuario en el Noreste del Arkansas: History of Latine/x Expansion in Arkansas
Mixed-media zine, 2025
References
Au, W., Brown, A.L., Calderon, D. (2016) Colonial legacies: Shaping the early Mexican American discourse in Texas and New Mexico. In The multicultural roots of U.S. curriculum: Communities of color and official knowledge in education (pp. 80-112). Teachers College Press.
EngageNWA & Northwest Arkansas Council. (2022). Engage the Future: A Look at the Growing Diversity in Northwest Arkansas. In https://nwacouncil.org/. Retrieved February 14, 2025, from https://nwacouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/DiversityReport2022.pdf
Farmer, F. L., Miller, W. P., Moon, Z. K. (2008) Growth and change in Arkansas’ Hispanic population. Cooperative Extension Service, University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.
Guerrero, P. M. (2017). Nuevo south: Latinas/os, asians, and the remaking of place. University of Texas Press.
Leidermann, Michel. (2024). Latinos. Encyclopedia of Arkansas. https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/latinos-2733/#:~:text=The%20Arkansas%20Latino%20population%20surged,2010%20to%20256%2C847%20in%202020.
Smith, C. M. (2014). The 1.5 and second generation in Northwest Arkansas: Negotiating the roles of assimilation, transnationalism, and ethnic identity [Doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University].
Weise, J. M. (2015) Citzens of somewhere: Braceros, tejanos, dixiecrats, and Mexican bureaucrats in the Arkansas Delta. In Corazon de Dixie: Mexicanos in the U.S. South since 1910 (pp. 1939-1964). University of North Carolina Press.