Uncategorized – Page 12 – Publicly Historians

August 24, 2018September 28, 2018

Westside Historians in The Making

Please click here to learn more about Norbert “Geremy” Landin

This evening the students from the St. Mary’s University were welcomed to one of the sites of the Esperanza Center in San Antonio Texas. The Director, Ms. Graciela Sanchez, quickly grasped the attention of all 10 students present.

“The people of Esperanza dream of a world where everyone has civil rights and economic justice, where the environment is cared for, where cultures are honored and communities are safe.”

-Graciela Sanchez; Director of Esperanza Peace and Justice Center

This part of their mission and vision is truly shown in the work that is done in and around the Rinconcito Center. In the past, I know that several of the students in this program (including myself) have been to museums and art exhibits. During a recent museum course there was talk about the different places that have been visited but I don’t quite think that this experience matches any of the ones that were mentioned in the past.

When entering the Rinconcito Center there is a drastic difference in what we are used to seeing in homes and apartments and visitors can quickly delve into the history from the time of the “Casa De Cuentos and Casita.” The center has owned the building and property at 816 Colorado St. since 2001 and since then, great work in preserving the housing and developments that surround the area has been done in hopes of saving that history that as Sanchez said, “is gone once they’re gone.”

Photo taken by Gateway Photography — As the students travel through the areas at the center, different pieces catch the eyes of future public historians and Director of Public History at St. Mary’s (Dr. Lindsey Wieck)

The students continued their walk down the street with a main focus on the structures and projects following the path towards The Guadalupe Center for cultural arts. “Fotohistorias del Westside” mark the path along the South side of the street lining the fence of J.T. Brackenridge Elementary School (a school named after Confederate veteran and bank president, JT Brackenridge, who was born in Warwick County, Indiana and passed in 1906). This school is one of San Antonio ISD’s 90 campuses.

Virgen de Guadalupe vela located next to the Guadalupe Center for Cultural Arts

The tour ended at the Plaza Guadalupe over at 1327 Guadalupe St. but the conversation did not. Conversations on the way back to the starting point of the tour led to ideas of projects with different shops, councilmen, and locals about oral history and community activism.

Sanchez is passionate about the work that she does and was excited to show us the public history aspects involved in her work. Having visited places on the westside and knowing the stigmas and negative energy that is posed towards the people and areas surrounding made it easier to want to learn and absorb as much information as possible. The connection that we have made as a course and cohort is tremendous and will continue to be a great source of energy and program development for public history at St. Mary’s and in San Antonio in general.

August 23, 2018

Introduction: Danielle Garza

Good afternoon fellow classmates, My name is Danielle Garza and I just wanted to tell you a little about me. For my undergrad, I studied here at St. Mary’s for all four years of my degree. My degree was in Public History and I am so excited to begin this journey with wonderful colleagues and professors. What interests me about Public History is being able to work in Museum Education. The idea that I can make these amazing kid-friendly projects that not only make them happy but maybe inspire the next generation to want to know more about history. Another aspect of Public History I find interesting is curatorial studies where you are the voice of the museum in many ways. The one who creates the storyline of a certain history for the public to see and what they will learn.

August 20, 2018August 20, 2018

The Young and Reckless

Hello everyone! I am so excited about the first full week of classes coming and being apart of this new program!

A little background information about me, I grew up in San Antonio and then moved to a little town south of it called Floresville, Texas. However, I have been lucky enough to be a well traveled child, teen and adult. I come from an artistic background ranging from playing drums to singer/songwriter. If you were to ask little Shine, I was going to grow up to be a famous singer. I enjoy watching and making references to The Office, Parks and Rec and Game of Thrones. I also love coffee, and no not just basic Starbucks. I wish I could have one of those ridiculous TV shows like on the Travel Channel over different styles of coffee.

MY EDUCATION

I graduated from Southwestern University in 2018 with a BA in Anthropology focusing in archaeology and environmental studies. I was able to study abroad in Greece for two months. I was studying museum collections and archeology, which was SUPER cool!!! I graduated from SU a year early which put me in a position of rushing and trying to figure out what I wanted to do, so to avoid most of the real world responsibilities I traveled for most of summer. UNTIL, I came across the Public History program at St. Mary’s. I soon realized my passion for traveling, culture and even music could be poured into this program and help me shape my experiences and education. My interest in Public History is working with local museums and personal stories of locals to help challenge the public to reconsider what knowledge is and what it means.

This is Rachel the llama in the Chinchero District in Lima, Peru (2018)

August 18, 2018August 25, 2018

16 years later but finally getting somewhere

Nuremberg Castle, Bavaria, Germany

Hello all,

Again, names John Cadena. For the majority of my life, I have lived in San Antonio. Most of my life, on the west and southside. In 2002 I graduated from McCollum High School (Go Cowboys). Immediately after graduating I enrolled at San Antonio College for summer classes and quickly learned that I was no-where near ready for college. Discouraged by this I decided to follow in my family’s footsteps and joined the military. While in the Army I continued college at the University of Maryland Europe, Cochise College in Arizona, and San Antonio College, finally completing my undergraduate at the University of Incarnate Word. My interest in Public history primarily stems from my feeling of always enjoying history more when given the opportunity to experience it in living reality. Recounting my years in high school, I can remember that I’ve always loved history but never felt connected to it. For me, all this changed when I was in Europe, Germany to be exact. During this time, with the help of local friends, I was able to walk, stand, breath, and lay in places of historical significance. For me, this is when I realized the importance that physical history has on an individual, culminating in my excitement in learning of the introduction of this program.

August 17, 2018August 17, 2018

The Van Hoy Interlude

Photo of Dr. Teresa Van Hoy visiting the St. Mary’s University Public History program!

Having Dr. Van Hoy visit today was a great way to re-awaken an interest in history that has been dormant for a few years. She brought in a great perspective to the class by sharing some great stories and personal testimony about her time as a historian. Dr. Van Hoy helped bring together the history that we are making now with the history from the past. Danielle, a fellow student in the course, was a main source of interest for this visit.

Danielle Garza featured in the “Faces and Voices of History” article

Dr. Van Hoy spoke to us about her previous experience with the history department and how she was able to include her experiences from her history as a student to her future experiences as a future public historian. We ended our visit with Dr. Van Hoy by taking some shots that we can later include on our curriculum vitae and LinkedIn profile. Hopefully we can continue to bring these shared experiences into the classroom. I know they can definitely share some insight and theory to the history that we will be contributing to in regards to this program.

I’ve included some photos with this post. I plan on using my art of photography within this field as we progress into other areas of history. I think that using the areas of “expertise” in your favor is extremely important. “You will all bring something different table in this program,” Dr. Van Hoy stated, and I completely agree with this. Dr. Wieck has made it clear that her expertise that intersects history and technology shows in her work and we should be able to intertwine these trainings and previous works within out time in this program.

Discussing these topics and ways to loop into the public history we are learning was a great way to shed some light on the possibility of what work we can do on a local and state level as well as a national level.

Now let’s just stay on this with the same momentum and we’ll see what happens!

Stay tuned!!!