{"id":32335,"date":"2025-01-17T02:20:53","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T02:20:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/hli-takes-public-history-to-the-streets-aaslh\/"},"modified":"2025-01-17T02:20:53","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T02:20:53","slug":"hli-takes-public-history-to-the-streets-aaslh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=32335","title":{"rendered":"HLI Takes Public History to the Streets \u2013 AASLH"},"content":{"rendered":"


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By Andrea Jones, Director, History Leadership Institute
With Nicole Martinez LeGrand, Multicultural Collections Curator, Indiana Historical Society<\/span>
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Does our daily grind stand in the way of creating necessary change in the field of public history? With the constant Zoom meetings, the project deadlines, and<\/p>\n

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Indianapolis-based historian, Nicole Martinez, poses with the History Leadership cohort (2024) in a formerly Latino neighborhood now buried beneath Interstate 65.
Pictured from left to right behind Nicole: Leslie Pielack, Sam Black, Kelsey Mullen, Erik Mason, Ghazala Salam, Rebecca Peterson, Melissa de Bie, Anne Miller, Helen Turner, Ann Bennett, Julie Wroblewski, Elizabeth Reighn, Vinnie Barraza, Janna Bennett, Aja Bain, Maria Quintero, Tony Pankuch, Kara Knight, and Araceli Hernandez.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

the onslaught of emails, the pace of our work can leave us with too little energy to question the status quo or to reflect on whether we are doing the right kind of work. That\u2019s why participating in AASLH\u2019s History Leadership Institute \u2013 a program that gives space for experimentation, new ideas, and reflection, can be so powerful.<\/span><\/p>\n

Using Guerilla Public History to Reclaim Lost History <\/strong>
This need to transcend \u201cbusiness as usual\u201d is the reason I invited this year\u2019s History Leadership Institute<\/a> cohort to leave their desks for one day \u2013 to do some guerilla-style public history while coming face-to-face with their comfort zones and their values. With the guidance of trail-blazing curator Nicole Martinez LeGrand (Indiana Historical Society), we hit the streets to activate a formerly Latino neighborhood in Indianapolis whose history had been excluded from mainstream narratives.<\/p>\n

Using creative and temporary tools, we collectively marked, commemorated, and celebrated four locations where a Latino community once thrived in the 1930s \u2013 1960s. With sidewalk chalk, we marked the names of former neighbors and the places they lived, loved, and worshipped as a community.<\/p>\n

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Members of HLI\u2019s 2024 cohort, Ann Bennett (left) and Tony Pankuch (right) commemorate the existence of an unmarked Latino-American community that was displaced due to the construction of Interstate 65 in Indianapolis in the 1960s. (Photos courtesy Andrea Jones)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

With Nicole\u2019s help, I ordered a custom stencil made with the slogan \u201cSigo Aqui,\u201d which translates to \u201cI\u2019m still here.\u201d The stencil was then positioned on sidewalks at the four locations and sprayed with a temporary, water-repellant spray from a company called Rainworks<\/a>. This unique invisible coating, once dry, allows artwork to appear like magic every time it rains for at least three months!<\/div>\n
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