
Come enjoy history, art, and an experience brought to you by la comunidad! This exhibit honors the early Boulder County Latino families and their histories to date. The story includes tragedies, celebrations, and monumental movements. La comunidad was guided by tradition, faith, and a lust for life. Relying on each other’s generosity to get through the arduous and good times was rooted in tradition. La comunidad survived and thrived con corazon!
Watch the 9News exhibit preview
Check out a sneak peek of the exhibit
Check out 9News coverage of some of the unique baseball history in the exhibit
Meet collaborators and contributors, Gabe and Jody Lopez
Listen to a KGNU interview about the exhibit in English or Español
Read the Boulder Reporting Lab’s story ‘It takes them home’: Latino history exhibition tells local stories of pride, pain and perseverance
Read the ATLAS Institute shoutout for Andrea Fautheree Márquez’s project featured in Museum of Boulder’s Voces Vivas
Hear from Emanuel Martinez about his art on display and his life as a Chicano activist
Meet artists and collaborators Adriana and Tupak Palacios-Luna
Meet Chicana muralist Carlotta D. d. R. EspinoZa
Meet artist David Martinez
“Resistance and survival is a political statement. That’s a paradigm shift I’m having. The people in my family were leaders because they led us to thrive.” – Ray Rodriguez
“Dad opened the City Café because they wouldn’t serve him and Albert at a restaurant. Albert served in World War II on the USS South Dakota. He was home, in uniform, and his leg was all burned from when his ship was attacked. Dad took him out for a hamburger. Everyone else in the place was getting served, except Dad and Albert. Dad threw a fit. He knocked over a pie case, tore the “White trade only” signs off the window, and threatened bodily harm if they tried to serve anyone else. They called the cops. When Chief McPhillips got there, he agreed with Dad.” – Mary Gonzales Tafoya
“Identity is complicated, it’s chaotic, it’s complex. Identity isn’t just our ethnicity, race, or gender. It’s the way that we decided to live our lives. It’s the intersection between how we see ourselves and how we are perceived.” – Betsabet Samarripa
“When people sit at their table and pray, are they praying to thank the ag workers of color, or are they praying to a spiritual form of a white man with a long white beard? Maybe that’s why the ag workers don’t get the credit they deserve.” – Ray Rodriguez
“Life’s lessons were lovingly embraced in grandma’s kitchen. Today, the clacking of the rolling pin reminds me of grandma’s kitchen and the rhythm of my roots, steeped like melted butter on a hot tortilla.” – Linda Arroyo-Holmstrom
“I think I started back in 1960 working [at Rocky Flats nuclear weapons manufacturing facility] with the R&D people…. They didn’t tell us any of the dangers of working or handling this beryllium. They should have had it enclosed in plexiglas like they did the plutonium. As a result, all of us got sick, most of us got sick. Of course, I think there was about 36 or 30 of us that worked in the building for about 17 years or so, and I don’t think there’s but about 3 of us living.”
Alfonso Cardenas, from an interview conducted by the Maria Rogers Oral History Program in 2004 (courtesy Carnegie Library for Local History, Boulder)
“What I have learned from all of these stories of mi bisabuela y bisabuelo is that giving up, in this family, is not an option.” – Aliyah Sandoval Ordaz
Special thanks to our collaborators and funders, including but not limited to:
The Latino History Project (formerly known as the Boulder County Latino History Project, especially Lead Community Curator Linda Arroyo-Holmstrom and contributor Marjorie K. McIntosh, with support from Jasón Romero)
University of Colorado Ethnic Studies Department (especially Department Chair Prof. Arturo Aldama and student researchers Jacqueline Mora Manzo and Betsabet Samarripa)
Community Leaders who led community outreach focus groups and listening sessions (Phil Hernandez, Sonia Marquez, Justine Vigil-Tapia, Betsabet Samarripa, and José García-Madrid), the community members who shared their stories, the artists exhibiting their work, and the many other community contributors.
Luna Cultura (especially Adriana Paola Palacios Luna)
KGNU (especially bilingual reporter Rossana Longo-Better) Check out this series of interviews with Rossana Longo-Better and KGNU: https://www.kgnu.org/pasalavoz
The Gabe and Jody Lopez Collection
The Norlin Library
The Longmont Museum
The Lafayette Miner’s Museum
The Horning Family
Terrapin Care Station
The Boulder Arts Commission
The Carnegie Library for Local History









With generous support from the Horning Family
