Preserving culture: Five NM projects to receive $1.7M from National Endowment for the Humanities

Five New Mexico projects are receiving money from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The New Mexico projects will receive a total of $1,739,082.

On Tuesday, the NEH announced $33.8 million awarded to 260 humanities projects nationwide. The grant awards support capacity-building projects at small museums, documentation of community heritage, conservation research and training, humanities initiatives at college campuses, and new research and digital resources in the humanities.

“It is my great pleasure to announce NEH grant awards to support 260 exemplary humanities projects undertaken by scholars, higher education institutions, and organizations of every size,” NEH Chair Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo) said in a statement. “This funding will help preserve and expand access to community histories, strengthen the ability of small museums and archives to serve the public, and provide resources and educational opportunities for students to engage with history, literature, languages, and cultures.”

Thirty new NEH Infrastructure and Capacity Building Challenge Grants, which leverage federal funding to spur nonfederal support for cultural institutions, will support ADA-compliant improvements to facilities at the Ford Piquette Plant Museum, a National Historic Landmark in Detroit at Henry Ford’s first purpose-built factory, and enable construction of a new learning center to support revitalization of the Keres language and cultural heritage on the Pueblo de Cochiti in New Mexico.

The Keres Children’s Learning Center was awarded $500,000 for “Building KCLC’s Future: Investing in the Next Generation of Keres Speakers.”

The project includes construction of a new learning center to support Keres language fluency and cultural heritage on the Pueblo of Cochiti.

The Pueblo of Isleta will receive $149,998 for “Sustaining Shie’hwif Tue’i Craft Traditions Across Generations.”

According to project director Cassandra Smith, the project will facilitate a series of intergenerational, community-led workshops on Pueblo of Isleta cultural heritage craftwork that is under threat of loss from the impact of COVID-19.

“The project would create a mixed and multimedia archival collection, language recordings, craft curricula and instruction manuals,” Smith said.

Santa Fe’s School for Advanced Research is set to receive $900,000 from the NEH’s Infrastructure and Capacity Building Challenge Grants.

According to Helen Brooks, the project will consist of the relocation and storage of collections during construction as well as the purchase of archival equipment and furnishings to benefit the Indian Arts Research Center at the School of Advanced Research.

Taos’ True Kids 1 will receive $149,084 for “An Intergenerational Knowledge-Sharing Oral History Project in Taos.”

The project will train students, ages 14 to 20, to conduct and record 45 videos with Taos elders.

University of New Mexico’s Matthew Goodwin will get $40,000 for “The Latinx Multiverse: The Many Worlds of Latinx Science Fiction.” The funding will help the research and writing for a book on the social vision that shapes world-building in Latinx science fiction.