DRAFT

CULTURAL HERITAGE NEEDS ASSESSMENT: PHASE I 

Ned Kaufman 

April 8, 2004 

I. BACKGROUND 

Cultural Heritage Needs Assessment: What and Why? 

In the summer of 2002, the National Park Service launched a project with modest funding and an 

ambitious mission. The Cultural Heritage Needs Assessment is an effort to “gain a better 

understanding of what aspects of cultural heritage are important to minority cultures and what 

the federal government’s cultural programs could do to better address these aspects of heritage.1

Antoinette Lee is project lead; this author is consultant. This report presents the findings of what 

was conceived as Phase I, carried out in about one year’s time. 

That the United States is, has always been, and will continue to be a country of many cultures 

needs no demonstration. The concern behind this study was that the nation’s official heritage 

preservation programs had not fully measured up to the promise or the demands of this situation. 

Minority participation in heritage programs has been limited, and the picture of American history 

presented by officially designated sites understates the diversity of the nation’s actual history. 

Though this is admittedly difficult to measure, the National Register of Historic Places provides 

a valid yardstick. National Park Service policy states that the National Park Service will “present 

factual and balanced presentations of the many American cultures, heritages, and histories.”2

 Yet 

out of over 76,000 properties currently listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a 

computer search turns up approximately 823 associated with African American heritage, 35 with 

Asian, and 12 with Hispanic. Only one of the Asian sites (a district in Ketchikan, Alaska) relates 

to Filipino American heritage. Taken together, sites identified as African American, Asian 

American, or Latino amount to slightly more than 1 per cent of the total.3

 The nation’s 

preservation programs are not keeping up with the reality of racial and cultural diversity, now or 

in the past. What could be done to improve the situation?

Unlike some studies aimed at broadening program participation, this one did not start with the 

question, How can we bring more people into what we are already doing? In order to target 

scarce resources most effectively it detoured around the traditional review of existing programs 

(though, of course, awareness of those programs was assumed). Finally, it bypassed another 

standby, What are we doing wrong? Instead, it asked simply, What do people value? What 

would they like to conserve? How do they understand their heritage? What services do they want 

from government?

These are large and open-ended questions, and the Assessment was not expected to provide 

complete answers. It was expected to establish a basis and a direction for further work, and this 

report does that, by presenting information on values and priorities that, as expressed by 

1 
community advocates and experts, can provide a basis for developing heritage conservation 

policies. It proposes a number of actions that the federal government could take, as well as areas 

for further study. Its most important recommendation, however, is that the National Park Service 

follow this report with some form of action, whether or not this is accompanied by the further 

study and policy development that the subject undoubtedly deserves. The reasons for this are 

spelled out below. 

But first, a note on methodology is in order. 

A Note on Methodology 

The Cultural Heritage Needs Assessment was inspired by the pioneering work that the National 

Park Service did in its 1990 report, Keepers of the Treasures: Protecting Historic Properties and 

Cultural Traditions on Indian Lands.

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 Written by Patricia Parker, Keepers of the Treasures

quickly became an authoritative description of tribal preservation needs as they might be 

addressed by the federal government, and it led to significant changes in federal programs, as its 

broad ideas influenced the preservation movement in general. Why not do the same for other 

groups outside the majority culture, for African Americans, Latino or Hispanic Americans, and 

Asian Americans?

That was the Assessment’s mandate. However, important differences between this project and its 

predecessor quickly became apparent. Unlike Indian tribes, African, Asian, and Hispanic 

Americans are not organized as coherent entities: they do not have official leaders, 

spokespersons, or lands, and the National Park Service could not treat with them as government 

to government. Furthermore, whereas one could assume that the constituents for preservation 

programs relating to tribal heritage would mostly be future tribal members, this assumption made 

no sense when extended to other groups outside the preservation mainstream. Changing 

immigration patterns make it difficult, in any event, to predict who future African, Asian, or 

Hispanic Americans will be. Finally, whereas the organizers of Keepers of the Treasures had a 

Congressional mandate and funds for a broadly researched study, the Assessment’s organizers 

had neither. We would have to find people who were willing to talk to us and whose voices were 

worth listening to. And we could not possibly talk to enough of them to create a statistically valid 

survey. Insights, suggestions, and judgments based on deep experience and commitment we 

could have; a full-dress survey we could not. The major vehicles for gathering information then 

would be individual meetings and telephone conversations, supplemented by group meetings. In 

the report that follows, the sources of all direct communications received by the author are 

identified in the text, published sources in the footnotes. All respondents (including some not 

quoted directly) are listed in the Appendix. Apart from a few government employees, consulted 

on particular policy issues, and a small number of Asian or Latino respondents who were neither 

Mexican nor Filipino American, all of the respondents were members of the specific groups 

being considered. They range from first-generation immigrants to the descendants of Spanish 

landowners; they include teachers, architects, poets, artists, archivists, museum professionals, 

students, dentists, heritage tourism operators, government officials, activists, film makers, 

anthropologists, historians, literary scholars, and professional preservationists; they span sixty or 

so years in age; and they live in California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, 

Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and 

the Philippines. 

2 
AHA: African/Hispanic/Asian American 

For the purposes of the Assessment, groups outside the mainstream of historic preservation 

activity were deemed to be principally three: African American, Latino or Hispanic American, 

and Asian American. As these groups were far too large and amorphous to grasp with any clarity 

– particularly given limited time and resources – a further decision was made to narrow the focus 

within each group. We would not attempt to study the impact of recent immigration from Africa 

or the Caribbean. This was a pragmatic decision that allowed the Assessment to focus on 

heritage issues relating to long-time African American communities but that prevented the study 

from gaining the benefit of a global perspective on African cultural heritage. In the field of 

African American music, John W. Franklin says one is practically “forced to look at international 

dynamics,” and he argues that placing (for example) “the Maryland experience” in the larger 

picture of African history, culture, and migration, adds greatly to understanding it. This the 

Assessment could not attempt: it remains an important area for further study. 

With regard to Hispanic heritage, it was decided to focus on the Mexican American experience; 

for Asian, on the Filipino American. These too were pragmatic decisions. They certainly did not 

imply a belief that (for example) Filipino Americans could “stand for” other Asian American 

groups. Quite the contrary, they reflected the realization that they could not, nor could Mexicans 

stand for Cubans: that given the limitations of time and resources, a study that purported to 

address “Asian” or “Latino” heritage would become a mere pretense, propped up by 

insupportable generalizations. Miguel Vasquez states that “there is no real ‘Latino community.’ 

Instead, there are many.”5

 Even categories like Filipino American mask a wide range of

historical experiences and attitudes. “Filipinos are so diverse,” sighs Angel Velasco Shaw, “our 

histories are so complicated...” 

While any choice of national groups might have been equally legitimate in terms of the project’s 

central thrust, the three selected groups in fact have considerable importance to American 

history, and to its future. They were among the earliest immigrants to North America. Spain had, 

of course, arrived in North America more than a century before England, and from the Spanish 

point of view, what we now call the southwest was actually the northeast, a provincial extension 

of Mexico. Spanish settlement extended from California to Florida: before they became

American, twenty states had had contact with Spain, and six took their names from the Spanish 

language. When U.S. colonists moved westward into these territories, they encountered not 

wilderness but a scattering of missions, presidios, and pueblos numbering close to 100,000 

people.6

 Well might artist Judith Baca point out, “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed 

us”: Baca’s grandmother, a native of California, habitually referred to it as “El Mexico del 

Norte.” Some go even further: Antonia Castañeda argues that the blending of Mexican with 

native cultures has gone so far, and the cultural roots have burrowed so deep into the land, that 

“We are indigenous: the notion of arrival is not appropriate.” For her, the Mexican American 

heritage of the southwest is a mestizo culture. In any event, Mexican culture and history have 

created an important legacy across a very wide swath of what is now the United States. 

The arrival of Filipinos in North America was connected with the southwest’s Spanish heritage. 

The Philippines too became Spanish colonies, and the first Filipinos to visit North America 

arrived aboard Spanish galleons – the so-called Manila galleons – as early as the sixteenth 

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century. Some certainly visited the area that would become California. During the eighteenth 

century a permanent Filipino settlement appears to have been made near New Orleans, though 

this has not been firmly established.7

African Americans, finally, arrived as slaves and as free people along with the earliest English 

settlers at the beginning of the sixteenth century: since then, their experiences have been 

interwoven into this country’s history in profound ways. 

All three groups have had strikingly close relationships with the United States, though these have 

been anything but easy. There was the trans-Atlantic slave trade, in which some twelve million 

Africans were forcibly brought to the Americas (a surprisingly small percentage of them to the 

United States), followed by a centuries-long sequel of repression. There was the territorial 

aggression (or manifest destiny) against Mexico, followed by the making and breaking of 

promises concerning land grants and the practice of religion. There was the Spanish-American 

War, followed by the Philippine-American war – much longer and bloodier, though less well 

known to Americans – in which America reneged on its promise to liberate the islands; and 

which was followed in turn by a half century of colonial rule from Washington. The history of all 

three regions and of their peoples, in short, have been braided into America’s and cannot be 

disentangled. The history of those of their peoples who have come here and become Americans 

is America’s history. 

Scope and Applicability of Findings 

This report was written for the National Park Service’s historic preservation programs, but it is 

also applicable to State Historic Preservation Offices and local preservation non-profits and 

agencies. Some of its findings will also be helpful to program managers and scholars at the 

Smithsonian Institution, Library of Congress, and other heritage agencies. 

While the report focuses specifically on African, Mexican, and Filipino American heritage 

conservation, convergences of opinion emerged in some areas, suggesting that some findings 

might have broad applicability. The author had then to decide how to present them. Setting forth 

each area separately would let ethnic, national, or racial perspectives emerge with a minimum of 

authorial framing. But readers would find it difficult to identify areas of substantial agreement – 

areas that seemed significant enough to justify a clear presentation. A thematic structure was 

accordingly chosen that would satisfy this need. The sources of all statements have, nevertheless, 

been scrupulously indicated. 

Convergences of interest – for example around the importance of historic sites – are significant 

in and of themselves. They also suggest that some of the report’s findings may be valid beyond 

its tightly focused themes. This possibility must be put forward cautiously: without further 

research it cannot be assumed. Yet it is plausible enough to present readers with their own 

choice: whether to act on the basis of imperfect information or to wait until the data is 

complete...which could, of course, be a very long time. If the author may be permitted an opinion 

on this question, it would be that actions, even imperfect ones, are better than no actions; and that 

while further study would certainly be valuable, taking action to take advantage of opportunities 

that are clearly present, will be far more valuable. 

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II. Context 

A Primer on Immigration 

An important component of this country’s relationships with Mexico, the Philippines, and Africa 

has been immigration, and this has always been more complex than simply the movement of 

people from one place to another. African immigration to the U.S. was largely coerced. Filipino 

immigration was conditioned by what is often called the islands’ “special relationship” with the 

United States, deriving from their colonial status but also from the bravery of many Filipino 

soldiers who fought for the United States in World War II. With Mexico, the border lurched 

southwards and westwards, making United States residents of many Mexicans who had not 

moved an inch. 

Today, immigration is changing this country in important ways and is affecting the position of 

these groups within American society as well. Filipinos are currently the largest Asian immigrant 

group, a fact that surprises many white Americans. Mexicans are the largest immigrant group, 

period, and the largest component of a broad Hispanic influx that may dramatically reshape 

American culture. “The United States is undergoing a Latinization,” writes Miami newsman 

Jorge Ramos, “and there is no turning back. It is an overwhelming, definitive, and irreversible 

phenomenon that is changing the face of America...”8

 While some may regret, and others may 

welcome this change, the data do suggest that something important is happening. A historical 

atlas shows that virtually every part of the country has seen substantial percentage increases in 

Hispanic population during the past decade.9

 In California, where Judith Baca has observed 

dramatic changes during the previous decade, “the Mexicanization of Los Angeles has 

completely transformed the city.” Nationally, Hispanics now appear to be the largest minority. 

As Ramos notes, their purchasing has almost doubled in the last decade, to almost $400 billion in 

2000, or more than gross domestic product of Mexico. The radio stations in Los Angeles with the 

largest audiences broadcast in Spanish, and “in the United States, more tortillas are sold than 

bagels, and more hot salsa than ketchup.”10

It is important to understand what these statistics say and what they do not say. The proportion of 

foreign-born residents has been higher in the past: in 1870, 14 percent, in 1910, 14.7 percent. 

Today it is only 10.8 percent. But as recently as 1970 the figure was a mere 4.7 percent,11 so the 

change has been rapid and the perception of it vivid. And it has been different from the wave of a 

hundred years ago. Where ninety of every hundred immigrants came from Europe around 1900, 

today forty-five come from Latin America, twenty-six from Asia, twenty-three from Europe, and 

the remaining six from other regions.12 The United States has always been a nation of 

immigrants, but they have not come from as many parts of the globe as now. And the new flows 

may be upsetting traditional orders in more ways than one. For example, though the question of 

white-black relationships is anything but resolved, it is no longer possible to think of race as a 

binary matter of black and white. Even within the Hispanic world, traditional balances are 

tipping. At the beginning of the millennium roughly 800,000 Puerto Ricans lived in New York: 

they were still the city’s largest Hispanic group. But whereas in 1950 they had totaled 79 percent 

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of New York’s Latino population, in 2000 they accounted for only 37 percent: if Puerto Ricans 

were down, Dominicans and Mexicans were dramatically up.13

It is difficult to generalize about education and income levels among immigrants, except to say 

that stereotypes are often wrong. While many immigrants come here (as they always have) with 

little education and no money, the household income of immigrants from India in 1980 

substantially exceeded the national median. Even among undocumented Mexican immigrants in 

1990, estimates place illiteracy at between 3 and 10 percent, versus 22 percent for Mexico as a 

whole. Similarly, in contrast to the stereotype of undocumented Mexican immigrants as 

“impoverished peasants,” almost half originated in cities, while “white-collar and urban skilled 

and semi-skilled occupations employed between 35 and 60 percent,” as opposed to about 30 

percent of the Mexican population as a whole.14

These figures, and the complex changes they suggest, are relevant to heritage conservation in 

several ways. First, they frame the experience of our times, which will be the responsibility of 

current and future conservationists to capture. Second, they point to a constituency for heritage 

conservation, now and especially in the future. Heritage conservation, after all, is only partly 

about the past: it is also about the future. And if heritage is to be conserved, it must be for the 

benefit of someone. Who will be the constituents for future heritage programs? 

While Americans of all races and geographic origins will surely benefit from programs to 

conserve diverse heritage, such programs should be of particular value to people who belong to 

the groups most directly affected. Who will those people be? This is no trivial question. While 

immigration statistics provide part of an answer, they also present some puzzles. For 

immigration itself is changing, and with it notions of residence and even citizenship. Scholars 

have coined the word “transnationalism” to refer to these complex and still only partially 

understood changes. 

A Transnational Excursion 

Judith Baca, a well-known Chicana artist, has worked with Los Angeles’s Mexican communities 

for over thirty years. In recent years she has noted a change. Mexicanos now outnumber 

Chicanos, two to six: whereas Chicanos have put down strong roots in Los Angeles, Mexicanos, 

recent immigrants, maintain networks of relationships with Mexico and have not developed such 

strong local roots. 

Baca is describing one aspect of transnationalism: the establishment of communities based on 

“sustained ties of persons, networks and organizations across the borders across multiple nationstates.”15 Whereas traditional options for immigrants were pretty much limited to settling into the 

new place or going back to the old, migrants now can also choose to continue making regular 

visits to their places of origin, sending remittances, keeping touch through phone calls and 

emails, carrying on cross-border business and financial dealings, and even maintaining civic and 

political engagements in their old communities. All of these are happening among today’s 

migrants, and they are creating new cultural situations on both sides of the border. John Silva 

points out that half of all tourism to the Philippines is Filipino immigrants to the United States – 

about a million of them each year. “In Mexico,” remarks Carlos Monsivaís, “the border with the 

United States is everywhere, and economically and culturally speaking, all of us Mexicans live 

6 
along that border.” “Might Mexico one day become a nation of Chicanos?,” he asks.16 Our 

concern of course is with developments on the U.S. side of the border. 

But where is the border, if people live significant parts of their lives and maintain thick economic 

and cultural relationships on both sides of it? And what will Mexican American (or Filipino 

American) cultural heritage look like, fifty years hence, on “our” side of it? Along with 

challenging traditional notions of migration, transnationalization is also challenging established 

understandings of ethnic heritage. Until recently, concepts of how ethnic culture develops have 

tended to follow one of two idealized models. First, assimilation: immigrants gradually blend 

into the mainstream until their cultural identity is submerged, perhaps to resurface in symbolic 

representations of ethnicity (St. Patrick’s Day parade) by later generations. Second, cultural 

pluralism: ethnic groups will retain the cultural characteristics of their countries of origins to a 

significant degree, coexisting as culturally distinct groups within the national borders of their 

new country. To these possibilities transnationalization adds a third, that “syncretist cultural 

practices and meanings” – mixed languages, new customs, intricately hyphenated identities – 

might emerge out of the experience of straddling a border.17

Most perplexingly, transnationalization is challenging accepted notions of national identity and 

even citizenship. National identity has been a sort of umbrella, big enough to shelter most 

aspects of a citizen’s life – economic transactions, cultural identity, family, social, and political 

commitments. But the lives of transnational migrants don’t fit under a single umbrella. Would 

two national-identity umbrellas, side by side, encompass them? Or should the two umbrellas 

become one? Should people be able to shelter under one umbrella for certain aspects of life, 

under another for others? Whatever the answer, it seems at least possible that the concept of 

Americanness will be less compelling as a description of identity for transnational migrants than 

it has been for most residents. And this raises a question: if national identity loses some of its 

force, will regional identity gain? Will some residents come to feel a stronger sense of affiliation 

to the hyphenated culture of their city or region – Los Angeles, Denver, New York, or Miami – 

than to the more distant abstraction of the nation-state?

It is not only low-income migrants who are stretching the bounds of national identity. A well-todo Manhattanite might well choose to see a traveling exhibition in Amsterdam rather than take 

the subway to Brooklyn, and the international art venues frequented by cultural elites form a 

network of sites that, arguably, have more in common with each other with their own cities or 

regions. Internationalism at the top holds out the promise of enriching heritage practice through a 

rich network of professional contacts across borders. However, when considering the response of 

heritage conservation to the experiences of groups characterized by marginal social and 

economic positions, it is primarily internationalism throughout the rest of the social and 

economic spectrum that demands to be better understood. 

If the answers to these questions are unknown to immigration experts, the questions themselves 

have hardly been asked by heritage conservation professionals. Yet they provide the context in 

which programs concerning Mexican American, Filipino American, or other hyphenated 

American history and culture will be enacted. Without venturing too far into the unknown, we 

can guess that many future constituents will maintain active ties to their homelands, and that 

federal programs may have to develop new ways of engaging them. We might hazard a further 

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guess that regional identity, for both the content and implementation of programs, may become

quite useful, and that federal programs will have to be flexible enough to accommodate quite 

distinctive regional expressions of culture. 

III. Heritage and Conservation 

What Is Heritage, Anyhow? 

Describe your symptoms to a group of medical specialists: the pharmacist will prescribe a pill, 

the surgeon an operation, and the psychiatrist counseling sessions. Something similar happens 

when you ask heritage specialists what is the highest conservation priority: the literary expert 

prescribes the written record, the preservationist historic sites, the head of a cultural tourism

agency cultural tourism promotion...and so forth. The “data” contained in this report is 

admittedly biased, reflecting the perspectives of respondents (who were not chosen scientifically) 

as well as the way we asked questions. Rather than structure interviews around a definition of 

heritage, we left it open for respondents to interpret the concept in their own ways. “Heritage,” 

after all, has no exact meaning: it might refer to buildings, historic sites and places; collectible 

things such as books, manuscripts, photographs, artwork, and domestic artifacts; intangible 

goods such as music, dance, cuisine, stories, and traditions or folkways either old or young; 

recordings and other productions that lie somewhere between the solid and the insubstantial; and 

finally, most elusive, history: the created record of the past. The Assessment put all of this up for 

grabs. The validity of its findings stems not from scientific sampling but from the profound 

insights of its respondents, all of whom have dedicated themselves to preserving cultural heritage 

in some form, and all of whom speak from a standpoint within the national or racial/ethnic 

communities being studied. 

As to what makes heritage ethnic, a basic premise of this study, as of many others, was that 

ethnic heritage is not just what immigrants bring with them: it is also how groups adapt to new 

conditions here. Dell Upton makes a useful distinction between the “architecture of memory” – 

features that derive from the country of origin – and “landscapes of experience” – features that 

register the experiences of an ethnic community here in this country. He argues that landscapes 

of experience are the more widespread and more important of the two.18 Nevertheless, much 

thinking about ethnic heritage has concentrated on visually striking manifestations of ethnicity – 

Chinese pagodas or German bank barns – which lie on the “memory” side of the equation. Such 

studies have generally focused on rural settings, because that is where ethnic traits can most 

easily be recognized, and perhaps too because these explorations owe much to the fields of 

vernacular architecture and cultural landscape studies. They have also favored European ethnic 

groups. Recent studies have begun to lift these restrictions. Turning to urban settings, one study 

identifies retail signs, food shops, and recreational structures such as Italian social clubs and 

German beer gardens as marks of ethnic heritage.19 And there has been greater interest in nonEuropean groups. An entire book has been devoted to Filipino American design issues.20 And a 

particularly vibrant area of study – one with a long scholarly tradition all its own – has been the 

identification of Africanisms in American architecture and design.21

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These investigations offered something to the current study. But it was important to define 

heritage in ways that reflected as directly as possible respondents’ own priorities, and with the 

exception of Africanisms, visible manifestations of ethnicity were not generally high on the list 

of cultural productions identified by respondents as critically important. 

One valuable insight into how heritage is perceived can be derived from the biographies of some

of the field’s leaders. Chicana artist Judith Baca, founder and director of Los Angeles’ Social and 

Public Art Resources Council, recalls that she started as a “cultural worker” within the social 

justice movement of the 1960s and 70s. While painting murals with youths in the barrios she 

was also negotiating gang treaties. Nicolás Kanellos, founder of Arte Público Press and of the 

Recovery Project, recalls that the press was born “on the artistic fringe during the Hispanic Civil 

Rights Movement.” Frustrated that mainstream presses were not publishing Hispanic writers, 

Kanellos launched the Revista Chicana-Riqueña in 1972, which led in 1979 to the establishment 

of Arte Público Press as a national outlet for Hispanic literature:22 the name, says Kanellos, was 

intended to place the enterprise within the context of the public art movement that was producing 

important community expressions such as Judith Baca’s murals. Dorothy Cordova, founder of 

the Filipino American National Historical Society, also became involved with heritage during the 

1970s, collecting Filipino American oral histories. She had already founded Filipino Youth 

Activities and would then found the Democracy Project for Asian Americans. During the same

years Joan Maynard was founding Brooklyn’s Weeksville Society to preserve the 

neighborhood’s surviving African American sites: she saw a knowledge of history as essential to 

the ability of African American youths in a troubled neighborhood to survive. Stanley Lowe, a 

leading figure in the African American preservation movement and now a vice president of the 

National Trust for Historic Preservation, got his start in historic preservation by dumping 

garbage on the desk of Pittsburgh’s mayor: he was protesting the deterioration of the African 

American Manchester neighborhood. For Lowe, preserving Pittsburgh’s African American 

heritage was inseparable from the efforts of the city’s African Americans to secure decent homes 

and neighborhoods. For Baca, Kanellos, Cordova, Maynard, and Lowe, a firm belief in the 

importance of heritage was rooted in a passionate dedication to social improvement for their 

communities. 

This linkage between heritage and social activism may well be a generational marker, at least in 

part. Yet it has not characterized the majority of white preservation leaders of the same

generation. In this sense it represents a view of heritage characteristic of Mexican, Filipino, and 

African American practice. Moreover, the linkage has not disappeared. Many African American 

respondents, including those of a younger generation, continue to emphasize the importance of 

community development. Lynn Pono exemplifies it. The daughter of Filipino immigrants, Pono 

describes her sense of Filipino identity as a “learned heritage,” something she picked up from

family and from other Filipino Americans in Skokie, Illinois, where she grew up. But the most 

important experience was joining a college study group that “did a really great job” teaching 

Filipino history. Since then she has sought outlets for both cultural and political expression, first 

in the Chicago area and then around New York, including joining Alianza Latina and working 

with both Cambodian and Filipino immigrants. Now she works as an arts professional in New 

York and is actively involved with two Filipino cultural groups. 

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Pono says she is not interested in issues of representation, by which she means the expectation 

that she should represent herself as a “Filipino artist” and, through her identity and work, 

exemplify some sort of Filipino-ness. Though informed by one’s identity, she believes, one 

should not be bound by it. Yet she, like many other Filipino respondents (as we shall see), is 

“always questioning Filipino identity and what it means”: “it should be changing,” she believes, 

but whatever it is, it absorbs a good deal of attention. So does the bigger question, which 

interests her very much, of “how Filipinos fit into the large thing called American heritage...what 

does it mean to be a Filipino in American society?” These are questions that do not absorb 

mainstream conservationists; on the contrary, they seem to represent viewpoints outside the 

mainstream. In fact, Pono believes her Filipino American perspective, rooted in the Philippines’ 

tangled, messy, multi-cultural, and multi-colonial history, gives her a distinctive and valuable 

vantage point from which to observe American society. She sees a potential for the Filipino 

community to be at the forefront of thinking about American identity. “The United States is 

basically a big experiment,” she says; thinking about cultural issues related to Filipino identity 

can “inform what American identity will become.” 

Pono is uncomfortable with the word heritage. It is too “subjective,” and she prefers words like 

identity and history. Best, however, is culture: “how do people live? The things that people think 

are important – their values, beliefs...art too.” She is more interested in this living culture than in 

“memorializing history,” though she concedes that there is considerable value in marking 

historical events – and it was through a study group in Filipino history that her commitment to 

cultural issues was aroused. 

Don’t Forget History 

“History is important,” says Alan Bergano, a trustee of the Filipino American National Historical 

Society, “because it is the foundation of a people.” The importance of history as a mode of 

understanding heritage emerged with surprising strength from the Assessment. Surprising, at 

least, to a white researcher, perhaps because for many members of the majority history has 

become a sort of luxury good, a pleasant if vaguely defined part of heritage that can be pretty 

much taken for granted. For many respondents, on the contrary, history can never be taken for 

granted. It requires active definition and constant attention, because it shapes identity and 

describes relationships with the majority culture that, in turn, define life in crucial ways. 

Evidence of achievement must be unearthed, underlined, spotlit. Memories of discrimination and 

suffering must be maintained. And sometimes evidence of existence – of simple presence within 

the larger story – must be discovered and defended. For much of history lies lost, forgotten, or 

buried, and before it can become part of heritage it has to be rediscovered. For a long time the 

experience of slavery, now widely accepted as a crucial factor in American history, was in this 

category: something glossed over with little explanation, even excused as essentially benign or 

unimportant. Today some Filipinos are intent on rediscovering the historical experiences of

immigrants from the Marcos era, while some African Americans are bringing back to light the 

history of urban churches and their pastors. The University of Houston is sponsoring a massive 

project, called “Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage,” that aims to rediscover, 

catalogue, and publish the rich and largely forgotten literary heritage of Hispanic Americans. 

History, then, is a crucial part of heritage. It has little in common with the genteel appreciation of

the “finer things” that the word heritage frequently connotes, or with the “souvenir history” that 

10 
Puerto Rican poet Martin Espada derides: the superficial and usually congratulatory 

commemoration of symbolic highlights in American history.23 It does not paint the past as 

“simpler times.” It is instead a relentless struggle to discover, uncover, rediscover, and recover 

facts about the national past that have been swept from public consciousness either because they 

are uncomfortable or because the evidence is ephemeral. For many respondents, history is what 

Antonia Castañeda calls “oppositional history”: history not only of groups that have sometimes 

had to fight for rights or recognition, but also history in opposition to stereotypes and social 

amnesia – history opposed to forgetting. Yet Asian American scholar John Kuo Wei Tchen 

stresses that the goal of pursuing history is not opposition but, rather, reconciliation, specifically 

racial reconciliation. Referring to lawyer and scholar Eric Yamamoto’s study of the subject,24 he 

underlines the importance of three steps toward reconciliation: recognition, redress, and finally 

reconciliation itself. It may be easiest to describe the process backwards, from the hoped-for goal 

of reconciliation where people of different races learn to accept one another as equals, to extend 

forgiveness for past wrongs, and to withdraw barriers to equal participation in society. This 

requires that redress be first provided: an active acknowledgment of wrongs and a commitment 

to correct them. This in turn rests on the first step – recognition – and the key to that, Tchen 

believes, lies in educating Americans about the real history of intergroup relationships. “In many 

places,” he remarks, “Asian Americans were literally run out of town, so they become to all 

appearances white places. These things need to be redressed and reconciled...it’s not enough to 

just sing praises of this country.” If Tchen’s comments sound adversarial, it is important to 

emphasize that his goal is to move beyond hostility. This requires dislodging people from fixed 

positions and stereotypes, and an honest appraisal of the facts is the best way to do so. In 1980, 

Tchen and others founded the Chinatown History Project in New York, later renamed the 

Museum of Chinese in the Americas: he explains that the project’s central goal was to achieve 

“recognition,” because “once you’ve established that, people are willing to be less dogmatically 

nationalist” – on either side of the question. 

Confronting facts about slavery and discrimination causes discomfort for some white Americans. 

It also upsets some black Americans. Referring to slavery, Georgia preservationist Jeanne 

Cyriaque notes that “some African Americans feel it’s a part of the past that they want to forget”: 

they want to get past the slave cabins. William Davis, a New York architect, recalls the case of a 

southern town whose citizens wanted to commemorate their history, including the arrest in the 

1960s of a couple whose crime had been to marry across racial lines. Some black legislators 

opposed the commemoration as being divisive and the sponsors backed off. “Sometimes,” Davis 

concludes, “history may still be too painful or controversial for people to want to 

commemorate.” Yet like Tchen, Davis believes that frankly addressing difficult historical 

subjects can lead to reconciliation and increased social harmony, and he looks to South Africa’s 

great experiment in truth and reconciliation as a model. 

A sense of shame similarly keeps many Filipinos from knowing their own history, says Angel 

Shaw. Yet while it is well to keep in mind that remembering and forgetting history go on side by 

side, and that, in Davis’s words, attitudes to painful historical episodes “are not necessarily 

monolithic,” respondents to this study believed that shame and forgetting were obstacles to be 

overcome – not reinforced -- by looking forthrightly at history. 

11 
Themes 

The themes of African, Mexican, and Filipino American history are richly diverse. Yet a few 

appear with significant persistence across all three. Manual labor – hard, low-paid work (often in 

sun-baked fields) – is one that takes in the experience of enslaved people as well as farm and 

cannery workers, nurses, cooks, and domestic workers. Episodes of persecution, prejudice, and 

exclusion also figure prominently. While the legacy of slavery and violence towards African 

Americans is fairly well known, the ubiquity of discrimination against Asian and Hispanic 

Americans is less so. A Filipino describes encountering a covenant, written in 1941, as part of 

the final sale packet for a house in Vallejo, California, purchased in 1994: “No person not 

entirely of the Caucasian race shall use or occupy the said land or any part thereof, except that 

persons of other races may act as servants to personnel of the Caucasian race actually occupying 

said land.”25 Many Mexican Americans remember signs proclaiming, “No dogs, no Mexicans.” 

Despite these impediments, many Filipinos, Mexicans, and African Americans managed to do 

extraordinary things – found churches and businesses, lead unions, write books, be elected mayor 

or governor, defend America (or New York or Texas or Hawaii or the Philippines) – and these 

stories form a third prominent theme. A fourth, closely related both to achievement and 

exclusion, is the experience of struggle, often expressed in movements for justice that continue to 

inspire Americans, such as the Civil Rights movement and the United Farm Workers’ struggle 

for decent wages and working conditions. Finally, many people managed simply to survive, 

perhaps to marry, raise families, maintain friendships, cook, sing, wash clothes, pick asparagus 

or cotton, change bed pans, or tend sleeping cars. It is important to remember and understand 

their stories too, and to honor their experience. 

These views of history influence many aspects of heritage conservation, from identifying and 

interpreting historic sites to collecting diaries or photographs. So does another theme that 

emerged with particular force. 

Invisible Man 

“I am an invisible man,” announces the black protagonist of Ralph Ellison’s famous novel: “I am

invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.”26 Though Ellison wrote Invisible 

Man over half a century ago, and specifically in response to the African American condition, 

respondents from all three groups identified invisibility as a defining part of their historical 

experience. A former director of New York’s Hispanic Society wrote that, “In the rest of the 

nation the existence of hispano culture in the Southwest was largely ignored until quite recently.” 

And he quoted a Mexican-American: “We are the best-kept secret in America.”27 That was in 

1976. Meanwhile, on the other side of the continent, artist Judith Baca was working with 

Chicano youths in Los Angeles, and she recalls how much it meant to them to celebrate their 

presence and creativity through public artwork that was anything but reticent. Nevertheless, the 

landscape continues be be littered with what Angel Shaw calls “erasures of history.” In Los 

Angeles, the historic Merced Theater still stands, but guides do not tell visitors that it was a 

Spanish-language theater in the 1850s. “They erased that history,” comments Nicolás Kanellos. 

The problem of invisibility may be particularly fraught for Filipino Americans. While Jack 

Tchen regards all Asian Americans as basically invisible, many Filipinos refer to themselves as 

the “invisible Asians,” and with some justification: an informal survey conducted among the 

author’s neighbors found not one who was aware that Filipinos are the largest Asian immigrant 

12 
group. The fact, moreover, seemed mystifying, because they lacked a clear image of Filipinos or 

the Philippines. As Angel Velasco Shaw put it, “They don’t know what to do with Filipinos, 

where to place us.” That may be because, as Shaw points out, Filipinos are “among most the 

most under-represented groups” in museum collections, monuments, sites, or other publicly 

visible acknowledgements of presence. Traveling through California, she is aware of the Filipino 

migrant laborers who once cultivated the fields around her, yet she sees no trace of them in the 

landscape: their history has become invisible. Shaw wants this heritage to be revealed, perhaps 

by putting up plaques, perhaps by teaching about it in the schools, but at all events through 

something that would proclaim: “There were labor camps. Right here.” 

For many Filipino Americans, however, proclaiming one’s presence entails a certain anxiety. 

“Filipinos themselves don’t know their own histories,” comments Shaw, “and part of it is 

shame.” Roz Li speaks of an “identity crisis.” “Are we Asians or Americans?” Unlike, say, 

neighboring Thailand, the Philippines do not have a “pure culture. Ours,” she says, is “more like 

a ‘mutt’ culture,” the result of cycles of Chinese, Spanish, and American domination that have 

left many Filipinos asking: “Do we have our own heritage?” And if so, what is it? Because of

this “identity crisis,” she says, and “because the Philippines have been under America so long, 

Filipinos think they’re very western. Then they come here and find out they’re not...they’re 

eastern.” Li’s entire experience has been defined by the tug of east and west, and that, she says, 

is typical. It can be extraordinarily tough on people. Other Asian groups, she thinks, have more 

realistic expectations. But “many Filipinos think they’re going to come over and instantly be part 

of the mainstream. Then when it doesn’t happen, they get disillusioned and bitter....” Bitter or 

not, the culture that immigrants bring with them is as diverse as Filipino history itself, divided by 

place of origin, date of arrival, class, form of work, place of settlement, politics, and so forth. As 

Angel Shaw remarks, “Filipinos are so diverse, our histories are so complicated.” And so the 

desire to be recognized brings questions about identity to the foreground. 

Whatever doubts may exist regarding cultural identity, the urge to become visible provides a 

powerful impetus for heritage conservation. In 1991 intact eighteenth century African and 

African burials were found on the intended site of a new federal office building in Lower 

Manhattan. The massive public campaign that ensued failed to save the entirety of New York 

City’s African Burial Ground, yet it succeeded brilliantly at making African Americans visible 

within New York’s history. White as well as black New Yorkers developed an entirely new 

awareness of African Americans in early New York: they had become decisively present in New 

York’s history. Today, more than a decade later, thousands of people from all over the world 

continue to visit the site and participate in a range of educational programs and commemorative 

observances.28

Mexican and Filipino heritage advocates understand the value of sites like the African Burial 

Ground – or like the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, a National Historic Landmark 

that was the site of a pivotal confrontation of the Civil Rights movement. Would it not be 

wonderful, asked Refugio Rochin, if the sites of Mexican American struggles were marked in a 

similar way? “To be able to go to Selma and say I’ve crossed the bridge....We need opportunities 

for reflection like that.” 

13 
IV. EFFORTS, ACHIEVEMENTS, RECOGNITION 

All Inequality Is Equal, Some More So Than Others 

While African, Mexican, and Filipino Americans have all launched major heritage conservation 

programs, the responses of agencies outside these groups, and of the public at large, has been 

unequal. In general, African American issues have generated greater official interest. One 

cannot, for example, browse the web pages of the National Park Service without being alerted to 

a wide range of African American heritage issues. The same is not true with regard to Mexican 

or Filipino heritage, which continues to be, as it were, more invisible to society at large. This 

does not mean that African American heritage has been “done”: far from it. Even in Washington, 

D.C., notes John W. Franklin, important African American sites continue to be ignored or 

bulldozed. And despite all that has been done, it is indisputable that, as National Park Service 

consultant historian Michele Gates Moresi observes, “African Americans are not fully integrated 

into the professional field, not ‘mainstreamed,’ if you will.” 

These are sensitive issues. One should not mistake the existence of programs as proof that a 

problem has been solved. At the same time, it would be wrong to allow one’s awareness of 

continuing needs to deny recognition to the successes that have been achieved. And clearly 

within the African American field, there have been many such successes. 

Spotlighting African American Heritage 

The growth of interest in African American heritage demonstrates how social militancy, political 

pressure, scholarly and professional interest, and official action can combine to produce 

impressive results. As early as 1941, Melville J. Herskovits’ Myth of the Negro Past set out to 

document the African past that was embedded in African American culture. During the 1950s, 

the Civil Rights movement encouraged growing interest among scholars and sparked new efforts 

to grapple with the issue of slavery. During the 1960s militant protests were directed at both 

universities and museums, and by the end of the decade, Afro-American studies were entering 

the curriculum, while a few major museums were beginning to address African American topics 

and audiences. Community museums were also opening: the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Museum

in 1967, Brooklyn’s Weeksville Society in 1971. Scholarly and popular interest seemed to spur 

each other on: the life story of a black sharecropper became a national bestseller in 1974, Alex 

Haley’s fantastically successful Roots in 1976.29 Meanwhile, the academic field of material 

culture studies was opening up new approaches to African American heritage, particularly 

architecture and crafts, and by the 1990s readers could consult studies in which the full range of 

material production, from plantation houses to walking sticks, were analyzed in the context of 

social conditions, folklife, race relations, and the survival and evolution of cultural traditions.30

The rediscovery of African American heritage also excited the historic preservation field, 

especially in the South, where several states launched official programs:31 the Black Heritage 

Council of the Alabama Historical Commission (founded in 1984), the Georgia Minority 

Heritage Coalition, and soon heritage councils and coalitions in Kentucky, Florida, South 

Carolina, and Louisiana. In 1984, Georgia’s State Historic Preservation Office published an 

important guide to historic black resources,32 and by the early 1990s guidebooks to African 

American heritage sites and newsletters on African American heritage preservation were 

available in Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, and Kentucky. Meanwhile, historic houses 

and sites like Colonial Williamsburg began to put African Americans back into the historical 

14 
picture and to deal with subjects like slavery in a forthright way.33 Today, while many 

plantations continue to present an incomplete and biased picture from which slavery and, indeed, 

black people have been erased in favor of hoop skirts and family recipes, others -- such as the 

Cane River Creole National Historical Park and Evergreen Plantation, both in Louisiana – 

present accurate and indeed fascinating accounts. 

Progress was taking place in the north as well. The Weeksville Society was launched in 

Brooklyn in 1971. By the 1980s, Sturbridge Village was developing living history techniques 

related to African American history. New York’s State Historic Preservation Office released a 

handbook on identifying African American historic resources.34 The campaign to save New York 

City’s African Burial Ground and Audubon Ballroom (site of Malcolm X’s assassination) moved 

African American heritage issues to the foreground. Meanwhile, African American preservation 

movements developed in Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and elsewhere. 

Today, the National Register of Historic Places lists over eight hundred properties associated 

with African American history. National Historic Landmark Theme Studies have been carried 

out or authorized on Black Americans in United States History (1974), Racial Desegregation in 

Public Education (1998), and Civil Rights (2000). The U.S. Congress has authorized the 

National Park Service to carry out other major projects focused on African American heritage. 

For example, the Lower Mississippi Delta Development Commission (1988) led to plans for a 

Delta Region African-American heritage corridor, cultural center, and music heritage program

emphasizing the blues (1994).35 A preservation and interpretation study of the Underground 

Railroad (1990) resulted in a travel itinerary of 59 National Register properties in 21 states, a 

number of National Historic Landmark designations, and a published interpretation guide for 

historians and site administrators.36 The Cane River National Heritage Area, Cane River Creole 

National Historical Park, Jean Lafitte NHP, and New Orleans Jazz NHP interpret aspects of the 

history of Louisiana’s creoles of color. The National Park Service has studied the GullahGeechee heritage of the Georgia and Florida coasts and has prepared a travel itinerary of 

National Register properties connected with the Civil Rights Movement. And in addition to the 

material available on its other websites, the National Park Service maintains an informative 

website specifically about African American heritage.37 Since 1995, grants have been made from

the Historic Preservation Fund to the historically black colleges and universities for preserving 

historically significant buildings. In addition, the National Trust for Historic Preservation 

regularly highlights cultural diversity in its conferences – especially African American themes – 

and offers scholarships to attend them. Two states, Georgia and Alabama, have full-time African 

American heritage programs. State and national guides to African American historic sites are 

widely available. There are regular conferences on African American heritage topics. And 

according to architect Richard Dozier, most of the eight architecture schools among the 

Historically Black Colleges and Universities offer courses in historic preservation. 

John W. Franklin offers a sharp corrective to anyone who might think that these achievements 

mean that the problem has been solved. In cities like Baltimore, Annapolis, or even Washington, 

D.C., he says, there is still “great resistance to telling the story.” Meanwhile, all over the country, 

African American communities continue to be destroyed by transit schemes and other forms of

development. Geraldine Hobdy, former Louisiana State Historic Preservation Officer – the 

state’s first black SHPO and the nation’s second – offers another caveat to the picture of bustling 

15 
achievement. “There has sometimes been a need,” she says, “to create the appearance of helping 

a segment of the population for political reasons, or for reasons driven by tourism.” A state might 

“create some materials – beautiful posters – but it doesn’t necessarily go beyond that”; you might 

find “beautiful publications but no archives.” In Georgia, Hobdy credits SHPO Elizabeth Lyon 

with making sure “there were real programs, even if they were not always obvious to the general 

public.” But, she warns, you have to look beyond appearances to see whether genuine programs 

of lasting value are being created. Though much remains to be done, in many places such 

programs have been launched. 

Mexican and Filipino Heritage: Awaiting the Spotlight 

Neither Mexican nor Filipino American heritage has yet become visible to the general public, or 

been recognized by the historic preservation profession, in the way African American heritage 

has. True, public acknowledgment has not been completely lacking. In the winter of 2003, two 

exhibitions could be seen simultaneously in Washington. One, at the Smithsonian’s National 

Museum of American History, depicted Filipino American life in California during the 1940s 

and 50s; the other, across the Mall at the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building, life in the 

traditionally Mexican American region of the Rio Grande Valley.38 In May, 2003, the National 

Trust for Historic Preservation named Little Manila, Stockton’s historic Filipino American 

neighborhood, to its annual list of 11 Most Endangered Historic Places – an unfortunate way to 

recognize a “cherished local landmark” that, in President Richard Moe’s words, provides “one of 

the few remaining sites that reminds us of the important role played by Filipino Americans in 

shaping our nation.”39 The Trust has also named a two-hundred-mile stretch of the Lower Rio 

Grande, associated with Mexican American heritage, to its 11 Most Endangered List.40 Yet such 

marks of recognition are the exception. Out of over 76,000 properties listed on the National 

Register of Historic Places, only 35 are listed as relating to Asian American heritage, 13 to 

Hispanic heritage; of the Asian American sites only one relates directly to Filipino history. The 

key word “Mexican” brings up only twenty-eight entries on the National Trust’s website, 

“Filipino” seven (almost all relating to Stockton’s Little Manila neighborhood).41 Out of 

approximately sixty National Historic Landmark Theme Studies, only two have ever been 

undertaken on Asian or Hispanic American themes: Spanish Exploration and Settlement (1959) 

and Japanese Americans in World War II (1991). Of twenty-three authorized National Heritage 

Areas, only one is located in the Spanish southwest and none directly relates to Hispanic or 

Filipino American heritage.42

Geraldine Hobdy attributes the success of many African American heritage initiatives in part to 

the existence of a political incentive to help (or appear to help) African American constituents. 

Political strength is often connected with official support for heritage conservation. In 1994, for 

example, Florida’s state legislature recognized an important political constituency by authorizing 

funds for a “Florida Cuban Heritage Trail” (it later authorized trails for Jewish and women’s 

heritage).43 Effective heritage preservation comes from political leverage: the importance of the 

linkage can hardly be overstated. 

Right now, growing Latino political power is laying the groundwork for recognition of Mexican 

American heritage – if Latino politicians and their constituents choose to use their leverage for 

this purpose. Given an expanding Filipino American population, similar leverage may be 

developed in the future. In the meantime, both Mexican and Filipino American groups have 

16 
launched impressive heritage conservation projects, within their communities, that will have 

great importance for the future. While the following discussion cannot claim to be complete, it 

does indicate the conservation priorities that respondents brought to the attention of the 

Assessment. 

V. PRIORITIES AND STRATEGIES 

The Written Record: Filipino American Heritage, FANHS and the National 

Pinoy Archive 

The Filipino American National Historical Society,44 founded in 1982, has encouraged and 

organized much of the energy that Filipino Americans have devoted to heritage conservation. 

Based in Seattle, FANHS has twenty chapters around the country, including Alaska, Oregon, 

Virginia, New York, the Midwest, New England, and New Mexico: there are seven chapters in 

California. Active members include both professional and amateur historians. FANHS trustees 

meet regularly to exchange information and strategize, and the organization hosts a national 

conference every other year. Within the last few years, some younger scholars have begun to 

challenge some of the assumptions about Filipino American history (and ethnic heritage in 

general) on which FANHS was built. Yet even they continue to FANHS in high esteem for 

having sustained a sense of community and purpose among heritage advocates, nurtured the 

work of historians both professional and amateur, and overcome severe obstacles to create 

scholarly resources of unique and irreplaceable value. 

Filipino heritage advocate also hold its founders and leading spirits, Dorothy and Fred Cordova, 

in great affection. John Kuo Wei Tchen, a highly respected scholar of Asian American history 

who has mentored many younger Filipino scholars, calls the Cordovas the “grandparents or 

godparents” of those younger scholars – some of whom continue to refer to them in Filipino 

fashion as Auntie Dorothy and Uncle Fred. Their moral authority stems from a combination of 

sources: an unshakeable belief in the importance of Filipino American heritage, an indomitable 

will to protect it, personal warmth and generosity of spirit, and authenticity of experience. The 

Cordovas have lived Filipino American heritage. Dorothy Cordova’s father was a salmon 

cannery contractor; Fred Cordova grew up in a family of migrant farmworkers in Stockton, 

California, before moving to Seattle in 1946. And their dedication to heritage conservation is 

legendary, reaching back at least thirty years. 

In 1987, FANHS established the National Pinoy Archive in Seattle, and under Fred Cordova’s 

leadership this repository has become an indispensable resource for the Filipino American 

history. “It’s amazing what this man has achieved,” is the sober assessment of scholar Angel 

Velasco Shaw. As John Silva sees it, FANHS went “hog-wild” to collect absolutely everything: 

documents, letters, diaries, newspaper clippings, oral histories, photographs.... Indeed, Shaw 

asserts, many Filipino American leaders “will want everything preserved” – and, she adds, “I 

would agree with that.” 

Dorothy Fujita-Rony distinguishes between two kinds of objects that can be collected: first, 

things that reflect old-country traditions and accepted values; second, those the reflect the 

community’s experience here. These things – oral histories, photographs, letters, posters, work 

17 
tools, diaries – are the most fragile and ephemeral. They also represent a contested terrain. 

Fujita-Rony says that in any marginalized or immigrant community, people will try to collect 

these things, and keeping them in the community will become politically important. Conversely, 

outside organizations that show a well-meaning interest in collecting the same objects may well 

be perceived not so much as wanting to collect as to “come in and take” things. 

Many Filipino Americans respondents see the core of heritage as lying in the life experience of 

Filipino immigrants. “You have to have lived that life,” says Shaw, to fully understand what 

abstractions like farm work or racism really meant: most people simply would not believe what it 

was actually like. Alan Bergano says that “Filipino American history starts at home,” in 

understanding the experience of one’s parents. So it becomes enormously important to preserve 

the historical records of the Filipino American experience, and this is what the National Pinoy 

Archive has done. But the case for the importance of written (and spoken) records goes beyond 

this remarkable archive. Aimy Ko, a recent university graduate and first-generation immigrant, 

remembers that when she undertook a historical research project on her grandfather Maximo

Manzón, who graduated from NYU Law School (but was not allowed to practice law in this 

county), she was able to go to her uncle for family stories. To whom, she asks, will future 

generations of students turn? And how will they place their family stories within the larger 

historical narrative? “It’s important,” she urges, “ to have the documents available to students or 

to anyone who’s trying to locate themselves relative to their families and the past.” 

Luis Francia emphasizes the centrality of one particular kind of document: community-based 

newspapers. These provided the “ways in which Filipinos and Filipino Americans 

communicated with each other,” and today they are indispensable both as cultural products of the 

Filipino community and records of its experiences. As Rick Bonus puts it, community 

newspapers are “fixtures” in Filipino American stores, beauty salons, and other community 

spaces.45 The newspaper are numerous, varied, and stem from many parts of the country: one 

published in New York, for instance, served as an outlet for immigrants opposed to the 

imposition of martial law in the 1970s. “It would be great,” says Francia, “if there were a whole 

set somewhere” – for example, at the Library of Congress. But not only there: another set should 

be lodged within a leading Filipino community-based organization. 

The National Pinoy Archive deserves and needs financial support. FANHS board members place 

a high priority on securing the Archive’s future. Angel Shaw agrees: “Someone should give Fred 

Cordova money to preserve the archive,” she says. The tasks of collecting and conserving are 

simply outgrowing the resources of a community-based non-profit. So is the collection’s national 

importance. But cultural politics have to be considered too. While many Filipino American 

respondents would appreciate both the financial support and the professional expertise that 

federal agencies like the Library of Congress could bring, they want the collection to remain 

within the community, and they want Filipino American sensibilities to continue directing its 

course. 

Important as FANHS is, Filipino American heritage studies are expanding in new directions. 

Whereas FANHS has emphasized the west coast experience, especially that of agricultural and 

fishery workers, some New York respondents believe that the experience of Filipino immigrants 

there – in which professionals, artists, and intellectuals have figured more prominently – also 

18 
merits exploration. Moreover, a new generation of well-trained and highly motivated young 

scholars is emerging. Their books and teaching are creating the kind of intellectual heft that has 

so effectively sustained African American heritage conservation efforts – though the gains in 

political influence and militancy that accompanied the development of Black Studies are so far 

lacking.46

The Written Record: Hispanic Heritage and the Recovery Project 

Like Filipino respondents, many Mexican American respondents stressed the importance of 

written records for uncovering, preserving, and teaching history. Here too, amateur historians 

have done critically important work. Indeed, when it comes to finding important historical 

materials, Nicolás Kanellos credits amateur historians and genealogists with being “way ahead of 

the scholars.” And “there are thousands of them out there,” piecing together early land claims, 

genealogies, settlement records, stories, and local traditions. They meet nationally and are most 

numerous and active in the formerly Mexican southwest, including California and Texas. There 

are local preservation societies like Houston’s Tejano Association for Historical Preservation. 

And there are amateur journals of history and genealogy, like El Mesteño in south Texas and La 

Herencia in New Mexico. 

Meanwhile, Kanellos’s own Recovery Project, based at the University of Houston, has 

established itself as an academic powerhouse, discovering, inventorying, and publishing 

important but long-forgotten Hispanic American texts. Known formally as “Recovering the U.S. 

Hispanic Literary Heritage,” the Recovery Project has made major steps towards preserving and 

making accessible a literary heritage that includes not only the “conventional literary genres” but 

also letters, diaries, oral lore and popular culture stemming from Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, 

Spanish and other Hispanic Americans. Kanellos launched the Recovery Project in 1992 as an 

outgrowth of Arte Público Press, which he had founded in 1979 as a national non-profit 

publisher of Hispanic literature, and which he had moved to the University of Houston the 

following year. The Recovery Project’s on-line catalogue currently lists twenty-five volumes of 

poetry, stories, letters, novels, and other accounts, in addition to scholarly works on Hispanic 

literature, including a history of early Hispanic periodicals in the United States.47 But these 

publications offer no more than a glimpse into the vast database on Hispanic writing that Arte 

Público is compiling and digitizing for internet use. Calling newspapers and other periodicals the 

“primary cultural repository of Hispanic written thought,”48 Kanellos notes that the Recovery 

Project has already assembled bibliographic information on 1,700 Spanish-language periodicals 

before 1960 and digitized 350,000 articles: eventually it plans to digitize 700 books and 900 

newspapers. 

Gerald Poyo, a professor of history at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, thinks the Recovery 

Project is having a major impact in redefining Hispanic history and culture, and he credits the 

project with bringing scholars together, nurturing their work, and enhancing their consciousness 

of an evolving field. Literary scholar Rosaura Sanchez believes the Recovery Project’s value 

extends beyond the universities. Before the Recovery Project, students and general readers had 

“only what scholars have written” about these priceless literary sources, and this remains largely 

true: “Why,” she asks, “should only the few be able to read those texts?” Making them available 

enriches and changes the public culture and makes it possible for teachers to tackle previously 

inaccessible historical subjects. After the Recovery Project published María Amparo Ruiz de 

19 
Burton’s long-unavailable novel of 1885, The Squatter and the Don, Sanchez notes, teachers 

began to use it in classes. Now it is “part of the Chicano canon.” Sanchez has a vision: someday, 

the diaries, novels, and newspapers of Hispanic North America will be so widely available “that 

anybody wanting to study this, all they have to do is go to their library and read it themselves.” 

Kanellos too would like the Recovery Project’s books to be more widely available. The 

bookshops of museums and historic sites – including those of the Smithsonian and the National 

Park Service – would make ideal distribution points. Yet Kanellos is frustrated that so few have 

taken advantage of the opportunity, even where titles would be directly relevant. Nor is the 

Recovery Project the only source of publications that would extend the offerings available to 

visitors: many history and heritage societies and culturally specific museums also offer extensive 

lines of publications. Whether those of the Recovery Project or of other publishers, stocking 

more and better publications in their bookshops would be a relatively simple step that federal 

agencies could take to support the conservation of Mexican (and Filipino and African) American 

heritage. 

Museums

Museums appeal to respondents for several reasons. They offer a way towards what Jack Tchen 

calls recognition. They also provide centralized collection and display points for artifacts 

advocates consider important to preserve. And of course they present opportunities to educate. 

Yet both the politics and the economics of museums are complex. 

Some Filipino respondents identified the establishment of a major national Filipino-American 

museum and library as a high priority. Respondents in New York take inspiration from the 

Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian and its George Gustav Heye Center in New York, 

as well as from the city’s Museum of Chinese in the Americas. “We don’t have that,” comments 

Angel Shaw: “Filipinos are the last nationality without a museum.” While not strictly true, her 

statement suggests the strong appeal that the museum idea has for some members, at least, of a 

historically important and very populous group. 

However clear in concept, the cultural politics of museums can be complex. Some FANHS 

chapters are raising funds for a museum in Stockton, California. Will it adequately present the 

experiences of east-coast Filipino American communities? How will it relate to the National 

Pinoy Archive in Seattle? Can the community sustain a top-notch museum? Some Filipino 

American respondents voiced a need for “someone of the caliber of the Smithsonian” to manage 

a museum and establish the most up-to-date “professional ways to preserve and document 

artifacts.” On the other hand, they recognize that a proposal to surrender community control to a 

federal agency would be highly controversial and, indeed, problematic since it might deprive 

Filipinos of the very voice they had worked so hard to gain. They admire the way tribal voices 

and interpretations come through at the American Indian museum. That of course owes 

something to the governmental standing of Indian tribes. Lacking this, ethnic or national 

immigrant groups might have more difficulty achieving this balance in a partnership with the 

federal government. But the question is worth posing: could a similar result be attained through 

some sort of partnership arrangement in which, perhaps, local collecting projects could “link up 

with the Smithsonian”? One way or another, a highly professional, national-scale repository for 

art, artifacts, documents, and oral histories is needed. 

20 
As an interim step, Luis Francia asks, “would the Smithsonian be willing to do an oral history 

project” on a national scale? Such a venture, as Francia sees it, would include interviews to 

illuminate “all different aspects of Filipino American experience” across the country and across 

generations. It would build on existing work but add to it and, as it were, fill in the gaps. Such a 

project could become “a seed bed for what a museum could be.” 

Some Mexican American respondents identified museums as important components of heritage 

conservation, frequently in conjunction with historic sites. Both Nicolás Kanellos and Rosaura 

Sanchez emphasize the tremendous value of the collections held by missions, presidios and other 

historic sites, some of which contain priceless documents and other artifacts. All too often the 

potential of these collections is frustrated by inadequate funds for cataloguing, research, and 

conservation, sometimes putting fragile objects at great risk. Professional expertise may be in 

short supply as well. Control over interpretation frequently lies outside the community. And 

sometimes that is aimed more at gratifying (Anglo) tourists than at presenting history in an 

objective way. So museums represent both problems and opportunities. Again, the politics of 

culture and community are complex. Kanellos points out the value that a major national 

repository like the Library of Congress could bring to a partnership. Major collections of 

documents, he says, should either be lodged there or at their sites of origin: if the former, then 

the sites must have facsimiles, for such collections are invaluable teaching tools for historic sites. 

Though the final repositories may remain unclear, Mexican and Filipino American heritage 

groups are assembling the historical evidence of their participation in American history with 

enormous vigor: books, manuscripts, letters, diaries, newspapers, restaurant menus, news 

clippings, photographs, land deeds, genealogies, oral histories, and so forth. This is a national 

service of inestimable value that will allow future citizens and scholars to know these chapters in 

American history. One way that government can participate in conserving Filipino and Mexican 

American heritage is to support this work by providing technical assistance and grants, and by 

using its considerable purchasing power to make the publications of non-governmental heritage 

organizations available to the public through its own museums and historic sites. This would, of 

course, benefit the larger public as well. 

Folkways 

◦ Traditions and Folkways 

A particular question for the Assessment was whether federal agencies should play an expanded 

role in protecting or interpreting folkways and traditions. No clear answer emerged, though the 

evidence suggests several constructive lines of action. For example, preserving the history of 

folkways would allow heritage agencies to take on many of the functions discussed above – 

collecting, curating, conserving, displaying historical evidence – while also photographing, 

filming, and recording it. And agencies outside the heritage field could do help support living 

cultural traditions by refraining from taking planning, development, or regulatory actions that 

harm them. The subject deserves further study. 

Many respondents include folkways within their concepts of heritage. Jeanne Cyriaque notes that 

music provides an effective way to preserve that elusive “spirit of place,” particularly when 

significant buildings no longer exist: she appreciates groups like the Georgia Sea Island Singers 

21 
and the McIntosh County Shouters who continue to maintain traditional forms of music. 

Traditional ways of transmitting community experience from generation to generation are also 

valued. “Filipino American history starts at home,” says Alan Bergano: it is very familyoriented. However, beyond general stances like these, the picture becomes less clear. Take 

language. Here is Moses Spear Chief, of the Blackfeet Reservation, on the subject: “If it’s gone 

then their culture is gone ... Without the language, values are lost, your sense of belonging is 

gone.”49 This is a classic statement of the centrality of language to culture. Yet if the role and 

survival of languages is a key issues for many tribes, the issue was less clear-cut with 

respondents to this study. Some Filipino Americans regret the loss of language ability within the 

community. Roz Li says that second generation Filipino Americans typically lose their native 

language: “hardly any of the kids know how to speak it....They’re so afraid of being 

stigmatized...I think it’s very sad.” Jorge Ramos agrees with the premise that the “link between 

language and identity” is important: Latinos’ sense of identity, he asserts, “is intrinsically linked 

to where we came from and what language we speak.”50 But Spanish appears to be in no danger 

of disappearing. Quite the contrary, “Spanish is more alive than ever in the United States.” Nine 

out of ten Hispanics, according to Ramos, speak Spanish at home; the Spanish-language media 

flourish in a way that previous immigrant presses never did. And in contrast to earlier immigrant 

groups, “Hispanics have not had to lose their language or their culture in order to feel as if they 

have assimilated; in fact, many have taken a stand in defense of that culture.”51

Judith Baca agrees that “cultural retention is something the Mexican American community itself 

is quite committed to.” In contrast with the African or Filipino American diasporas, she points 

out, Mexican Americans are able to continually refresh not only their language but also their 

historical awareness and cultural production by movement across the border – that same border 

that had originally crossed them. Throughout the southwest they also draw on what Baca calls 

“land-based memory”: deep roots in places where Mexicans have lived continuously for as much 

as five hundred years. And many remain acutely aware of their ancestors’ loss of land following 

the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, no mere a historical curiosity but an obstacle to Mexican 

Americans seeking to maintain old ties to the land. Again, while traditions and folkways are 

important, government’s role in protecting them is neither simple nor clear. 

◦ “I Don’t Like Turkeys” 

Transnationalism is making everything still more complex. An anecdote told by Jorge Ramos 

reminds us that immigrants do not simply bring their traditions with them. A Mexican 

immigrant, Amelia, “was about to celebrate Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. 

She had just arrived in the United States, but she was very interested in the upcoming 

holiday and wanted to know what I was planning to do for San Guivi. 

“San Guivi?” I asked, puzzled. 

“Yes, San Guivi, that saint that they pay tribute to here,” she replied. 

Amelia had assimilated this new holiday into the Catholic traditions that were familiar to her. In 

this context, she had interpreted Thanksgiving phonetically as San Guivi.52

A website, www.filipinoamericans.net, calls itself “A One-Stop Site for Filipino American 

History and Culture” and manages an on-line community forum called “The Filipino Forum.”

53

This a good place to sample the concerns that some Filipino Americans express about retaining 

22 
their cultural heritage: it too suggests the flavor of transnationalism, of constant improvisation, 

and of traditions that are not so much maintained as learned and, sometimes, reinvented. 

Arranging weddings in the Philippines prompts many questions in the Filipino Forum. One 

woman writes: “...I’m also getting married next year and wanted to have a somewhat traditional 

Filipino wedding. So I’m interested to know what a Filipina gown looks like? And what is the 

groom (me) supposed to wear? A Barong?” One helpful response refers the questioner to a 

website, mybarong.com, which “provides pictures of barong tagalog, Filipina gowns, wedding 

rituals, wedding accessories and other Filipino wedding traditions.” Clearly not all Filipino 

Americans know the traditional customs, but some want to learn and follow them. This is shown 

even more clearly in a posting concerning another important ritual: 

“...Traditionally or maybe a religious calling, we Filipinos celebrate? (sorry, don’t know 

what the proper word to use) the one year death of a family member. Am I right so far? Anyway, 

that’s the reason I am writing....” 

“I will be assisting my deceased brother’s wife in preparation for this ‘babang luksa’ and 

I don’t have a clue on what are we suppose to do or what to present to our guests? I have not 

attended this type of event and I don’t know what goes on except prayers. I appreciate any advice 

on what needs to be done for this occasion. BTW, we are Tagalogs if this matters at all. I am

thinking maybe each region have different ways to doing it?” 

How to celebrate American holidays like Thanksgiving prompts further questions. One writer 

remembers: “in my neck of the woods...here in Little Manila town, my family had roast pork 

(from the oven) not the lechon kind. Never really developed the acquired taste for turkey...maybe 

next year, it’ll be lechon manok. Remember those, guys?? Thanksgiving never really became a 

family tradition, only a tradition of four-day weekends which we all enjoy.” To which another 

responds: “Never had lechon manok. How do you prepare and cook it? It will be a good sub for a 

turkey. I don’t like turkeys.” And a third: “My family is not really much of a turkey eater either 

but we have it for the Caucasian members of the family. What interesting though that my mother 

did this year was to take a whole turkey to the Chinese Deli/Restaurant nearby and have the 

Chinese cook there roast it for us....We almost always have the Honey Baked Ham...and the rest 

of the food on the table are Filipino dishes. We look forward to this holiday to get everybody 

together and catch up on everyone’s lives.”54

◦ Folkways and Ethnography: Roles for Government 

Anyone who believes that tradition is static might ponder these passages, as might those 

considering government’s role in protecting folkways. Neither Mexican nor Filipino respondents 

asked for or saw a clear role for government in helping to protect traditions that their 

communities are actively managing. Two respondents offered cautions. Guadalupe San Miguel, a 

historian with a wide knowledge of Mexican American musical traditions, noted that the 

Smithsonian has “done wonderful work with some of the schools” in South Texas but questioned 

whether the Institution’s efforts to preserve the conjunto music of that region were too narrowly 

aimed at preserving a particular kind of music that had been popular in the 1950s. In fact, San 

Miguel explains, conjunto continues to evolve like other aspects of a living culture. Was the 

Smithsonian promoting an image of a “static culture,” creating “a stereotype of what Tejano 

music is?” Dorothy Fujita-Rony cautions that Filipinos themselves are divided on what counts as 

authentic Filipino folklore. Pilipino Cultural Nights emerged as major community events during 

23 
the 1970s and 80s, involving hundreds of students in dances, skits, and political commentary. 

They were “major avenues of cultural reclamation.” But, she says, some Filipinos argue that folk 

dances actually reflect 1950s-era government cultural policies more than they do genuine 

Filipino folk culture. And Filipinos differ on whether folklore should properly be about the home 

country or about the community’s experiences here. 

While it may be difficult for government to support folkways, government can all too easily 

harm them. Regulations may be passed to outlaw cockfighting, restrict the selling of live 

chickens, or ban fishing from the pier or hunting in the forest. Government may condemn and 

redevelop downtown properties, displacing traditional African, Mexican, or Filipino 

communities; or it may allow the market to transfer land, water, and other resources from

traditional communities to new owners. In New York City it has replaced Puerto Rican casitas

with housing and other new construction. In the southwest it alienated land from Mexican 

owners, despite treaty obligations. Many (but not all) of these government actions are taken in 

pursuit of broad social objectives that policy-makers believe transcend the value of imperiled 

traditions. Frequently, however, the social value of those traditions is not considered in the 

political process, and few tools exist to help decision-makers measure it even if they want to. 

A good first step towards rethinking government’s responsibilities to living cultural heritage 

would be to institute a broad review of government’s impact on the ability of communities to 

maintain their folkways. A second step would be to develop legal and policy tools with which 

decision-makers and the public could assess the impact of proposed actions on traditions and 

values that are at stake. 

Another fruitful step would be to identify traditions that require buildings or other spaces, assess 

the threats against those spaces, and consider how they could be alleviated. Sociologist Ray 

Oldenburg has developed the concept of the “third place,” the place that is neither home nor 

work but that provides an invaluable setting for public socializing. Oldenburg’s third places can 

be restaurants, bars, retail shops, service establishments, or community centers, but to qualify, 

they must provide nor merely service but also a sense of place that nurtures community bonds.55

Most communities, perhaps all communities, have third places. A study of Filipino communities 

by Rick Bonus56 identifies three types of places where Filipino Americans typically articulate 

community identity in a public setting: the so-called Oriental stores, community centers, and 

sites of media, especially local newspaper offices. Shoppers at an Oriental store, for example, 

told Bonus that they offer not only products but also “story-telling and gossip”: they are places, 

they said, “where you can be comfortable, where you can be your own self, buy the best goods, 

find the kinds of things you cannot find anywhere else...where you can feel okay because you not 

only buy goods that you know, but you buy them with people you know.”57 In Oldenburg’s 

terms, Oriental stores are third places. 

This author has considered the value of community gathering places as “story sites,” sites that 

embody traditions, and has discussed how communities can make use of the scant protections 

available under existing historic preservation and environmental laws.58 It would be useful to 

apply this line of thinking specifically to African American, Filipino, and Mexican communities. 

Oriental stores, Filipino American community centers, and local newspaper office appear to be 

“story sites.” Are they in need of protection? If so, what kind? What about comparable Mexican 

24 
American places? Are they threatened? And if so, by what – by economic forces, land use 

regulations, gentrification, changing customs? These issues need further clarification. 

For a variety of reasons, historic preservation laws do not offer much assistance in preserving 

third places, story sites, or the traditions associated with them, though the concept of traditional 

cultural properties may ultimately prove useful. More promising at the moment may be the 

environmental laws, under which it may in some circumstances be possible to recognize cultural 

features like third places as elements of the environment on which the impact of proposed 

actions – projects undertaken, permitted, or funded by government – must at least be considered. 

The State of Hawaii has taken this line of reasoning somewhat further. The state legislature 

recently amended its environmental statute to require that environmental impact statements 

consider the effects of proposed actions on the “cultural practices of the community and State.” 

The same amendment also defined adverse impact on those practices as a “significant effect” 

calling for a full environmental impact statement. While the legislative record makes clear that 

these measures were undertaken specifically to protect Native Hawaiian culture (a goal explicitly 

recognized by the state constitution and by a series of legal decisions), the language appears to 

be general in scope.59 In effect, it creates a requirement to carry out a “Cultural Impact 

Statement” as part of the more traditional Environmental Impact Statement. 

Wherever African, Mexican, or Filipino American communities qualify as “traditionally 

associated peoples,” the National Park Service already has its own useful vehicle, a Service-wide 

program, to understand and protect their traditions. And it has a policy direction to do so.60 The 

National Park Service defines traditionally associated peoples as neighbors of a unit within the 

National Park System, as well as “ethnic or occupational communities” that have been associated 

with it for two or more generations and whose interests in its resources began before its 

establishment. Traditionally associated peoples may include “African Americans, Hispanics, 

Chinese Americans, Euro-Americans,” or indeed anyone who has a “traditional association with 

a particular park.”61 The places or features within the park that have “traditional significance” to 

these groups are known as “park ethnographic resources.” National Park Service policies call on 

the agency to maintain an inventory of these resources, and to consult with traditionally 

associated peoples in matters regarding their stewardship and interpretation, listing in the 

National Register of Historic Places, designation as National Historic Landmarks, and plans or 

actions that might affect them.

62 The Ethnography program helps the National Park Service meet 

this goal by “conducting ethnographic assessments, cultural affiliation studies, traditional 

resource use studies, ethnographic resources inventories, and other research efforts designed to 

provide managers with a baseline of information about cultural values attached to park lands and 

resources.”63 So far over 160 such studies have been completed or launched.64 National Park 

Service ethnographer Alexa Roberts sums it up thus: “It’s about the connections between people 

and their places, and making management decisions based on these connections...that’s what our 

program does.” 

The concept of ethnographic resources and the practice of consulting with traditionally 

associated peoples have been widely applied in the context of Native peoples. But other 

communities also have strong ties to parks (or to places that predated the parks), and the National 

Park Service could use its ethnography program more vigorously to document and protect their 

heritage. Laura Gates, superintendent of the Cane River Creole National Historical Park, 

25 
describes how a painstaking process of community consultation with African Americans and 

creoles of color deepened the staff’s interpretation of the site while acknowledging the local 

communities’ strong feelings about it.65

It is hard to gauge the potential for ethnographic studies that have not yet been undertaken, but it 

is probably considerable. Alexa Roberts emphasizes what a great asset the National Park 

Service’s cultural anthropology program can be. “Take advantage of it!,” she urges her 

colleagues. “If we’re going to talk about diversity, if we’re going to talk about partnerships, then 

we just need to bite the bullet.” It has to be acknowledged that no respondents asked for applied 

ethnographic studies, but Roberts has a plausible explanation: people don’t often say they want 

to be studied. Then, too, few if any respondents were aware of the National Park Service’s 

ethnographic programs or policy direction. Roberts sums up: “It’s up to the National Park 

Service to recognize that we have a rigorous way to find out who are the traditionally associated 

peoples, what their relationship to the park is, and how do their cultural values about park lands 

and resources translate into decisions that we can take to manage those resources in a culturally 

appropriate way.” 

◦ Folklore and Historic Preservation 

While government’s role in protecting folkways remains somewhat murky, it is quite clear that 

folklore can greatly enrich the nation’s historic preservation programs. In Florida, historic 

preservation and folklife programs have been placed together within the state’s Bureau of 

Historic Preservation, and according to Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer Barbara 

Mattick, the merger has made preservation staff “more aware of what are the cultural aspects – 

not just the architecture.” Eatonville exemplifies how the “challenge to think folk life in things” 

can enhance historic preservation. Eatonville is the oldest and most intact example of a black 

town established during the Reconstruction period. It was also the home of renowned folklorist 

and author Zora Neale Hurston, and now of the annual Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts 

and Humanities, a community-launched event that has made the town a magnet for heritage 

tourism. State preservationists had struggled for a decade or more to figure out how to 

successfully nominate Eatonville – a place of unquestioned historical importance – to the 

National Register of Historic Places. The problem was that few historic buildings survived. 

Thanks to a government grant, a folklorist was able to visit Eatonville and document “games, 

food, religious practices” and other non-architectural aspects of what made Eatonville 

significant. That work is still going on; meanwhile, the town has been listed on the National 

Register for its historical and architectural importance – thanks, in part, to the boost given by the 

folklife documentation. 

The State of Florida has also worked with local groups to carry out a historic marker program in 

Eatonville. From a historic preservation perspective, again, “the problem with Eatonville was 

that everything you’d want to talk about is no longer there.” Documenting folk life – including a 

map of traditional pathways through the town – helped the project’s designers to create ten 

wayside markers and a brochure that tell a satisfying story.66

Folklorists may differ on what is the best administrative arrangement for their discipline. But 

from Mattick’s point of view, having folklife in the department “adds substance” to historic 

preservation. Descriptions of folkways provide a “reflection of the place” that goes beyond its 

26 
architecture – an approach, she believes, that has been particularly valuable to “the way we look 

at cemeteries, schools, and churches” – all important places of community memory. 

Florida’s folklife program has involved Greeks, Seminoles, Polynesians, Hawaiians, Ukrainians, 

Japanese, Chinese, Haitians, and Cubans. They have created an impressive public representation 

of a truly diverse culture, one that encompasses Palestinian needlework, Hungarian embroidery, 

and African American quilts – not to mention Seminole canoes, Caribbean music, and a host of

traditional skills that are less obviously ethnic, from surfboarding to fly-tying. They have worked 

hard to perpetuate some of these same skills.67 Yet according to Mattick, “African American is 

probably the area where there’s been this merging of historic preservation and folklife.” Why? In 

part because African Americans are Florida’s largest minority, “African American has been a 

major focus” of state historic preservation work, and the department has launched particularly 

vigorous efforts to reach out to and include African Americans in their work. 

To include folklife as an integral part of a community’s history is to identify another constructive 

role that government can play. Emily Lawsin, a FANHS trustee from Michigan, urges the 

National Park Service to publish a brochure of important Filipino historical sites across the 

country; hers would be a different kind of brochure, because along with standard historical 

information it would feature oral histories about the sites. Many Mexican and Filipino American 

respondents place a strong emphasis on understanding the life experiences of ordinary people in 

the past, and conservation groups are already collecting newspapers, memorabilia, photographs, 

oral histories, and other sources with which to document those experiences. But documenting the 

historically evolving folkways of their respective communities may exceed the capacity of 

community-based (or even university-based) non-profit groups such as those that currently exist. 

The difficulty is not so much history’s breadth as the kind of documentation that would be 

required. To photograph and catalogue domestic interiors, create high-quality musical sound 

recordings, or identify and document community businesses – whether third places or simply 

examples of successful entrepreneurship – will demand substantial resources of money, 

equipment, technical skill, and organization. Federal and state agencies could provide these in 

ways that richly supplement and support the work of heritage conservationists and help to create 

invaluable historical resources for the future. 

Historic Places

◦ Site-Seeing: A Cure for Public Blindness 

When the Cultural Heritage Needs Assessment was launched, its organizers hoped and perhaps 

expected that it would lead to novel findings. Keepers of the Treasures, after all, had pointed the 

way toward a heritage practice quite different from the norm as practiced by a largely Europeanbased profession. Against the background of these expectations, the Assessment’s findings were 

indeed surprising...but in an unexpected way. No element of heritage conservation is more 

deeply rooted in historic preservation practice than historic places. Yet no element was so 

consistently demanded by respondents. Respondent after respondent emphasized the importance 

of historic places. 

Why are historic places so important? Historian James Horton, who has done much to bring 

African American issues (and professionals) to the forefront of historic preservation, has written 

that “it is much easier and much more meaningful to write about events that shaped history when 

27 
you can stand in the places where those events occurred. It is easier to understand the people of 

history when you can be in the spaces that they occupied, the spaces where they lived their 

lives.”68 Jack Tchen points to a more compelling reason. Asian Americans, he argues, are 

invisible to society at large. Public recognition for historic sites helps make them visible. It also 

helps educate other Americans. In conversations with many respondents, historic places emerged 

as the antidote most often prescribed for public invisibility. 

By their very nature, historic places are both public and, often, official. Designating one usually 

involves some form of recognition, which may have little direct effect on the resource itself 

(such as a listing on the State or National Register of Historic Places) or a very substantial effect 

(such as federal acquisition and management as a National Historic Site). Regardless of the 

degree of protection, the act of public recognition itself distinguished historic places from other 

forms of heritage conservation. Unlike archival collections, for example, historic places exist 

within a public space, where they can be visited by potentially unlimited numbers of people, 

initiates and uninitiates alike. To designate a place, in short, is to recognize history in a very 

public way: to administer a potent antidote to the invisibility (or public blindness) that continues 

to characterize Mexican, Filipino, and even African American heritage. For Luis Francia, “it’s 

important to have visible artifacts”: the artifact may be a historic place, monument, or marker, 

but whatever it is, “it reminds people that at a certain time, and at this place, there were people 

who lived here, achieved something, and contributed to society.” John Silva goes further: he 

believes that creating a “visible heritage” would help build the cultural identity that, for Filipino 

Americans, remains so confusing. Fred Cordova emphasizes that historic sites are a high priority 

for FANHS. 

If historic places are so important, why are there not more Mexican and Filipino American 

heritage advocates involved in preserving them? Part of the answer relates to means and 

opportunities. While it is relatively easy for private citizens to collect letters and photographs or 

trace genealogies (though even this can stretch the financial resources of amateur groups), the 

barriers to conserving historic places are steep. Acquiring one costs money; operating it costs 

more. Although there are many large organizations that are well equipped to do both – state and 

federal governments, for example – groups without political power find it difficult to persuade 

them to acquire places they believe are important, or to manage them in appropriate ways. As for 

preservation tools such as the National Register of Historic Places or local ordinances – measures 

that help protect historic places even though they do not provide interpretation or public access – 

the rules are complex and are not widely understood. Many respondents, even sophisticated ones, 

did not know how to use them; some did not know they existed. Neither, of course, do most 

citizens of European descent. 

Without much ability to acquire or control historic places, one activity is frequently open to 

heritage conservationists: fighting to save them when they are threatened. And they do so – with 

tragic frequency, for many important sites lie in the way of redevelopment or disinvestment yet 

lack the sort of immediate appeal that can gain the attention of decision-makers. Historic African 

American neighborhoods in cities around the country have been destroyed by the combined 

forces of disinvestment, highway or rail construction, and urban renewal. With virtually all of the 

historic Manila towns razed, urges Jack Tchen, any surviving remnants of Asian American 

historical presence become crucially important to preserve. In fact, FANHS is currently working 

28 
with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and other groups to preserve the remnants of 

Stockton’s Little Manila neighborhood from a typically toxic combination of urban renewal, 

disinvestment, highway construction, followed by the coup-de-grace: strip-mall development. 

The case of Stockton has received some attention, but all too often, public ignorance of Mexican, 

African, or Filipino heritage causes important places to be threatened or even casually swept 

away before their significance can even be recognized. Though Rolando Romo can easily point 

out the center of Houston’s first Mexican community, that important spot now lies under the 

parked cars outside Minutemaid Stadium. Buildings associated with the history of migrant farm

workers have also succumbed to demolition, as have the gravesites of important Mexican 

Americans like Lorenzo de Zavala. When powerful economic and political forces – politicians, 

developers, civic leaders – combine forces to demolish a historic place, it is hard enough even for 

politically well-connected and well-funded groups within the majority community to prevail: 

African, Mexican, and Filipino American advocates certainly do not find it any easier. 

◦ Places to See 

The organizers of the Assessment did not attempt to carry out a historic places survey. There 

have been several such surveys, and many potential places have been identified, documented and 

await only official action to recognize them.

69 The following paragraphs, however, will suggest 

some of the highlights of the many proposals that respondents are prepared to document, given 

the opportunity. They also provide a very rough and perhaps incomplete typology for places 

associated with Mexican, Filipino, and African American history. 

Points of origin 

Respondents from all three groups felt that more could be done to study and mark places where 

each group entered the country, or places that mark that group’s earliest experiences here. For 

Bradford Grant, Jamestown, Virginia, is “incredible – very rich historically: as one of the first 

sites where Africans were enslaved and brought to this country, the place is as significant for 

African Americans as for European Americans.” Isaac Johnson comments, “We are dealing with 

African Americans, but we’re leaving out some important factors because we’re not looking 

back at the beginnings, the 1700s”: he urges greater attention to southern cities, to free blacks, 

and to those early ministers whose “names were not as well-known as George Washington” but 

who played a crucial role in the early history of African Americans. For Filipinos, San Diego 

was an important point of origin: Ronald Buenaventura calls it the “gateway to Filipino 

American immigration.” Did Filipinos establish a permanent settlement near New Orleans in the 

mid-eighteenth century? Many scholars believe so, but John Kuo Wei Tchen regards the question 

as not quite settled. Resolving it, he says, “would be a major accomplishment” that “would have 

huge implications for the history of the U.S.” For Mexicans, whose history predates that of 

“Norteamericanos” throughout the southwest, the question of origin-points is different but no 

less important. Judith Baca, whose lineage is Tejano, believes that marking and interpreting the 

early Spanish land grants is crucially important. Rosaura Sanchez agrees: she would like to see 

the evidence of Mexican land-holdings around San Diego publicly identified. Imagine how 

instructive a drive up Interstate 5 would be, “when you see that and you see what’s happened.” 

For these and other respondents, the origin-points of Mexicans as later immigrants are also 

important, especially El Paso, which Baca calls the “Ellis Island of the Southwest.” 

Routes of migration (and other trails) 

29 
As a way of seeing places, trails are appealing because they speak directly to the act of 

travelling, which has pleasurable connotations for many people and is the context in which 

historic places are often visited. For all three groups, moreover, trails can have special 

significance because of the historical importance of migration experiences, both to the United 

States and within it – sometimes toward enslavement, at other times toward freedom and 

opportunity (Underground Railroad), and on yet other occasions as expressions of struggle 

(Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights march, National Farm Workers’ Association march from

Delano to Sacramento). 

“How did Filipinos end up where they ended up?”, was a question that several respondents 

asked: the migration routes that took Filipinos from west-coast ports (and later New York) to 

virtually every part of the country would be fascinating to trace. Inspired by the Boston Freedom

Trail and the Boston Black Heritage Trail that links fifteen African American places, Joan May 

Cordova, a FANHS trustee from Boston, imagines a map showing the routes of Filipino 

migration throughout the United States. Adélamar Alcántara adds that Filipino workers followed 

crops around the country: those seasonal migrations were an important aspect of the Filipino 

experience too and deserve to be marked. She would also like to trace Filipino migrations back 

to their points of origin in the Philippines. John W. Franklin offers a similar suggestion: thanks to 

recent research in Louisiana, the National Park Service has the opportunity to tell visitors where 

some of the state’s African American families came from. Trails are important to Mexican 

Americans as well. Judith Baca notes that even well-known trails like the Santa Fe trail could 

stand to be better marked. Moreover, the “migratory lines” that took Spanish or Mexican settlers 

into the northern parts of Spanish territory (and that later took Mexican immigrants into the 

southwest and beyond) have never been properly marked at all: the “major movements of the 

Mexican diaspora” should be presented for all to see. But there is more: because much of the 

United States was once part of Mexico, the story concerns the movement not only of peoples but 

also of national borders. The shifting locations of the U.S./Mexican border should be marked for 

all to see, as should the place where the all-important Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed. 

Places of experience 

Asparagus fields in California, cotton fields in the south, salmon canneries in Alaska, sugar 

plantations in Hawaii, hospitals, military bases, tenements almost everywhere, downtown 

neighborhoods in many American cities, dance halls and union halls, Spanish land grants, a 

carrot warehouse in Grants, New Mexico...these are all places where Filipinos, Mexicans, and 

African Americans lived and worked in significant numbers. Each advocate has a personal list of 

important sites that convey the experience of ordinary immigrants. John Silva’s includes Filipino 

labor camps (Stockton, California), restaurants and hotels, military installations (the Presidio), 

Chinatowns (Los Angeles, San Francisco), pineapple plantations (Hawaii). For Angel Shaw, 

“going to the plantations is a very sad thing.” While Japanese plantation workers had families 

and slept in beds, Filipinos were bachelors and were housed in straw cots. Yet it is “very hard to 

get information on Filipino life at the plantations in Hawaii.” And the situation may be 

worsening: Linda Revilla, a FANHS trustee with roots in Hawaii, warns that Hawaii’s plantation 

heritage, so important to Filipinos, is rapidly disappearing. Judith Baca’s list would have 

included the ghetto on the other side of the tracks in La Junta, Colorado, had it not been torn 

down. Mexicans, she says, were forced to live there: they included service workers and military 

personnel. She laments “a place like that going unrecognized and unacknowledged.” Refugio 

30 
Rochin emphasizes the importance of the barrios: “they’re eye-opening,” he comments – to see 

them, to understand how many people lived there, to absorb the details of life (the outhouse, the 

cactus, the animals). “That kind of stuff is not being preserved as a walk-through exhibit,” he 

says; but it should be, and if it is not done soon the opportunity will vanish. Rochin also notes 

markets and plazas (including “quite a few” in the southern parts of Colorado), and of course the 

missions and presidios. Guadalupe San Miguel, an expert on the history of Latino music, 

emphasizes the dance halls of South Texas. Fred Cordova’s list includes churches and lodges; he 

would also like to see tours of Filipino businesses. Terri Torres, a FANHS trustee from Stockton, 

California, wants to mark the asparagus fields there with something that says, “this area, this 

field...Filipino farm workers were here, and they made possible the biggest industry out of 

Stockton.” Adélamar Alcántara wants to preserve the bunkhouses for Filipino farm workers in 

Grants, New Mexico, carrot capital of the United States. 

Places like these offer extraordinary opportunities, in James Horton’s words, to “understand the 

people of history.” Because few decision-makers have recognized them as important historic 

sites, many of the buildings have been demolished. That makes telling the story harder – and 

preserving the remaining ones that much more important. But even without the buildings, the 

places are evocative and instructive. 

Places of suffering and struggle 

Many historic places associated with African American slavery are interpreted far better now 

than ten or twenty years ago, and this is helping the American public to accept and understand 

slavery as an episode of national history. Key places in the struggle against slavery and 

discrimination have also been memorialized, especially those connected with the Civil Rights 

movement. Places of Mexican and Filipino suffering and struggle, however, remain largely 

ignored. “We should be marking the hell out of places where Cesar Chavez worked,” says Judith 

Baca: starting with his home at Salsipuedes and the place of the famous United Farm Workers 

demonstration at Delano, California. Refugio Rochin agrees, adding the 250-mile route of 

Chavez’s march from Delano to the state capitol at Sacramento, as well as the places of other 

demonstrations and speeches, like one at Crystal City, Texas. Rolando Romo, founder and past 

president of Houston’s Tejano Association for Historical Preservation, also agrees, and he has 

organized a number of events commemorating Chavez, including a Cesar Chavez Hispanic Pride 

Parade and Celebration. Because Filipino and Mexican farm workers united behind Chavez, he 

has great importance to Filipinos as well. But there were other demonstrations, too: John Silva 

notes the important strike at Hanapepe in Hawaii, where twenty-five Filipinos were killed. 

Places of achievement 

How many visitors know that the White House cooks and stewards were traditionally Filipino?

That represents an achievement in which John Silva and other Filipinos take pride. Guadalupe 

San Miguel wants to preserve and mark Ideal Records in Alice, Texas, a recording studio and 

dance hall that played an important role in the development of Tejano music in the 1940s. He is 

also working to commemorate the birthplace of General Zaragoza. Rolando Romo was moved to 

found the Tejano Association for Historical Preservation by the destruction of the house and 

graves of Lorenzo de Zavala, a pivotal figure in the formation of the Republic of Texas, and his 

family.70 Refugio Rochin notes the homes of Leo Carillo, a rancher who owned most of the land 

which became Santa Monica, and of California’s first and last Mexican governors (in Sonoma 

31 
and Whittier). Fred Cordova would like to see a directory showing where the “Filipino 

illustrious” are buried. 

Many historians feel that moving beyond the preoccupation with prominent individuals and their 

accomplishments has allowed them to address big historical trends and to document the lives of 

ordinary people. But many heritage advocates continue to feel that it is important to celebrate 

both contribution and achievement, particularly against odds. Judith Baca says that making 

known the “contributions made to the United States by this group [Mexican Americans] would 

be a profound statement....To have this information publicly available would be a critically 

important acknowledgement of how much has been given to this country.” The website of the 

Tejano Association for Historical Preservation has a page listing 82 “Famous Tejanos & Tejanas 

in Texas History,”71 while the home page of Filipino Americans.net assures readers that 

“Filipino Americans quietly have made their indelible marks on America as politicians, doctors, 

judges, entrepreneurs, singers, professors, movie and television stars, etc. You name it, and there 

are many Filipino American achievers in every field of dream....” Sites of individual 

achievement remain important for heritage advocates. 

Places of interaction 

“Communities are typically studied,” in isolation, says Dorothy Fujita-Rony, “but it’s the 

interactions that produce some of the most interesting things in American culture.” John Kuo 

Wei Tchen agrees that interpreting the interactions among different ethnic groups can be 

revelatory. And these interactions have been far more pervasive than the public realizes. Where 

to do so? Fujita-Rony nominates New York City as a naval center, Chicago as a railroad hub. In 

Seattle, Filipinos shared a neighborhood in the Central District with African Americans. Refugio 

Rochin suggests that the markets and plazas of southwestern towns offer opportunities to 

understand the cultural blending of Hispanic and Native American. 

Interactions have taken many forms, including intermarriage. Dorothy Cordova says that, in 

contrast to Japanese or Chinese, Filipinos are “a mixed-race people,” more likely to intermarry 

with others. Indeed the first Asian war brides in the United States, she says, were Filipino 

women who married “Buffalo soldiers” – African American soldiers posted to the west. Refugio 

Rochin notes that Filipinos and Mexican Americans often intermarried. In part this was because 

they worked side by side in the fields, but also because miscegenation laws prevented either from

marrying whites, and the earlier generations of Filipino immigrants were predominantly male. 

Exploring these family relationships, believes Rochin, would be illuminating even to the 

descendants of these marriages, many of whom do not fully understand their own background. 

Then, too, John Silva notes that Filipinos in the northwest and Alaska frequently married Native 

Americans or Alaskan Natives, while Rosaura Sanchez and Antonia Castañeda point to the 

frequent intermarriages between Mexicans and Native Americans in the southwest. 

In addition to intermarriage there were cultural blending, shared work, shared life experience, 

and shared struggle. Black Americans fought alongside Filipinos in World War II. Filipinos 

united with Mexican farm workers to make possible the successes of Cesar Chavez and the 

United Farm Workers. Filipinos and Mexicans “have been pitted against each other” so often, 

laments Angel Shaw, but the reality was different. Telling the story of Chavez and the Delano 

32 
march correctly would help build a bridge between the two groups. “Imagine a plaque,” she says, 

that presented their “complex and intertwining” cultural histories. 

Sometimes, of course, interactions were neither consensual nor collegial. Rosaura Sanchez 

emphasizes the blending of languages, religions, and customs that took place between Hispanic 

and Indian, but she is also acutely aware of the suffering that Indians endured in the Spanish 

missions and presidios. And she wants this story told, fully and honestly, at the places. 

Fujita-Rony notes growing interest in Asian-Latino interactions. Rochin emphasizes the 

importance of understanding Latino-African American relations. Alcántara notes that saving the 

Filipino bunkhouses at Grants means collaborating with Mexican Americans and Navajo. Places 

of interaction offer special opportunities for projects that build understanding among groups and 

that expand consciousness of American history and culture. 

Spiritual places 

The importance of churches in African American history and community life has been widely 

discussed and is often emphasized. For Mexican Americans, Refugio Rochin notes that 

cemeteries were also important. Many people don’t know, he says, that Anglo cemeteries were 

exclusive: Mexicans were buried in graveyards that were as segregated as the barrios in which 

they lived. Those cemeteries are “colorful, beautiful, and they’re visited by a lot of people.” He 

mentions important ones in Tempe and Tucson. Olivia Cadaval agrees, adding that cemeteries 

are “living spaces,” in which the stories of people and families who are connected continue to be 

played out. In preserving cemeteries, she advises, you should be “preserving the living 

connection.” 

Milestones of international relations 

Mexican and Filipino Americans may be more aware than most other Americans of the history 

of relationships between the United States and their countries of origin. A defining event in U.S. 

relations with the Philippines was the Philippine American War: it concluded the Spanish 

American War and opened a half century of colonial occupation of the Philippines. Jack Tchen 

would like to mark Angel Island and the Presidio, launching points for the Spanish American 

War, as historic places. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was a milestone in U.S. relations with 

Mexico: for Judy Baca, the place where it was signed (in Mexico) is an important historic place, 

as are the shifting borders between the two nations. 

Place of education and of presentation 

Filipino, Mexican, and African American respondents identify two specific values that historic 

places can have. One is to educate. “Americans are just ignorant” of Asian American history, 

remarks Jack Tchen, “so we need to claim these places.” The other is to present the group 

publicly, both to group members themselves and to other Americans. The discussion of places 

above has generally focused on their educational value. Some – like the Mexican land grants, the 

White House, or New York’s African Burial Ground – also have great presentational 

significance. 

Filipino respondents were most explicit in emphasizing the importance of what I am calling 

presentational places. These need not commemorate specific events; just as important is that they 

33 
occupy symbolically prominent positions. New York’s Central Park is one such place. Eric 

Gamalinda asks, “Why is there is no José Rizal statue in the United States, outside Hawaii?” 

Describing him as “one of the few unifying factors that our fractious people have,” Gamalinda 

notes that this great of Philippine independence – executed by the Spanish in 1896 – visited New 

York, and that there once was a plaque on the hotel at which he stayed (off the corner of 

Madison Square). Gamalinda would like to see not merely a plaque but a statue – in Central 

Park. Great figures of many other nationalities are represented by monuments there, yet not 

Rizal, or indeed any other Filipino figure. Angel Shaw agrees that a statue in a public place like 

Central Park would go farther than a plaque; it is the kind of thing, she says, that “makes us 

visible.” 

Despite being more interested in living culture than in memorializing history, Lynn Pono also 

sees the value in memorials. “It’s a corny thing to want a monument,” she says, “but it’s such a 

part of America....even vacations are organized around visiting them.” She thinks a traditional 

memorial might be “too commemorative,” but she would like to bring in artists “to create 

something that talks about the role of Filipinos in American history.” Her ideal monument is the 

Vietnam War Memorial that occupies a prominent place on Washington’s Mall. “Why,” she 

asks, “can’t memorials be more like that?”– moving in a sincere way, rather than “creating a 

false sense of national pride.” While Pono would like to update the traditional language of 

national memorials, in short, she is very much interested in having such a memorial. 

Museums can also fulfill the presentational role of monuments and statues, and some

respondents see the Museum of the Chinese in the Americas as doing this for the Chinese 

community, the Museum of the American Indian for Native peoples. FANHS is planning a 

national museum of Filipino American history in Stockton, California. 

◦ Icebergs: hidden meanings of historic places 

Like the tips of icebergs, historic places are the visible protrusions of much more momentous 

things, and like icebergs historic places owe much of their impact not to their visible protrusions 

but to the great mass of meanings that float just beneath the surface. The word association is 

sometimes used to denote these meanings: historical narratives, moral examples, mental images, 

recollected sights, sounds, values, or abstractions that places may bring into the visitor’s mind. 

For Jeanne Cyriaque, an initiative to document and preserve the Rosenwald schools – schools 

built by a Jewish philanthropist to serve African American children in rural areas in the south – 

gains power and importance through the schools’ associations. Architecturally modest and often 

badly deteriorated, each of these unassuming buildings tells a larger story of African American 

striving and of community experience during the period after emancipation.72 Associations are 

present, and important, in many if not all of the places discussed in this report. But the 

importance of historic sites rests on larger understandings of heritage. 

Places and communities 

“Individual places are important,” says architect Richard Dozier, but many of the most 

significant speak to issues outside themselves. He recalls the founding of Brooklyn’s Weeksville 

Society in the 1970s: had Joan Maynard wanted to do nothing more than preserve some houses – 

houses that had survived from a nineteenth century free black community – it would have been 

relatively simple to do so. What made the challenge more difficult, and has made the rewards 

34 
correspondingly greater over the years, was her larger vision of how those houses could tell a 

broader historical story, and especially about how that story could become valuable to 

Weeksville’s modern-day African American neighbors. 

Some of the larger issues that Dozier has in mind have to do with the experience of community. 

Because of pervasive racial segregation, he explains, the historically black colleges and 

universities became anchors for neighborhoods in which African Americans could find 

everything from housing through business services to nightlife. Later, as the rigid walls of 

segregation came down, African Americans “found they could get their photocopying done 

downtown...they could even live across town”: the tightly-knit, campus-centered communities 

broke apart, leaving little trace on the cityscape. Today, the campus buildings remain as 

important historic places in their own right, but also as clues to a different way of life that is 

important to remember and understand. The challenge Dozier puts to historic preservation, then, 

is to go beyond merely preserving the campus buildings to conveying their social context – to 

presenting something “more representative of the history.” 

For Jeanne Cyriaque, African American Programs Coordinator for Georgia’s SHPO, maintaining 

historical awareness of community life is an important goal of preservation efforts. She notes 

that the heritage of African American communities like Harlem and Chicago’s Bronzeville has 

had national, even international, impact. But less famous places are important to remember too, 

and she lists a range of building types – churches, schools, meeting places, downtown business 

rows – that typically serve as “community landmarks.” What if these buildings do not survive, or 

do not show any evidence of African American presence? “When there are no built resources, we 

have to capture the spirit of place,” she says – meaning the consciousness that a vibrant 

community was once present at that spot. At Augusta’s Springfield Baptist Church, she explains 

that a community-based group erected a thirty-five-foot-high “Tower of Aspiration,” a public 

sculpture to “signify the many people who lived in the community.” 

The problem of maintaining “spirit of place” without built resources is pressing, because for well 

over half a century African American neighborhoods have confronted powerful forces of 

destruction: railroads, interstate highways, mortgage redlining, abandonment of property, urban 

renewal. John W. Franklin would like to organize an exhibition on “all of the African American 

communities destroyed by highways...and now by metros.” Indeed the threats continue: new 

forces of commercial development and gentrification have joined the older ones. The Georgia 

and South Carolina coasts, for example, are home to historically important African American 

communities that in some cases have nurtured a sense of cultural continuity for almost two 

centuries. Yet their beachfront location has exposed settlements like St. Simon’s to the physical 

destruction of resort development for the affluent, coupled with the social disintegration of 

steeply rising land values. “When you build a $500,000 house next to a $50,000 house...well, 

you know what happens,” shrugs Jeanne Cyriaque. The situation at American Beach, Florida, a 

resort community developed by and for African Americans during the 1920s (when blacks were 

excluded from other beaches) is similar. 

The most pervasive threats are directed at urban neighborhoods, particularly those located 

downtown. “There are so many African American communities that are endangered by 

development,” says Cyriaque. Sometimes a Wal-Mart is put “right there in the community.” Or it 

35 
might be a “business expansion”... or a “transportation issue – roads or a new train station – or a 

parking lot or a super-store dropped right into the community.” And as young professionals 

rediscover the advantages of downtown living (particularly where real estate values have been 

depressed by decades of disinvestment), African American neighborhoods have become targets 

of gentrification and displacement: they are “at the center of the city,” notes Cyriaque, “and now 

everyone wants to live there.” This is taking place not only in Atlanta but also in smaller cities 

like Macon, Savannah, and Columbus (Georgia). 

Karl Webster Barnes, chairman of Georgia’s African American Historic Preservation Network, 

describes the situation in Atlanta’s West End neighborhood as typical of many threatened 

African American neighborhoods throughout Georgia.73 After decades of threats from road 

construction, public housing projects (whites-only), disinvestment, and suburban flight, the West 

End is now threatened by poor-quality residential and commercial development. Part of the 

neighborhood was designated as the West End Historic District in 1991, and it is listed on both 

State and National Registers. Yet the erosion of neighborhood character continues. 

White neighborhoods have experienced similar problems. But whereas many white historic 

preservation activists might describe the problem primarily as a loss of neighborhood amenity or 

architectural quality, Barnes frames it as an issue of culture and history: 

“All across Atlanta and Georgia, we are seeing a significant case of removal of cultural 

memory. Traditional African American neighborhoods are being systematically moved or 

removed from their historical locations adjacent to town centers. Historical African American 

neighborhoods are being marginalized and removed from their historical locations at a time 

when the region is developing strategies to increase heritage tourism. As preservationists, we can 

and must make a difference in our neighborhoods and stop the marginalization of African 

American memory from our cultural landscape.”74

Community Commemoration and Community Development; with a Note on 

Community Cultural Development 

The problem described by Cyriaque, Dozier, and Barnes can be addressed as an exercise either in 

community commemoration or community planning. Whereas the first accepts the loss of 

historic resources, the second aims to prevent it. Richard Dozier holds that preservation should 

attempt at least to “neutralize” the effects of gentrification on the community fabric of historic 

black neighborhoods. New York architect John Reddick argues that this community fabric is as 

valuable a historic resource as the buildings themselves. In place of market-driven gentrification, 

in which architecturally distinguished buildings are restored but community fabric is torn apart, 

he would like to see an alliance between historic preservation and community planning, in which 

historic housing stock is improved for the benefit of the existing community.75 Such efforts to 

make reinvestment in historic buildings an ally, rather than an enemy, of community 

conservation, have been tried in cities including Pittsburgh, Savannah, and Jackson, Mississippi. 

They are consistent with the attempts of African American preservation advocates like Joan 

Maynard and Stanley Lowe to root historic preservation within the larger struggle to maintain 

community in the face of social, political, and economic pressures – in short, within what 

architect William Davis calls community development, “which for black folk, especially in urban 

areas, is key.” 

36 
One potential line of action, then, aims to save sites and more: not only major landmarks but also 

a network of “community landmarks,” and not only community landmarks but also community 

itself. The other line of action aims to empower sites to represent themselves and more: to teach 

not only their own history but also to show how they related to a larger community context, and 

even how the experience of life within that community was shaped by larger historical forces. 

The concept of teaching is fundamental, and we return to it below. What is important to note 

here is that historic sites are expected to represent more than themselves. Embedded in cultural 

contexts, they must somehow explain those contexts, make them present for the visitor: never do 

sites “speak for themselves,” in any sense of the phrase. 

It seems safe to say that the ways preservationists currently have of enabling places to do this 

leave room for improvement. Jeanne Cyriaque ticks off a few: historical markers, 

commemorative plaques, public artworks. Each of these can help a historic building to speak, or 

can speak in the absence of a historic building or artifact. Cyriaque describes an interesting 

example of the latter. Many locations along inlets or rivers on the Georgia coast were once used 

as baptismal sites. Today, though “you have the oral history about it,” there may be no physical 

evidence of this tradition. At Sandfly, by erecting a commemorative sculpture out of bricks taken 

from downtown Savannah (another place important to the black diaspora), community members 

were able to give physical presence to an important cultural experience preserved only in oral 

tradition. 

Jack Tchen has a suggestion that may be relevant. He argues that “community cultural 

development” is an important vehicle by which immigrant or marginalized ethnic groups can 

create and express a cultural identity that draws on historical experience while also engaging 

current community issues. Community cultural development might also offer a vehicle for 

maintaining Cyriaque’s “spirit of place.” While it is difficult to define community cultural 

development in a sentence or two, Don Adams and Arlene Goldbard offer this description: 

“In community cultural development work, community artists, singly or in teams, place 

their artistic and organizing skills at the service of the emancipation and development of an 

identified community....While there is great potential for individual learning and development 

within the scope of this work, it is community focused, aimed at groups rather than individuals, 

so that issues affecting individuals are always considered in relation to group awareness and 

group interests.”76

If readers are unfamiliar with the field, that may be because, as Adams and Goldbard explain, it 

is “nearly invisible as a phenomenon” in this country.77 Nevertheless, it is globally important. In 

French-speaking countries it is known as animation socio-culturelle, community artists as 

animateurs – a good word that suggests the kind of impact artists can have involving community 

members in expressive work to address their history and shared experience. The nature of that 

work can cover a wide range, including visual arts such as murals (Judith Baca’s work with 

SPARC – Social and Public Art Resources Council – is an excellent example), radio, music, and 

theatrical performance, which may take place on streetcorners or buses as well as in theaters. 

Community cultural development work can provide an activist context in which to project 

historical awareness, using elements such as oral history and traditional crafts or activities. It 

could become a valuable tool not only for strengthening community bonds but also for 

37 
maintaining historical awareness of a community’s past, not least of all where key physical 

elements are lost or at risk. 

La Memoria de Nuestra Tierra 

Like African American respondents, many Mexican American respondents place historic places 

within a larger cultural context. They too face the challenge of important places that lack 

preservable buildings or other physical artifacts. In part this is because many historically 

important experiences did not produce monumental architecture: instead they took place in 

fields, factories, unassuming social clubs, religious shrines, or flimsy workers’ housing. But 

sometimes this is because a place’s importance lies not in what might have been built there but in 

the place itself, and in the knowledge of it that people carry within themselves. Judith Baca 

refers to this as land-based memory, or “la memoria de nuestra tierra,” which is the title she 

chose for a major mural at Denver’s International Airport. Except by Native Americans, 

Mexican Americans’ “depth of presence” in the land is unrivalled: as much as five hundred years 

in Moro County, for example. And, according to Baca, “People believe that memory resides in 

the land.” This is no mere figure of speech. Antonia Castañeda emphasizes the degree to which 

long-established Hispanic communities incorporated indigenous Native American cultural 

attributes, and Baca notes that intermarriage with Native Americans was common. The longevity 

of Mexican communities has meant not only a strong southwestern culture but distinctive 

regional cultures as well – traditions, stories, memories, music that relate to locally dominant 

activities, whether farming, ranching, or cutting railroad ties. Throughout the area, she says, 

there are “amazing stories of regional land memory.” 

Land memory has more practical dimensions as well. In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the 

United States promised to honor existing Spanish land grants in the conquered territories. By and 

large, the United States failed to honor that promise, and a great deal of Spanish land (like Indian 

land) passed into Anglo hands through force, trickery, or the courts’ refusal to recognize the 

legitimacy of Spanish ownership. Much of that land had been communal: descendants of the 

communities continue to live on or near their ancestors’ land, and they have not forgotten 

history. “People live with this every day,” says Baca. The land grants should be marked, along 

with like the missions, presidios, and trails. Marking the grants would not only maintain the 

memory of deep presence in the land but also signify hope that ancient wrongs might be righted. 

But whether marked or not, the land grants are real, icebergs floating just beneath the horizon of 

public visibility, and they will continue to convey powerful messages to those who understand 

them. 

A Larger Representation of Culture 

Luis Francia, a Filipino American poet in New York City, believes in the importance of “visible 

artifacts” – sites or markers. Yet like other respondents, his vision focuses beyond the places, 

which in Francia’s view must always be “tied into the larger representation of Filipino heritage 

and culture.” Angel Shaw agrees that, as “representations of actual people and events,” sites 

should have plaques or other informational tools that build out the story. But representation is 

more than a metaphor: for Francia, it means the preservation of collections, documents, and oral 

histories. For Jack Tchen, designating places is a step towards education, which he views as the 

“real redress” not only to public misinformation but to a history of social exclusion. 

38 
Historic places can be linked with collecting activities in a general way, as items on a heritage 

preservation menu, or in more specific ways: places can be agents and repositories for 

collections, and they can use those collections to provide a “larger representation” of history and 

culture. Either way, respondents not only want more historic places, they also want more from

them. The concept of education – of teaching – is crucial. Respondents want historic places to 

teach better history, and more of it. 

Francia gives the example of the Filipino-American War, the bloody and extended conflict that 

emerged out of the United States’ victory over Spain in the Spanish-American War. One could 

visit a great many monuments to the Spanish American War, Francia remarks, without ever 

learning anything about the Filipino-American War, even that it happened. Though the dates 

inscribed on the tablets bracket the entire conflict, the inscriptions frequently do not mention the 

second phase, in which American soldiers fought to subdue the Filipinos they had ostensibly 

come to liberate. If they do mention it, they refer to it misleadingly as an “insurrection.” The 

error is not trivial: “Americans don’t want to acknowledge that the Philippines were colonies,” 

points out Angel Shaw, and she and other Filipino American scholars have devoted considerable 

attention to understanding the conflict and its aftermath.78 Correcting this omission would be 

more than symbolic: it would make it possible for all Americans to understand better the Filipino 

American historical experience and Filipino contributions to the United States. Fortunately, there 

has been some progress, and Shaw praises the Smithsonian Institution for relabeling the FilipinoAmerican “insurrection” as a “war.” But identifying the errors and omissions in the history that 

historic places present can become a full-time job, and getting them corrected can be an 

exhausting struggle. Antonia Castañeda recalls her work two decades ago for the state of 

California. She identified a number of important places and suggested ways in which the stories 

told on official site markers could be improved; the work was published in an impressive 

volume.79 Yet her impression is that very little change has taken place. 

Gerald Poyo notes that scholarly progress in research does not ensure that errors are corrected, or 

that vital new information is disseminated to the public. Since the 1980s, he explains, a new 

school of historical research has been “slowly transforming” the study of Texas history. Not long 

ago the diary of a Mexican soldier at the battle of the Alamo was discovered. If the author’s 

claims are honest, it provides the only eyewitness account of Davy Crockett’s death, and it flatly 

contradicts the legend of his heroic self-sacrifice. But questions about the “Alamo myth” do not 

easily get into textbooks that must be approved by Texas’s State Legislature. Changing the 

history told at places can be just as difficult: the chain must often stretch unbroken from

university libraries through community non-profits to legislatures and government agency offices 

and on to the sites themselves. 

An archaeologist once predicted that the most fruitful sites for unearthing new masterpieces of 

ancient Urartu culture would not be the mountains and fields of eastern Turkey but the 

basements of museums, where great heaps of misidentified objects awaited proper interpretation. 

In the same way, many existing historic places await proper interpretation to fulfill their potential 

for teaching history. Think of this as a sort of archaeological rediscovery. When Nicolás 

Kanellos notes that Spanish drama was presented at the Merced Theater in Los Angeles during 

the 1850s, he identifies the Merced as a site of Mexican American history: tour guides can now 

present it as such. When John Silva points out that Filipino sailors, visiting the west coast on 

39 
Mexican galleons, left statues or tabernacles at some California missions, he identifies these 

missions as places of Filipino American history: even if the artifacts are gone, curators can now 

develop interpretive signs or exhibits on the Filipino presence. But the missions present bigger 

challenges. Many of the Spanish missions of the southwest, notes Rosaura Sanchez, are 

preserved and celebrated; some even have small museums. Yet they are “mostly for tourists” and 

present a “quaint,” sanitized view of the past. San Diego’s Old Town, an early center of Hispanic 

settlement, is another example of how an emphasis on tourism can distort a place’s meaning: 

here, a genuinely important historic place’s potential for interpreting the region’s Mexican 

American heritage is hidden behind scented candles, “olde time” handcrafts, and expensive 

restaurant meals.

Part of this archeological work is recovering lost voices. “We know the official way” in which 

the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair has been presented, Francia points out: its displays of Filipino 

natives, complete with spears and loinclothes, were famous and highly publicized. But “what did 

the people who were exhibited think?” Did they leave any records in this country – letters or 

diaries? Francia’s questions remind us that Filipinos were present in St. Louis not merely as 

exhibited objects but also as historical actors. 

One of the quickest and most economical ways of creating new Mexican, Filipino, or African 

American historic places would be to acknowledge these groups’ role at historic places that 

already exist, starting with some very famous ones. About 1.3 million visitors tour the White 

House every year: how simple it would be, urges John Silva, to tell them about the White 

House’s long tradition of Filipino stewards. Beyond putting America’s “invisible Asians” in a 

new light for most visitors, this tidbit of information might encourage some visitors to ask why: 

the answer could open a window onto the role of Filipinos in the nation’s military, its hospitals, 

and in the kitchens of its ocean liners and naval ships. What about the more than 1.6 million 

visitors who tour Philadelphia’s Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell each year? At the urging 

of scholars, the National Park Service commendably plans to revise its interpretation to 

acknowledge the existence of slave quarters on the site of the Liberty Bell. What an 

extraordinary opportunity to discuss changing concepts of liberty in American history! And how 

much richer the story would be if it also included the leaders and intellectuals of Latin American 

independence movements who came to Philadelphia during the early nineteenth century, inspired 

by the city’s contribution to the cause of liberty. Finally, Faneuil Hall, one of Boston’s most 

popular tourist attractions: while many visitors correctly identify this colonial market as a site of 

Revolutionary War history, few know that, two centuries later, it hosted important anti-imperalist 

demonstrations against the Spanish-American War. This fact is nowhere mentioned in the 

interpretative material available to them. But, says FANHS trustee Joan May Cordova, “We want 

to correct that.” 

If these three icons of American history can divulge such unexpected and important stories, how 

many other stories are awaiting rediscovery in the basements of historic sites across the country?

“The Past Has To Be A Performance” 

Telling a good story isn’t good enough. “You have to have something for people to see” at 

historic sites, says Nicolás Kanellos: an intriguing array of things to grab the visitor’s attention, 

spin the story out, and create a memory. The best history museums have become quite 

40 
sophisticated at presenting complex stories, and many historic places can enrich their 

interpretations by presenting artifacts and documents in a more engaging way. Bookshops are 

important too. They give historic site managers a unique opportunity to put knowledge into the 

hands of visitors whose curiosity has been engaged. Yet Kanellos reports that in museum and 

historic-site bookshops across the country, “Hispanic presence is nil.” Indeed, a recent visit to 

the bookshop at Houston’s San Jacinto Battleground State Historical Park – place of the 

culminating battle in the Mexican-American War – suggests the dimensions of the problem. 

Even at a preeminently important historic place, one with a substantial museum that has made 

conscious efforts to present a Mexican point of view, one visited moreover by numerous 

Spanish-speaking tourists, the selection of books that could present a well-rounded picture of 

Mexican experience is largely absent. Similarly, a visit to the bookstore of a well-known 

National Park unit associated with the history of ranching and cowboys turned up little that could 

inform visitors on the important Mexican roots of cowboy culture. In another example, Kanellos 

points out that the Recovery Project has published an English translation of Cabeza de Vaca’s 

Relaciòn, the account of the famous conquistador’s 1527 expedition: “it should be at all 

historical places” relating to the Spanish conquest, yet the Recovery Project has had great 

difficulty getting this and other books picked up by the managers of sites and museums, 

including the Smithsonian. 

Rosaura Sanchez goes beyond the printed word. “Make the past real,” she urges, “so it’s not just 

something you read or something you touch...the past has to be a performance” – and not a 

“bland” performance but one that conveys the true complexity of the past, the anguish as well as 

the triumphs of history. “Have students play parts,” Sanchez suggests; have an Indian “talk 

frankly about what happened to us here.” Put it all on a compact disk or video for visitors to take 

home. 

◦ The Tomb of Unknown Places, with a Note on Heritage Tourism 

A historic place lives through public knowledge of it, and respondents pointed out that public 

awareness of sites and collections is often low. The New York Public Library has an early flag 

from the Philippines; the Metropolitan Museum has Philippine grave markers, Muslim artifacts, 

and a statue of a rice god. John Silva believes many Filipino Americans would want to see these 

things if they knew they were there, yet neither institution has made any special efforts to tell 

them. If Silva, a museum consultant based in the Philippines, is right, many historic places and 

museums could expand their public by identifying and marketing themes of special interest to 

Filipino, Mexican, or African Americans. Programs like the National and State Registers of 

Historic Places and the National Historic Landmark program could also expand their 

constituency. In fact, the National Park Service has made a substantial effort, particularly 

through its internet presence, to market its properties, National Register listings, and studies to 

African American audiences. Silva urges the National Park Service to identify sites and stories of

interest to Filipinos and get them known. Similarly, Virgilio Pilapil would like the National Park 

Service to publish a listing of what is of interest to Filipinos, with a map to help tourists visit the 

sites. 

Heritage tourism is the way in which many visitors encounter historic sites, and it is growing. So, 

in particular, is African American heritage tourism.

80 When Geraldine Hobdy took over as 

Louisiana’s first African American SHPO, she worked with the state tourism office to develop 

41 
an inventory of sites of interest to African Americans and to publicize them. Where there had 

been no market for African American heritage tourism, Thomas Eubanks, the state’s 

archaeologist, reports that Louisiana now leads the nation. 

“Preservation in a lot of ways drives economic development, and community development too,” 

says Thomas Williams, once again situating preservation within the broader context of

community development. What he means specifically, however, is heritage tourism. He recalls 

how he and others worked to install a market in Cairo, Georgia, birthplace of Jackie Robinson. 

Now, he says, “if you’re going to Tallahassee, sometimes you’ll detour to see the marker and the 

birthplace of Jackie Robinson, and while you’re there you’ll probably fill up on gas, buy some

hamburgers.” African Americans, he remarks, can “tap into the history and use it as an economic 

development tool.” Sometimes those commemorated are less famous than Jackie Robinson, but 

the sites can still be important to local communities and meaningful to visitors. Thomasville, 

Georgia, is birthplace and burial place of Henry Flipper, West Point’s first black graduate (in 

1877). “A lot of people come to Thomasville to study the Flipper family,” says Williams. 

Printed and internet guidebooks, itineraries, and trails have helped disseminate information about 

many African American sites.81 Such publications hardly exist for Hispanic sites and are 

nonexistent for Filipino sites. Substantial gains can be made by disseminating information about 

existing resources. 

Let us imagine now that every historic site not only presents a correct, complete, and engaging 

story but also markets it energetically; that heritage trails and guidebooks are abundant and 

widely publicized. Even in this ideal world, Rosaura Sanchez reminds us, many people will 

never see the sites, and no amount of publicity or outreach will ever change this. In San Diego, 

she points out, “there are kids in the barrios who have never even been downtown:” how, she 

asks, are you going to get them to a National Park Service site? The answer is that if the 

mountain will not go to Mohammed, Mohammed will have to go to the mountain: Sanchez urges 

the National Park Service and other cultural agencies to bring their riches to the schools, with 

traveling displays and even dramatic reenactments that teachers can perform with their students. 

Joan May Cordova is excited about the curricular possibilities of teaching with sites. To her goes 

the last word on the subject: historic places, she says, are “curriculum-friendly.”82

VI. WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 

If it does nothing else, this report should help preservationists and program managers assess the 

degree to which heritage programs continue to fall short of recognizing the nation’s culturally 

diverse history. This persistent diversity gap can be measured in underrepresented historical 

experiences, underserved constituencies...or unrealized opportunities. For the Assessment 

suggests the wealth of knowledge and energy that Mexican, Filipino, and African American 

communities are already committing to heritage conservation – with or without federal 

recognition. The opportunities for National Park Service initiatives and partnerships are 

enormous. 

42 
Probably everyone will agree that the federal government’s heritage programs should do the 

following: 

• Create a public history that presents the experience of diverse groups in American 

society; 

• Preserve the evidence of that history in places, documents, photographs, recordings, etc.; 

• Present this history at places, museums, national parks, bookshops, websites, 

publications, and schools, and; 

• Increase the diversity of experts in heritage conservation positions so as to reflect the 

diversity of American society and bring the insights of that diversity to its interpretation. 

The question is how. The following sections distill the findings presented above into concrete 

steps. Many have been suggested before. Most can be adopted with little structural change to 

existing programs. A few will require such changes. 

What should be done first? The single most important recommendation of this study is: 

something. This may appear evasive. It is not. Put another way: respondents are saying, enough 

talk – now we want action. 

“Por Dinero Baile El Perro” 

The National Park Service wins high marks from African American respondents for convening 

knowledgeable people to exchange ideas about African American heritage. Architect Richard 

Dozier particularly praises its 2001 conference on “African Reflections on the American 

Landscape.”83 Yet Dozier and William Davis are frustrated that the National Park Service has 

not yet advanced from talking to taking the logical next step, involving significant numbers of 

African American as professionals in the National Park Service’s preservation work. The 

Assessment was criticized, indeed (though never in less than a civil manner) because its 

consultant was less knowledgeable about African American preservation issues than many 

African American professionals in the field. “Why don’t they use people out here with 

experience?,” asked Dozier, frustrated with this project and with the slowness of the preservation 

machinery to absorb well-trained African Americans. He points out that there are eight schools 

of architecture among the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, several of which 

(Tuskeegee, for example) teach historic preservation and regularly graduate architects and 

historians qualified to work for the National Register, Historic American Buildings Survey, or 

other branches of the National Park Service. The Service’s Cultural Resources Diversity 

Internship Program is appreciated as a means to bring young people into the field, but Dozier 

feels it is no substitute for hiring more well-trained African American professionals, particularly 

in light of the Service’s oft-expressed desire to be responsive to African American concerns. 

Dozier’s own concern is two-fold. He feels that African American professionals have earned the 

right to jobs and money. He also believes that the National Park Service needs their expertise to 

succeed in its African American heritage efforts. Dozier and other respondents feel that the 

National Park Service remains needlessly out of touch with the lively discourse that flourishes 

among African American professionals. They are tired of being asked their opinion: why doesn’t 

the National Park Service simply hire people who know? “There is a lot of frustration out here,” 

Dozier concludes, “because the money just doesn’t come” and, as a result, “the projects fail.” 

43 
Disillusionment with well-intentioned government fact-finding is widespread, and not only 

among African American respondents. It is coming not from ideological opponents of 

government but from those who know the good that government can accomplish but have grown 

tired of waiting and suspicious of promises. Nicolás Kanellos asks, “When do we begin to feel 

that the institution is ready to reform itself?...It keeps asking us to do these things....Everyone in 

this group” – he gestures towards a room full of seasoned Latino scholars and activists – “has 

had experiences with national, state, or local government – and they’ve been unsatisfactory.” 

Gerald Poyo agrees: “We’re tired of being asked again and again,” when few results seem to 

come from the seemingly endless consultations. Despite years of discussion, for example, he 

notes that “we couldn’t even get a curator of Latino history at the National Museum of American 

History.” Guadalupe San Miguel too is disillusioned with government consultations, and “tired 

of educating yet another Anglo.” Finally, Antonia Castañeda asks succinctly, “What is the 

National Park Service doing to educate itself?” (As a postscript, it might be noted that this author 

did not encounter similar frustrations among Filipino American respondents. Why? “Perhaps we 

haven’t been studied to death,” ventures Lynn Pono.) 

Comments like these are not meant to be hostile. Many of these seasoned Hispanic activists have 

had little contact with the National Park Service. They keep an open mind about what the 

National Park Service may accomplish, and they do not blame it for their experiences with other 

branches of government. Indeed they are eager to work with the National Park Service toward 

common goals. Yet, Poyo warns, the National Park Service could “do more damage than good” 

if, like other agencies, it raises expectations and then fails to make good on them. Because of the 

history that precedes it, he cautions, the Service will have to demonstrate very clearly that it 

means to do more than talk. In fact, it will have to do something. 

This is a bracing challenge, because a logical response to a study like this would be...another 

study. Or perhaps the formation of councils or advisory groups. In fact, Judith Baca believes it 

would be “really wonderful to put a think-tank together of great scholars” to advise the National 

Park Service on Hispanic heritage endeavors, and Baca would help to organize it. The great 

scholars are certainly out there, as are the great activists. But would they serve? Gerald Poyo has 

another suggestion for the National Park Service: before asking more questions, find some

money – money with which to do something. Then put it on the table. As the proverb says: “Por 

dinero baile el perro.” The dog dances for money. 

This leads directly to the first recommendation: 

1. 

Commit funds for a concrete project that can be launched without delay; then invite 

experts and community leaders to advise on shaping and carrying it out. 

Funds thus put on the table can have great strategic value for the National Park Service, by 

signaling that the agency is determined to move beyond consultation, and by initiating 

relationships of lasting benefit to the agency. They can also accomplish essential short-term

goals. Of the many important goals that merit action, the one that the National Park Service is 

best positioned to undertake, decisively and immediately, is to shrink the diversity deficit in the 

National Register of Historic Places and in the historic places administered by the National Park 

44 
System. Respondents are troubled by this deficit, and many not only call for more (and better) 

historic sites but also eagerly volunteer their energy and expertise to identifying and 

documenting them. Hence this is an undertaking that will very clearly signal the agency’s 

seriousness. 

Taking all of these considerations into account, then, we may elaborate this recommendation as 

follows: 

• Launch an ambitious program to identify new historic places and potential 

National Park units, improve the interpretation of existing places, and publicize 

and market new and old sites directly to minority communities themselves.

Many of the components of this proposed program are described in greater detail under 

recommendations 3-6 below, which consider them as long-term goals. The program as a whole is 

described in Appendix A. 

Jobs 

Jobs and money – jobs in heritage conservation and money for projects – are sure-fire ways to do 

something. They are not necessarily the same thing. Jobs have long-term value for the 

profession. Money for projects brings immediate benefits and can also help build long-term

relationships. 

The debate over jobs calls upon agencies to broaden their hiring. The debate raises counterquestions. Does one really need to be black to appreciate black heritage? Are white people 

incapable of doing a good job? Actually, these questions are stalking horses. If asked, no 

respondent would answer yes to either of them. In fact, both Geraldine Hobdy and Jeanne 

Cyriaque – past and present government employees – give credit to white colleagues. What is

said, however, is that if heritage agencies are genuinely committed to conserving the cultural 

heritage of groups outside the mainstream, then they need some black, Latino, or Asian 

American staff – more than they have now – to help them do it. As Guadalupe San Miguel 

explains, it can take a very long time to educate a non-Hispanic professional about cultural issues 

that members of the community have imbibed from birth. It would make sense, he argues, for the 

agency to hire a Mexican American who “knows the issues and has the contacts.” 

Geraldine Hobdy points out that government jobs offer important opportunities to advocates for 

a culturally broader heritage practice, because “you have to be in the bureaucracy” to effect 

significant change in how it works. She reviews her own career as Louisiana’s first African 

American State Historic Preservation Officer. Her predecessor had been hostile to African 

American conservation issues, even to actions as simple as listing properties associated with 

African American history on the National Register. When Hobdy took over, there was an 

“explosion” of pent-up activity: listing National Register properties, appointing the first person 

of color to the state review board, incorporating archaeology into heritage programs (which 

benefited Asians and Cajuns as well), hosting partnerships with non-profits, working with the 

state’s tourism agency to build and serve a market for African American heritage tourism, then 

addressing a growing market for Latino heritage tourism. Hobdy had brought about significant 

changes by “being in the bureaucracy.” 

45 
There are plenty of well-trained and committed experts, not only in African American but also in 

Filipino, Mexican American, and other cultures. They are not necessarily trained in historic 

preservation. Yet their expertise in history and culture is transferable to the preservation field. 

Bringing more of them into the heritage preservation bureaucracy is a step that heritage agencies 

will need to take if they mean to make good on their pledge to address a multi-racial heritage. 

The National Park Service has already blazed pathways to lead people of color into the heritage 

and environmental fields. The Cultural Resources Diversity Internship Program places summer 

interns within the National Park Service and with other federal agencies, state historic 

preservation offices, and non-profit organizations throughout the country. The internship is 

described as a “career exploration experience.” Launched in 1999, program director Toni Lee 

says the program has already served 65 students; some have already gone on to take jobs in the 

cultural resource field, while others are pursuing advanced degrees in law, environmental 

studies, public history, and historic preservation.84 Another pathway that could bring college 

students and recent graduates into the field is the National Park Service’s partnership with the 

Environmental Careers Organization. The ECO runs a Diversity Initiative, and the National Park 

Service could use this partnership to channel students of color into heritage projects, thereby 

giving them a start in the profession.85

Internships like these provide solid benefits to young people and to the National Park Service. 

Yet they do not represent all that the National Park Service can or should do to open up the 

heritage professions. Richard Dozier points out that there is also a need to create opportunities 

for expert professionals who lack not education but opportunities to practice their craft. While 

internships will expand the cadre of experts, they do not guarantee that there will be jobs for 

them, nor do they enrich the heritage field with the wealth of expertise that already exists. These 

are needs that respondents identified, and they point to the second recommendation: 

2. 

Use staff jobs, consultant appointments, and project contracts to increase the racial and 

ethnic diversity of the government’s heritage programs and tap the expertise that exists 

within diverse communities.

Federal Roles 

“What are the large projects, the effective policies, that will change values?” This, Geraldine 

Hobdy believes, is the question government should be asking itself. It is a good one, and the first 

two recommendations only begin to answer it. Looking beyond jobs and money, however, three 

other questions should be taken into account. 

What are people asking for? Respondents most frequently asked government to act as a 

foundation, supporting citizen initiatives with grants of money or technical expertise. Such 

requests reveal genuine needs, but they also betray a lack of conviction that government can or 

will take bolder initiatives. “Our communities have been accustomed to going for project money 

and not looking beyond that,” comments Geraldine Hobdy. They underestimate government’s 

legitimate interest in the question, as well as its powers. 

46 
What is government’s stake in the matter? The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 states 

that “the spirit and direction of the Nation are founded upon and reflected in its historic heritage” 

and that “the preservation of this irreplaceable heritage is in the public interest so that its vital 

legacy of cultural, educational, aesthetic, inspirational, economic, and energy benefits will be 

maintained and enriched for future generations of Americans.”86 In fact, the nation has a 

powerful stake in seeing that its heritage is properly preserved and interpreted. Even if citizens 

were not calling upon it to help them preserve their heritage, government would have a 

compelling interest in doing so: in expanding the range of its historic sites, updating their 

interpretation, enhancing its collections, supporting historical scholarship, and supporting the 

efforts of community-based heritage associations. 

What can government do better than anyone else?

Government can, of course, give money: the National Endowment for the Humanities, National 

Endowment for the Arts, state arts and humanities councils, and Institute of Museum and Library 

Services are very good at it, as are Save Americas Treasures, Colorado’s State Historical Fund, 

and other government grant programs. Their increased support would be very valuable. But 

giving money is not uniquely the role of the federal government. What national government 

uniquely can do is carry out heritage programs on a national scale. The National Park System, 

National Historic Landmark and National Register programs, Library of Congress and 

Smithsonian Institution have the capacity and the mandate to survey and protect cultural heritage 

– and to organize knowledge and public awareness of cultural heritage – on a national scale. 

Federal agencies need not do this work in isolation. They can form any number of regional or 

local partnerships. But federal agencies alone have the capacity to lead. 

The following recommendations are grounded in what respondents said, while taking into 

account government’s stake in the issue and special capacity to address it. They make a 

conceptual leap from the topics covered in interviews – conserving Mexican, Filipino, and 

African American heritage – to the broad policy question that motivated this report – conserving 

the nation’s underrepresented (non-Native) heritage in general. This leap must be made with 

care, for views expressed by members of one racial or ethnic group do not necessarily represent 

those of another. Responses to the study did, however, reveal broad areas of agreement, and the 

recommendations flow out of these areas, while containing ample room for flexibility in 

responding to unknowns. While much, in short, remains to be learned, enough is already known 

to create practical programs and policies to address the problem. 

Historic Sites 

3. 

Correct the underrepresentation of racially/ethnically diverse history in the National 

Register by spearheading surveys of historic places and expanding or updating the ways 

existing sites are interpreted.

There can be little question that the National Register of Historic Places, as well as most if not all 

state registers and municipal landmark lists, fall short of presenting the full diversity of 

American history. Correcting this is more than a matter of serving one constituency or another: it 

is a matter of ensuring that the nation’s officially sanctioned presentations of its history are 

47 
accurate and meet the highest professional standards established by historians and heritage 

conservationists. It is also a matter of offering an interesting presentation to the American public 

– not any particular segment of that public, but all of it. 

New surveys of sites of minority experience are needed. These can be national or regional: for 

example, Mexican American sites in the southwest or Filipino American sites on the west coast. 

They can be general in scope or thematically focused: for example, sites illustrative of the 

interconnections among groups. 

The National Park Service can use the National Register or National Historic Landmarks 

programs for surveys. The National Register program, however, is largely carried out by states 

acting under a federal mandate: nominations are prepared by state agency staff or citizens (either 

volunteers or professionals), then forwarded upward from State Historic Preservation Offices.87

This inability to carry out surveys directly limits its usefulness, since it is unrealistic to expect 

ten, twenty, or fifty state agencies to collaborate on a regional or national project. However, the 

National Park Service might be able to use the National Register program to spearhead studies 

that could be carried out under its umbrella, and perhaps with its funding assistance. 

The National Historic Landmarks program may offer a better vehicle. National Historic 

Landmarks are normally identified through theme studies that can be initiated by the National 

Park Service or mandated by Congress. They are frequently carried out in partnership with 

citizen groups and universities. Since the 1959 study of Spanish Exploration and Settlement there 

has been only one Theme Study on a Hispanic or Asian American subject: Japanese Americans 

in World War II. There could be no better time for further studies than the present. 

Whatever the vehicle, the proposed surveys can and should go beyond the limits of traditional 

surveys. The National Park Service has many other valuable capacities on which to draw. For 

example, its Cultural Resources programs can add enhance the National Park Service’s excellent 

list of publications by preparing printed or electronic itineraries, brochures, or more substantial 

publications. Its cultural landscape programs can help analyze working landscapes associated 

with Mexican and Filipino migrant workers throughout the west and southwest. And Congress 

could authorize it to assess the possibility of heritage areas relating to Asian or Hispanic cultural 

themes, particularly in the west and southwest. 

The National Park Service can also benefit by convening committees of experts and community 

leaders to advise on sites. Such consultation should become a two-way street, with respondents 

giving the National Park Service’s essential information on sites and the National Park Service 

providing expertise and support on local projects to enhance their value – leaflets, guides, 

curricular material, plaques, public art projects, websites, and so forth. The value of such 

consultation could be greatly enhanced were the National Park Service to partner with the 

national endowments and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (and the SHPOS with the 

appropriate state arts and humanities councils) to direct grant funding towards projects that 

exploit the teaching potential of sites. 

Beyond designating sites, the National Park Service and state historic preservation offices can do 

more to use them for teaching American history. And while supporting local initiatives, they 

48 
should also use their own powers, accompanying new surveys with guidebooks and curricular 

material.

In order to realize the full potential of historic sites, the National Park Service should also 

accompany new surveys with creation of an archive or database of historical materials relating to 

them. This could be undertaken in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution or Library of 

Congress, as well as with not-for-profit organizations based in the Mexican, Filipino, or African 

American communities. 

The final step in realizing the full value of surveys will be to publish and distribute handbooks 

for identifying Mexican and Filipino American historical places, on the model of the excellent 

guides that already exist for African American places. These handbooks, however, should go 

beyond identifying and assessing places to provide guidance on how to create plaques, markers, 

public art, guidebooks, and curricular materials to interpret them – and on how to obtain the 

protection of local preservation ordinances for them. In this way, the National Park Service will 

place the necessary tools in the hands of communities so that they can continue and build on the 

work it has spearheaded. 

4. 

Provide National Register guidance that is more responsive to sites of importance in 

Mexican, Filipino, African American, and other diverse heritages. 

 

While much can be accomplished within existing National Register standards, some rethinking 

will be needed if the National Register is to recognize the full range of important Mexican, 

Filipino, and African American historic sites. This is a normal process that healthy programs 

undergo as changing circumstances prompt their application to new areas. Confronted with the 

need to better recognize Native American sites, the National Register was enriched with a useful 

new concept of traditional cultural properties. A similar rethinking is called for now. 

What is needed appears to be a shift in emphasis from what one might call “objectness” to 

“placefulness.” Many respondents described the strong sense of connection they felt to historical 

places – places inhabited by the people of the past, places where things had happened. Where 

buildings survive to bear witness to the past, they want to see those buildings preserved. But 

whether it is Jeanne Cyriaque’s “spirit of place” or Angel Shaw’s sense that “there were labor 

camps: right here,” respondents feel that certain places are hallowed by historical presence even 

if their historic structures may have entirely disappeared. In any case, buildings associated with 

field work, life in the barrios, and other important aspects of Mexican, Filipino, and African 

American historic experience, are inherently less likely to survive intact than (for example) art 

museums, Beaux Arts city halls, and well-to-do-neighborhoods: such buildings include union 

halls, social clubs, street-front churches, bunkhouses, roadside shrines, tenements, mobile homes, 

and factories. Standards that heavily emphasize the physical integrity of historic structures make 

it difficult to recognize working-class and immigrant history. While they are valuable tools for 

weighing the relative merits of many kinds of buildings, their use must be guided by larger 

objectives, such as the National Park Service’s policy of providing “factual and balanced 

presentations of the many American cultures, heritages, and histories.”88 Their application should 

also reflect the real condition of resources that are available for those presentations. What is 

49 
needed now is guidance, similar to that provided for traditional cultural properties in National 

Register of Historic Places guidance, to direct applicants and National Register staff in 

evaluating the merits of sites associated with working-class and immigrant history. Another way 

to look at this is to say that we need to develop better ways to recognize place, even where 

standard histories are hard to construct, or where buildings may have been damaged or 

demolished. 89

• Modify the interpretation of National Register criteria to better recognize the 

history of manual labor, especially field work.

• Develop better ways of recognizing and protecting sites that lack significant 

historic structures.

• Extend the concept of traditional cultural places more broadly to non-Indian 

sites. 

The National Park System 

5. 

Realize the potential of existing National Park units to present Filipino, Mexican, African 

American, and other diverse heritages.

One of the quickest ways to create new Mexican, Filipino, or African American historic sites (as 

noted above) would be to interpret these groups’ role at existing historic sites. The White House, 

Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, and Boston’s Faneuil Hall have already been mentioned, and 

a thorough survey of National Park Service units would undoubtedly reveal many more sites at 

which these (and other) groups played significant but unrecognized roles. Similar surveys of 

historic sites administered by states and not-for-profits would be equally fruitful, because the 

problem of historical erasure, noted by many respondents, has been pervasive. 

In addition to the sites themselves, archives, libraries, and museums contain artifacts whose 

significance for the heritage of minority groups often continues to go unrecognized. During a 

recent visit to a well-known museum of folk art, for example, a group of Filipino American 

heritage experts were able to identify several wood carvings of Christian subjects, previously 

believed by museum staff to be Latin American, as rare Filipino artifacts. They were also able to 

explain the provenance and use of other Filipino objects that had puzzled curators. A survey of

books, manuscripts, photographs, artwork, and other artifacts in collections belonging to the 

National Park Service (as well as other federal and state repositories) would unearth many 

objects that could be helpful in presenting Filipino, Mexican, African American, and other 

diverse heritages. 

Bookshops are another existing resources that the National Park Service can exploit to greater 

effect. The bookshops at many historic sites, operated both by the National Park Service and by 

other agencies, could do more to offer publications that present Mexican, Filipino, African 

American, and other diverse experiences and perspectives. 

50 
Existing park system units also present opportunities to expand the use of applied ethnography to 

identify traditionally associated peoples, represent their points of view in park interpretation, and 

reflect their interests with regard to park management. 

These opportunities would be substantial even if they were limited to historic places. But they 

are not. As Paul Espinosa points out, any property managed by the National Park Service may 

have “great potential” for explaining important themes in national history and culture, because 

even though not explicitly organized around historical themes, it may have important cultural 

associations. And, notes Boris Hidalgo, parks are popular places that the public holds in high 

esteem. While a core group of visitors motivated by an interest in history can be counted upon to 

visit historic sites, a much broader public visits park: they therefore offer great educational 

opportunities. 

It is hard to say how many opportunities for public education await discovery within the National 

Park System’s 388 units, but surely they are considerable. Still, to realize their potential, the 

National Park Service will need to do more than identify them: it will also have to interpret, 

publicize, and market them. Ranger-based programs, internet and print publications, curricular 

materials, plaques and wayside markers, exhibitions, news coverage, and focused informational 

campaigns designed to reach highly interested groups are all useful vehicles. Many of these can 

be undertaken in partnership with national or local ethnic organizations. 

6. 

Establish new National Park units where they can provide heritage along with other 

services to underserved communities. 

 

To propose new park system units goes beyond the bounds of this study. However, identification 

of potential new units should be part of the survey process described above. Respondents 

identified two areas of significant opportunity for new parks. South Texas is an important area 

for Mexican American heritage, yet Boris Hidalgo points out that in the vast triangle that lies 

between San Antonio, Brownsville, and Del Rio there are no National Park units. Hidalgo, a 

Houston lawyer who grew up in this area, believes it offers significant opportunities for park 

creation, particularly in the area of El Sal del Rey. New parks there could recognize Mexican 

American heritage while providing badly needed recreational opportunities to an underserved 

population. Unlike South Texas, Hawaii has eight National Park units, yet none is associated 

with the experience of Filipino (and Japanese) plantation workers. Linda Revilla points out that 

the evidence of this heritage is rapidly disappearing: a new park unit could salvage some

representation of it before it is too late.90

Heritage Programs and Research

7. 

Devise programs that will expand awareness of racially/ethnically diverse history beyond 

the stereotypes.

 

51 
Public presentation of African American heritage emphasizes narratives of enslavement and 

liberation. A secondary point of emphasis is on cultural achievements, especially in music (Delta 

blues, Louis Armstrong). Public presentation of Asian American heritage focuses on the 

internment camps of World War II and ethnic enclaves such as Chinatowns. These themes are 

not wrong, but they are incomplete. They miss broad areas of historical experience and fail to 

convey to Americans the centrality of these groups’ experiences within American history. 

Americans can have a more complete and more satisfying historical picture, and the National 

Park Service is in the best position to lead the way, both through its presentation of heritage in its 

own programs and through its ability to encourage scholarship. In moving public perception 

beyond limited stereotypes, attention to areas such as these (all proposed by respondents) would 

be strategically effective: interactions among ethnic or racial groups; early African American 

history, including the experience of free Blacks and the accomplishments of religious leaders; 

African American urban experience, especially after the Civil War; the early Filipino presence 

(with a specific need to resolve definitively the question of New Orleans’ eighteenth-century 

Manila Town); the history of Filipino Americans outside the west coast; Filipino heritage in 

general. In summary: 

• Emphasize themes of interchange and interconnection among ethnic groups;

• Emphasize themes that expand public awareness of ethnic or racial groups;

• Carry out further studies to identify important themes in the historic experience 

of other underrepresented ethnic or racial groups.

Support for Citizen Initiatives 

8. 

Support non-governmental heritage conservation efforts with financial grants, technical 

expertise, and partnership opportunities.

While the federal government can and should do more to preserve minority heritage, it should 

not do everything. Some things should be done by communities, with federal encouragement and 

support. 

What is the “best way to maximize partnership with the federal government?” asks Geraldine 

Hobdy. Sometimes, she warns, federal agencies want to take over projects, rather than support 

them, and when that happens, citizen initiatives can suffer. While community-based projects are 

often desperately starved for funds and technical expertise,91 they may embody deep local 

knowledge that makes their continuance at community level very valuable. Besides, maintaining 

community control over how heritage is defined and presented may be politically essential to the 

project’s success. On the other hand, many important conservation projects require resources that 

far outstrip those available to citizen-based groups. For example, as noted above, the cost of 

documenting the music, domestic arts, cultural life, literary expression, business activities, and 

community organization of evolving immigrant communities. In this as in many other instances, 

it is simply unreasonable to think that citizen groups can, without significant aid, create the kind 

of legacy that future citizens may wish for. For these reasons, financial and technical support to 

local groups should play an important part in federal heritage conservation programs, as should 

52 
partnership opportunities, including co-sponsored publications, traveling exhibitions, or 

collaboration on website design and cataloguing projects. 

Respondents noted a wide range of endeavors in which federal support would be appreciated. 

Assistance in acquiring, cataloguing, conserving, and providing electronic access to collections 

(including archives, libraries, and museums) would be a sound federal investment in the nation’s 

history that could continue to pay dividends literally for centuries. Aid to documentation and 

publication projects, local historic and preservation societies, documentary films, historical 

research, folklore and oral history projects, and community cultural development efforts also 

promise large rewards. 

In this arena, the National Park Service need not and indeed cannot bear the major burden. The 

National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Institute for 

Museum and Library Services, Smithsonian Institution, and Library of Congress, as well as state 

preservation offices, historical societies, and arts and humanities councils all have important 

roles to play. What the National Park Service can do is set a policy direction towards the 

preservation of minority heritage and take the lead in creating programmatic vehicles for 

collaboration, both among funding agencies and with citizen-based groups. 

Governmental Partnerships for the Future 

9.

Seek increased integration between historic preservation practice and other dimensions of 

heritage conservation such as collecting and folkways. 

 

Placing the core work of historic preservationists – the conservation and interpretation of historic 

places – in the context of other aspects of conservation will allow preservationists to make more 

informed decisions in every realm of their practice. Many site managers already do this, 

harnessing applied ethnography and oral history as well as sophisticated approaches to 

collections and exhibits. In other areas of historic preservation practice this kind of integration is 

less widespread. 

A note of caution is required here. Jeanne Cyriaque, who works for a state historic preservation 

office, supports the integration of folkways into historic preservation as long as it does not drain 

resources away from core preservation programs. Franklin Odo, of the Smithsonian Institution, 

agrees: while it is good to think about intangibles, “for the National Park Service to not put full 

effort into identifying places where things happened” would be a mistake. Integrating historic 

preservation practice with related disciplines should be a way to produce better decisions and 

better public presentations, not to cut the pie into ever- smaller slices. 

10. 

Study the negative impacts of market and government forces on the folkways of minority 

communities and consider developing new tools to mitigate them.

 

The impact of the real estate market and of government programs like urban renewal, highway 

construction, and public housing, on African American, Mexican, and Filipino neighborhoods 

53 
has in many instances been devastating. Many other government actions, including code 

enforcement, also affect folkways. Indeed, the forces at work dwarf the mechanisms available to 

heritage conservationists or, for that matter, affected communities. Yet until conservationists and 

their constituents become more effective “players” in the land use game, their ability to protect 

heritage, either of the built or of the performative variety, will be significantly limited. This 

remains a long-term, and difficult, problem. But a good first step towards addressing it, as 

suggested above, would be to take stock very broadly of government’s and the market’s impacts 

on folkways. This assessment could lead to the development of legal and policy tools to help 

decision-makers and the public assess the impact of proposed actions on folkways. It would also 

help conservation advocates consider what positive measures might help protect them from

market and government forces. 

At the same time, certain potentially useful tools already exist in embryo and should be 

developed. The National Environmental Policy Act and some state environmental laws, or “little 

NEPAs,” recognize certain cultural dimensions of the environment, including community 

character, as potentially deserving of protection. These statutes should be closely studied to 

determine how far their protection might extend into the realm of folkways and place-based 

traditions. A survey of “third places” (in Oldenburg’s terminology) or “story sites” (in this 

author’s) might lead to the identification of many of them as environmental assets under these 

statutes, and this in turn could lead both to their protection and to test cases that could help 

establish the laws’ applicability to cultural elements of the environment. At the same time, 

Hawaii’s innovative requirement of a Cultural Impact Statement deserves further study: could it 

be emulated elsewhere? And finally, the National Park Service’s ethnography program offers 

many opportunities for documenting and protecting the folkways of minority communities. 

11. 

Build a transnational heritage practice.

 

Transnationalism threatens traditional nation-state heritage programs with irrelevance at some

time in the future, because the historical experience of people who cross borders can only be 

fully preserved by programs that also cross borders. Similarly, it seems likely that constituencies 

that straddle borders will best be served by programs that straddle them. Transnationalism can 

help to revitalize heritage practice, as it is reshaping heritage itself, if it stimulates the 

development of such border-crossing programs. Already advantages are apparent: research on 

early land grants and genealogies in the southwest requires consultation of sources in Mexico as 

well as the United States: a joint governmental initiative could improve access to these sources. 

As transnational migrants begin to compile a heritage at least partly in this country, the 

incentives to think transnationally about heritage conservation may well grow. It is not too early 

to begin thinking about the possibilities. “Sending” and “receiving” localities could work 

together to document the history of those whose allegiance they share. Such partnerships could 

work at the level of local, state, or national government. One program already exists within the 

Department of the Interior that could form the basis for federal heritage partnerships: the 

Department of the Interior’s International Technical Assistance Program. While proximity 

suggests Mexico as the obvious place to start, transnational work is equally applicable to the 

Philippines, the Caribbean, Africa, and so forth. 

54 
 

Postscript: A Note to Elected Officials and Their Constituents 

The United States has a representative form of government, and National Park Service officials 

will be among the first to point out that its heritage conservation initiatives respond to the will of 

Congress, the peoples’ representatives. They too have an important role to play in heritage 

conservation. While few, if any, of the proposals in this report are new, it is hoped that putting 

them on paper will show elected officials and their constituents that programs to protect the 

underrepresented parts of the national story are no vague dream but a constructive and practical 

possibility. A wide range of meaningful initiatives is entirely feasible – not in a distant, 

imaginary future, but here and now. 



55 
VII. APPENDICES AND NOTES 

Appendix A: Proposal for An Historic Places Initiative

As the next step towards closing the diversity gap, this report proposes that the National Park 

Service launch a broad program to identify and preserve new historic sites and to improve, 

interpret, and market existing ones. Such an initiative represents a constructive way to do 

something right away, put money on the table, and use the information solicited by the Cultural 

Heritage Needs Assessment. It would offer an ideal subject of collaboration with experts and 

community leaders and would send a clear signal that the agency is committed to moving beyond 

the status quo. Its inherent and immediate value would be substantial; even greater would be the 

long-term value of the working relationships it could help build between preservation agencies 

and community leaders and experts. 

As a thematic focus for such a project, the National Park Service (and its community partners) 

should consider adopting the interactions among ethnic or racial groups in American history. 

This theme presents a number of advantages. Many respondents expressed interest in it. 

Addressing it would, by definition, address the experiences of multiple groups. Its relevance is 

not limited to any particular region of the country. It would expand the public’s awareness of 

cultural diversity beyond existing stereotypes. And it would have broad public appeal. 

Whatever theme is chosen, the proposed historic places initiative will call for rethinking some

interpretations of the National Register criteria, particularly the integrity guidelines. The 

challenge is that many important historical experiences neither produced nor took place in the 

kinds of buildings that typically survive unaltered. Instead, they took place in open fields, 

barrios, labor camps, union halls, social clubs, street-front churches, bunkhouses, tenements, 

lightly built cabins, mobile homes, factories, and docks. Where such buildings have survived, 

respondents want to preserve them. But even where they have disappeared or been altered, many 

report feeling a strong sense of connection to the places where people had lived and struggled. 

Whether it is Jeanne Cyriaque’s “spirit of place” or Angel Shaw’s sense that “there were labor 

camps: right here,” respondents feel that these places are hallowed by historical presence. 

National Register criteria that emphasize the presence and integrity of historic structures make it 

difficult, and sometimes impossible, to honor this consciousness of place and history; in fact, 

they carry an unintended bias against working-class and immigrant history. To correct this, ways 

must be found to recognize places and the historical connections that people feel to them. 

To realize its full potential, the historic places initiative will also have to involve community 

groups and non-governmental experts as full partners. This will require moving beyond standbys 

of community involvement like advisory or review committees: partners should have a real voice 

from the outset. For this reason the initiative’s components can best be identified in terms of the 

resources the National Park Service can bring to the table. First, the National Park Service can 

offer its unique ability to conduct a theme studies for potential National Historic Landmarks and 

potential additions to the National Park System, and opportunities for improving the 

interpretation and marketing of existing sites. It can also engage its Cultural Resources programs 

to publish itineraries, brochures, or books; the National Heritage Areas Program to study the 

potential for heritage areas relating to Asian or Hispanic cultural themes; the Cultural Landscape 

56 
program to analyze working landscapes; and the Applied Ethnography program to document 

community attachment to places. In addition to its own resources, the National Park Service can 

bring in the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, and 

Institute for Museum and Library Services (as well as state historic preservation offices, arts, and 

humanities councils) to fund curricular materials, publications, websites, public art, or markers to 

create historical awareness around some of the identified sites. And it can partner with the 

Smithsonian Institution or Library of Congress to create an archive or database of related 

historical and ethnographic materials. Whatever its components, the project should address the 

full potential of historic places to instruct and engage. It should culminate, finally, in the 

publication of handbooks for identifying historic sites relating to Mexican American, Filipino 

American, and other diverse cultural heritages. These can be modeled on the excellent guides 

that exist for African American sites, but they should also include guidelines for creating 

plaques, public art, guidebooks, and curricular materials, and for securing local landmark 

protection. In this way, the National Park Service can give communities the tools to continue the 

work – provide the fishing rod as well as the fish. 

Appendix B: List of Respondents

The author would like to extend his personal thanks to the following individuals, who gave 

generously of their time and expertise. 

Adélamar Alcántara, Senior Demographer, Bureau of Business and Economic Research, 

University of New Mexico, and FANHS trustee (Filipino American heritage) 

Judith F. Baca, Founder and Artistic Director, SPARC (Social and Public Art Resource Center), 

Los Angeles, and Professor, Cesar E. Chavez Center for Chicana/o Studies, University of 

California at Los Angeles (Mexican American heritage) 

Alan Bergano, dentist and FANHS trustee, Virginia Beach, VA (Filipino American heritage) 

Ronald Buenaventura, ----------- and FANHS trustee, Lakewood, CA 

Olivia Cadaval, Chair, Research and Education, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, 

Smithsonian Institution (Mexican American heritage) 

Antonia Castañeda, Professor of History, St. Mary’s University, San Antonio (Mexican 

American heritage) 

Stephanie Castillo, documentary film maker and FANHS trustee, Honolulu, HA (Filipino 

American heritage) 

Dorothy Laigo Cordova, Founder and Executive Director, Filipino American National Historical 

Society, Seattle, WA

Fred Cordova, Founding President Emeritus, FANHS, Seattle, WA

57 
Joan May Cordova, teacher and FANHS trustee, Cambridge, MA (Filipino American heritage) 

Jeanne Cyriaque, African American Programs Coordinator, Georgia State Historic Preservation 

Office, Atlanta, GA (African American heritage) 

Ruth Dass, Director, Interculture, Huddersfield, UK (race issues in site interpretation) 

William E. Davis, Principal, Davis Architects and Construction Managers, New York; past 

member, board of directors, New York State Preservation League, past member, New York City 

Landmarks Preservation Commission (African American heritage) 

Richard Dozier, Professor, Florida A&M University, School of Architecture, Tallahassee, FL

Paul Espinosa, Producer-writer-director, Espinosa Productions, San Diego, CA (Mexican 

American heritage) 

Thomas Hales Eubanks, State Archaeologist and Director, Louisiana Division of Archaeology, 

Baton Rouge, LA (archaeology and interpretation of historic sites) 

Luis H. Francia, poet and author, Adjunct Professor, Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program

and Institute, New York University (Filipino American heritage) 

John W. Franklin, Program Manager, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian 

Institution (African American heritage) 

Dorothy Fujita-Rony, Professor, Department of Asian American Studies, University of 

California at Irvine (Asian American heritage) 

Eric Gamalinda, author, poet, and journalist, Visiting Professor, Asian/Pacific/American Studies 

Program and Institute, New York University (African American heritage) 

Laura Gates, Superintendent, Cane River Creole National Historical Park, Natchitoches, LA, 

National Park Service (applied ethnography and park interpretation) 

Bradford C. Grant, Chairperson, Department of Architecture, Hampton University, School of 

Architecture, Hampton, VA (African American heritage) 

John R. Gupman, Park Ranger (Interpretation), Cane River Creole National Historical Park, 

National Park Service, Natchitoches, LA (park interpretation) 

Felicity Heywood, Museums Journal, London, UK (race issues in site interpretation) 

Boris A. Hidalgo, Partner, Thompson & Knight, LLP, Attorneys and Counselors, Houston, and 

chair of board of trustees, Arte Público Press (Mexican American heritage) 

58 
Gerri Hobdy, former Louisiana State Historic Preservation Officer, Baton Rouge, LA 

 

Isaac Johnson, Springfield Village Park Foundation, Augusta, GA (African American heritage) 

Nicolás Kanellos, Founder and Director, Arte Público Press, University of Houston, and 

Professor, Department of Modern and Classical Languages, University of Houston (Mexican 

American heritage) 

Aimy Manzón Ko, alumna, Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program and Institute, New York 

University (Filipino American heritage) 

Emily P. Lawsin, Lecturer, University of Michigan, Program in American Culture, and FANHS 

trustee, Detroit, MI (Filipino American heritage) 

Roz Li, architect, Li/Saltzman Architects, New York (Filipino American heritage) 

Barbara Mattick, Deputy Florida State Historic Preservation Officer, Tallahassee, FL (folklore 

and historic preservation) 

Michèle Gates Moresi, consultant historian, National Park Service, Diversity & Special Projects, 

National Center for Cultural Resources, Washington, D.C. (African American heritage, NPS 

programs) 

 

Franklin Odo, Director, Asian Pacific American Studies Program, Smithsonian Institution (Asian 

American heritage) 

Dr. Virgilio R. Pilapil, retired physician, past president and FANHS trustee, Springfield, IL 

(Filipino American heritage) 

Lynn Pono, Coordinator of Youth and Family Programs, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York 

(Filipino American heritage) 

Gerald E. Poyo, Professor of U.S. Latino and Latin American History, St. Mary’s University, 

San Antonio (Latino heritage) 

John T. Reddick, architect, President, The Cityscape Institute, New York, NY (African American 

heritage) 

Linda Revilla, educational consultant, lecturer, California State University at Sacramento, and 

FANHS trustee, Sacramento, CA (Filipino American heritage) 

Alexa Roberts, Superintendent, Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, National Park 

Service (applied ethnography) 

Refugio I. Rochin, Associate Director, Inter-University Program for Latino Research, University 

of Notre Dame (Latino heritage) 

59 
Rolando M. Romo, Manager, Houston Metropolitan Research Center; founder and past 

president, Tejano Association for Historical Preservation (Mexican American heritage) 

Rosaura Sanchez, Professor, Department of Literature, University of California at San Diego 

(Mexican American heritage) 

Guadalupe San Miguel, Professor of History, University of Houston (Mexican American 

heritage) 

Angel Velasco Shaw, Professor, Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program and Institute, New 

York University; also documentary film and video artist and community activist (Filipino 

American heritage) 

John L. Silva, consultant to the National Museum of the Philippines and founder/director, Bakás 

Pilipinas: Philippine Historic Preservation Society, Manila, Philippines (Filipino American 

heritage) 

John Kuo Wei Tchen, Professor and Founding Director, Asian/Pacific/American Studies 

Program and Institute, New York University; and founder of Museum of Chinese in the 

Americas (Asian American heritage) 

Maria T. Torres, home teacher and president, Stockton FANHS chapter, Stockton, CA (Filipino 

American heritage) 

Lynn Wilder, Cajun Pride Tours, New Orleans (African Americn heritage) 

Thomas Williams, ------------- Kennesaw, GA (African American heritage) 

Sherrill D. Wilson, Director, Office of Public Education and Interpretation of the African Burial 

Ground, New York, NY 

60 
Notes

 

1

 National Park Service, “Cultural Heritage Needs Assessment Project: Phase I,” project 

statement, 2002. 

2 National Park Service Policies 2001, sec. 7.5.5. Quoted from Emogene Bevitt (comp.),

“National Park Service Policies Regarding Native Americans, Park-Associated Communities, 

Public Participation, and Community Relations,” January 2003. 

3

 http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/research/index.htm (consulted July 2003). The numbers for Asian 

and Hispanic would be slightly higher if one included properties in Micronesia, Guam, the 

Marshall Island, and Puerto Rico, or Native Hawaiian properties in Hawaii. A more 

impressionistic (and slightly more encouraging) yardstick is provided by the project list of Save 

America’s Treasures, a national program founded by the White House Millenium Council and 

the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1998 “to focus public attention on the importance 

of our national heritage and the need to save our treasures at risk.” Out of over five hundred 

projects listed in November 2002, approximately 35 could be identified as bearing specifically 

and primarily on some aspect of cultural heritage distinct from the mainstream (of course many 

other projects touch on one aspect or another of diverse heritage). Of these, about seventeen 

relate to African American heritage, thirteen to Hispanic American, and two to Asian American. 

One can further characterize the sites. Of the African American sites, many relate to plantation 

slavery: they are, of course, in the South. In addition, there are sites relating to famous African 

Americans (Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Paul Robeson, Louis Armstrong, Harriet Tubman). There 

are a few Civil Rights movement sites. And there are at least two African American 

neighborhoods or clusters of buildings associated with urban community life: the Jackson Ward 

NHL in Richmond, VA, and the Weeksville Society in Brooklyn, NY. Of the Hispanic American 

sites, many relate to the Spanish colonization of California and the southwest, though there are 

also the “Hispanic Cultural Landscape of the Purgatoire and Apishapa” in Colorado and Ybor 

City (founded by a Cuban immigrant) in Florida. Both of the Asian American sites are Japanese 

World War II internment camps. See the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s website, at 

www.nthp.org/save%20america’s%20treasures/projall2.htm (consulted November 2002). 

4 Keepers of the Treasures: Protecting Historic Properties and Cultural Traditions on Indian 

Lands. A Report on Tribal Preservation Funding Needs Submitted to Congress by the National 

Park Service, United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1990. 

5

 Miguel Vasquez, “Latinos ¡Viva La Diferencia!,” CRM, vol. 24, no. 5, 2001, p. 22. 

6

 David Hornbeck, “Spanish Legacy in the Borderlands,” in Michael P. Conzen, ed., The Making 

of the American Landscape, New York and London, Routledge, 1994 (first published 1990), pp. 

51-62. 

7

 The author was unable to consult the most comprehensive treatment of this subject, contained 

in Marina Espina, Filipinos in Louisiana, New Orleans, A.F. Laborde, 1988. Some scholars, 

however, dispute the claim.

61 
 8

 Jorge Ramos, The Other Face of America, New York, Harper Collins, 2002, p. xvii. 

9

 Cynthia A. Brewer and Trudy A. Suchan, Mapping Census 2000: The Geography of U.S. 

Diversity, Redlands, CA, ESRI Press, 2001. For statistics, see also Ramos, op. cit., p. xviii. 

10 Ramos, op. cit., p. 156. 

11 Ibid., pp. xix-xx. 

12 Ibid., p. 110. 

13 Ibid., p. 126. 

14 Alejandro Portes and Rubén G. Rumbaut, Immigrant America: A Portrait, Berkeley, CA, 

University of California Press, 1990, pp.11, 19. 

15 Thomas Faist, "Transnationalization in International Migration: Implications for the Study of 

Citizenship and Culture," Ethnic and Racial Studies, 23/2, March 2000, p. 189. 

16 Carlos Monsivaís, "Dreaming of Utopia," NACLA Report on the Americas, 29/3, Nov/Dec 

1995, pp. 40-41. 

17 Faist, op. cit., p. 211. 

18 Dell Upton, ed., America’s Architectural Roots: Ethnic Groups That Built America, 

Washington, D.C., Preservation Press, 1986, p. 10. 

19 Michael P. Conzen, “Ethnicity on the Land,” in Conzen, ed., op. cit., pp. 221-248. 

20 Anatalio Ubalde, ed., Filipino American Architecture, Design and Planning Issues, np, 

Flipside Press, 1996. 

21 See Brian D. Joyner, African Reflections on the American Landscape: Identifying and 

Interpreting Africanisms, Washington, DC, National Park Service, 2003, with extensive 

bibliography. 

22 From Arte Público’s website: 

http://benito.arte.uh.edu/Arte_Publico_Press/about_app/aboutapp_app.htm.

23 “Poetry and the Burden of History: An Interview with Martin Espada,” published on the 

website of the University of Illinois’s Department of English at: 

www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/espada/interview.htm. I am grateful to my daughter Emily 

Kaufman for this reference. 

24 See Eric Yamamoto, Interracial Justice: Conflict and Reconciliation in Post-Civil-Rights 

America, New York, NYU Press, 1999. Yamamoto outlines four steps to reconciliation: 

recognition, responsibility, reconstruction, and reparation. 

62 
 25 Mel Orpilla, “Segregation and Identity,” in Ubalde, op. cit., p.169. 

26 Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, New York, Vintage International, 1995 (first published, 1952), 

p. 3. 

27 Theodore S. Beardsley, Jr., The Hispanic Impact Upon the United States, pamphlet, New 

York, G.K. Hall, 1976, p. 16. 

28 Information on the African Burial Ground can be obtained from the Office of Public Education 

and Interpretation in New York City, or through its website, 

www.africanburialground.com/ABG_OPEI.htm, which also lists upcoming events at the site. 

29 Theodore Rosengarten, All God’s Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw, New York, 1974; Alex 

Haley, Roots, New York, 1976. 

30 Anthropologist James Deetz has defined material culture as “that segment of man’s physical 

environment which is purposely shaped by him according to culturally dictated plans.” (Quoted 

in Thomas J. Schlereth, “History Museums and Material Culture,” in Warren Leon and Roy 

Rosenzweig, eds., History Museums in the United States. A Critical Assessment, Urbana and 

Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 1989, p. 294.) Early African American material culture 

studies include Robert Farris Thompson’s “African Influence on the Art of the United States” 

(1969), James Newton’s “Slave Artisans and Craftsmen” (1977), John Michael Vlach’s The 

Afro-American Tradition in Decorative Arts (the catalogue to a major exhibition of the 

Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978), and the same author’s Back of the Big House: The 

Architecture of Plantation Slavery (1993). 

31 See Susan Wal and Susan Kidd, "Cultural Diversity: A Movement of Statewide Efforts in the 

South: Documenting and Promoting the Region's History," in NTHP Forum 7/5, Sept/Oct 1993, 

p. 1. 

32 Carole Merritt, Historic Black Resources: A Handbook for the Identification, Documentation, 

and Evaluation of Historic African-American Properties in Georgia, Atlanta, GA, Historic 

Preservation Section, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, 1984. 

33 For museums’ responses to African American issues, see James Oliver Horton and Spencer R. 

Crew, "Afro-Americans and Museums: Towards a Policy of Inclusion" in Leon and Rosenzweig, 

eds., op. cit.

34 Albany, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, “Guide to the 

Survey of Historic Resources Associated with African-Americans.” The author consulted an 

undated draft typescript from approximately 1994. 

35 See http://www.cr.nps.gov/delta/home.htm (consulted July 2003). 

36 See http://www.nps.gov/undergroundrr/contents.htm; 

http://www.cr.nps.gov/NR/travel/underground/; and 

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/ugrr/exugrr1.htm (consulted July 2003). 

63 
 37 “Our Shared History: Celebrating African American History and Culture,” 

http://www.cr.nps.gov/aahistory/bhm-intro.htm (consulted July 2003). 

38 The first was “Through My Father’s Eyes: The Filipino American Photographs of Ricardo 

Ocreto Alvarado (1914-1976).” There was no catalogue; however, as of this writing, the exhibit 

can still be seen online at http://apa.si.edu. The second was “El Rio.” See Olivia Cadaval and 

Cynthia Vidaurri, El Rio, Smithsonian Institution, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, 

2003. 

39 National Trust for Historic Preservation website: 

http://www.nationaltrust.org/news/docs/20030529_11most_littlemanila.html (consulted July 

2003). See also the newsletter of the National Trust’s western office, at 

http://www.nationaltrust.org/about_the_trust/newsletters/wro/wro-0703.pdf. 

40 “Los Caminos del Rio”: see the National Trust’s website, 

http://www.nationaltrust.org/11most/2001/loscaminos.htm (consulted July 2003). The area 

identified stretches from Laredo to Brownsville. Earlier, in 1999, First Lady Hilary Rodham

Clinton had led a trip to the southwest, organized by Save America’s Treasures, a partnership 

between the National Trust and the White House Millenium Council, whose purpose had been 

been to draw public attention to the plight of historically and culturally important sites in 

Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. See http://saveamericastreasures.org/release051399.htm

(consulted July 2003). 

41 http://www.nationaltrust.org/search/sitesearch.asp (consulted July 2003). 

42 See the National Park Service’s Heritage Areas website: http://www.cr.nps.gov/heritageareas/ 

(consulted 7/03). See also “Regional Heritage Areas: Connecting People to Places and History,” 

a special issue of Forum Journal, vol. 17, no. 4, summer 2003. 

43 Florida Department of State, Florida Cuban Heritage Trail, nd; Florida Jewish Heritage Trail,

2000; Florida Women’s Heritage Trail, 2001. The Cuban Heritage Trail publication is undated: 

information about the date of funding comes from the preface. 

44 The FANHS website is at www.fanhs-national.org. Many of the individual chapters have their 

own websites. 

45 Rick Bonus, “Cartographies of Filipino American Ethnicity,” in Ubalde, ed., op. cit., p. 179. 

Bonus discusses the importance of community newspapers, and of the places where they are 

published, at some length. 

46 Young scholars who are producing important new work include Angel Velasco Shaw (New 

York University), Dorothy Fujita-Rony (University of California at Irvine), and Cathy Choy 

(University of Minnesota). 

47 See Arte Público’s website: http://benito.arte.uh.edu/Recovery/recovery.html. 

64 
 48 See also Nicolás Kanellos with Helvetia Martell, Hispanic Periodicals in the United States, 

Origins to 1960: A Brief History and Comprehensive Bibliography, Houston, Arte Público Press, 

2000. 

49 Quoted in Karen Ivanova, “Revitalizing Native Tongues,” Great Falls Tribune Online, April 

14, 2002. 

50 Ramos, op. cit., p. xxii. 

51 Ibid., pp. xxi-xxii. 

52 Ibid., p. 17. 

53 www.filipinoamericans.net. 

54 Ibid. All quotations are verbatim. 

55 See Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place: Cafés, Coffee Shops, Bars, Bookstores, Hair 

Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community, New York, Marlowe, 1999, and Ray 

Oldenburg, ed. and intro., Celebrating the Third Place: Inspiring Stories about the "Great Good 

Places" at the Heart of Our Communities, New York, Marlowe, 2001. 

56 Bonus, op. cit., pp. 171-195. 

57 Ibid., p. 177. 

58 Ned Kaufman, “Places of Historical, Cultural, and Social Value: Identification and 

Protection,” Environmental Law in New York, v. 12, no. 11, 2001, pp. 211-12, 224-33, and v. 12, 

no. 12, 2001, pp. 235, 248-256. 

59 For the application of environmental laws to third places or story sites, see ibid. The 

amendment, adopted as Act 50 of the 2000 legislative session, can be found on the State of 

Hawaii’s website : see www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2000/acts/Act050_HB2895_HD1.htm.

(consulted in November, 2003). Some background to the legislation can be found on the website 

of Kohanaiki ‘Ohana, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving Native Hawaiian culture: 

see www.kohanaiki.org. 

60 See Emogene Bevitt (comp.), “National Park Service Policies Regarding Native Americans, 

Park-Associated Communities, Public Participation, and Community Relations,” January, 2003, 

a useful compilation of relevant policies from National Park Service Management Policies 2001. 

The major legislative sources of the National Park Service’s responsibilities to traditionally 

associated peoples are set forth in sec. 5.3.5.3. 

61 Ibid., sec. 5.3.5.3 “Ethnographic Resources.” 

62 Ibid., sec. 5.1.3.1, 5.2.1-2. 

65 
 63 Michael J. Evans, Alexa Roberts, and Peggy Nelson, “Ethnographic Landscapes,” CRM vol. 

24, no. 5, 2001, p. 55. For the role of ethnography within the NPS, readers should consult this 

entire issue of CRM, subtitled “People and Places: The Ethnographic Connection.” See also the 

NPS’s Archaeology and Ethnography Program website, atwww.cr.nps.gov/aad 

64 Ibid. See also Muriel (Miki) Crespi (comp.), “National Park Service Applied Ethnography: 

Project Completed and In Progress FY 2003, document available from NPS Technical 

Information Center, Denver, CO. 

65 See also Muriel (Miki) Crespi, “Raising Muted Voices and Identifying Invisible Resources,” 

CRM, vol. 24, no. 5, 2001, pp. 4-6. Another example of ethnography used in an African 

American and Creole context is discussed in Allison H. Peña, “Fazendeville – Highlighting 

Invisible Pasts and Dignifying Present Identities,” ibid., pp. 24-26. 

66 Florida Department of State and Preserve Eatonville Community, Inc., A Walking Tour of 

Eatonville, Florida, brochure, 1999. 

67 Florida’s folklife programs are described on the Department of State’s website, 

http://dhr.dos.state.fl.us/folklife. See also Historical Museum of Southern Florida, Florida 

Folklife: Traditional Arts in Contemporary Communities, exhibit catalogue, 1998-2000. 

68 James Oliver Horton, “On-Site Learning: The Power of Historic Places,” CRM 23/8, 2000, p. 

4. 

69 See, for example, Five Views: An Ethnic Sites Survey for California, Sacramento, CA, State of 

California, Department of Parks and Recreation, 1988, which contains (inter alia) studies on 

Mexican Americans (by José Pitti, Antonia Castañeda, and Carlos Cortes) and African 

Americans in California (by Eleanor M. Ramsey and Janice S. Lewis). See also Monroe 

Fordham, ed., The African American Presence in New York State: Four Regional History 

Surveys, With a Selected List of African American Historic Sites for Each Region, Albany, NY, 

State University of New York, New York African American Institute, 1900 (Document #90-3). 

70 Rolando M. Romo, “The Founding of the Tejano Association for Historical Preservation,” 

unpublished paper. 

71 www.tejanoahp.org (consulted July 2003). 

72 For the Rosenwald Schools, see Tom Hanchett, “Saving the South’s Rosenwald Schools,” 

Forum Journal, vol. 17, no. 3, spring 2003, pp. 50-55, and Diane Granat, “More Than Blue 

Skies,” Preservation, vol. 55, no. 4, July/August, 2003, pp. 34-37. 

73 Karl Webster Barnes, “Your Vision, Your Memory, Your Challenge: Preservation is Good for 

Your African American Neighborhood Revitalization,” Georgia Department of Natural 

Resources, Historic Preservation Division, Reflections, vol. 2, no. 4, September, 2002, pp. 4-6. 

74 Ibid., p. 6. Italics in original. 

66 
 75 See Ned Kaufman, “Sugar Hill: Thoughts on Cultural Conservation,” Heritage Matters, June, 

2002, pp. 14-15, for a description of a panel discussion in which Reddick debated this position 

with Michael Henry Adams, another Harlem preservationist who argued in favor of restoring 

historic housing stock even at the cost of displacing long-time community residents. 

76 Don Adams and Arlene Goldbard, Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development, 

New York, Rockefeller Foundation, 2001, p. 61. This is a basic text for community cultural 

development that includes further bibliography. See also Art in the Public Interest’s website: 

www.apionline.org. 

77 Adams and Goldbard, op. cit., p. 4. 

78 See Angel Velasco Shaw and Luis H. Francia, eds., Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American 

War and the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream 1899-1999, New York, New York University 

Press, 2002. 

79 See Five Views, op. cit.

80 See Elizabeth Smolcic and Carol Mansfield, eds., Black Heritage Tourism: Exploitation or 

Education, Partners for Livable Places and African American Museums Associations, 1989. 

81 See, for example, Beth Savage, African American Historic Places, New York, John Wiley & 

Sons, 1995. 

82 There is a growing literature on teaching with historic places. The National Register of 

Historic Places (National Park Service) maintains a list of publications on the subject. See also, 

int. al., Charles S. White and Kathleen Hunter, Teaching With Historic Places: A Curriculum 

Framework for Professional Training and Development of Teachers, Preservationists, and 

Museum and Site Interpreters, Washington, D.C., National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1995, 

and Creative Teaching with Historic Places, a special issue of CRM, vol.23, no. 8, 2000 

(published by the National Park Service). Those interested in the subject may also find it useful 

to consult the even more substantial literature on environmental or place-based education. 

83 National Park Service, Places of Cultural Memory: African Reflections on the American 

Landscape, conference proceedings, May 9-12, 2001, Atlanta, Georgia, Washington, D.C., U.S. 

Department of the Interior, National Park Service, n.d. 

84 Cultural Resources Diversity Internship Program, document “Where Are They Now?” 

(updated June 6, 2003). See also the NPS’s website: www.cr.nps.gov/crdi (consulted August 

2003). 

85 Environmental Careers Organization, “Building Partnerships: Guidelines for Using the 

NPS/ECO Cooperative Agreement), brochure, nd [c. 2003]. See ECO’s website: www.eco.org 

(consulted August 2003). 

86 National Historic Preservation Act (16 U.S.C. 470 et. seq.), Sec. 1 (b)(1, 2, 4): available at 

http://www2.cr.nps.gov/laws/NHPA1966.htm (consulted July 2003) A similar interest is stated 

67 
 

in the Historic Sites of 1935. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 expresses a public 

interest in cultural as well as natural aspects of the environment. 

87 36 CFR 60.1 (b); see also 36 CFR 60.6. 

88National Park Service Policies 2001, sec. 7.5.5. Quoted from Emogene Bevitt (comp.),

“National Park Service Policies Regarding Native Americans, Park-Associated Communities, 

Public Participation, and Community Relations,” January, 2003. 

89 For a sampling of some of the building types associated with outsider ethnic groups, see Five 

Views: An Ethnic Sites Survey for California, Sacramento, CA, State of California, Department 

of Parks and Recreation, 1988. For a discussion of the integrity criterion, particularly as it relates 

to industrial buildings, see Ned Kaufman, History Happened Here: A Plan for Saving New York 

City’s Historically and Culturally Significant Sites, New York, Municipal Art Society, 1996, pp. 

48 ff. For traditional cultural properties, see Patricia F. Parker and Thomas F. King, Guidelines 

for Evaluating and Documenting Traditional Cultural Properties, U.S. Department of the 

Interior, National Park Service, National Register Bulletin 38. For a discussion of traditional 

cultural properties within the general context of preserving sites associated with tradition, see 

Ned Kaufman, “Places of Historical, Cultural, and Social Value: Identification and Protection,” 

op. cit.

90 Members of the public may also wish to consider the merits of National Heritage Area 

designations to protect, interpret, and enhance the economic viability of certain areas whose 

cultural landscapes have been shaped by and associated with particular groups. The National 

Park System Advisory Board recently wrote that “the diverse ethnic groups and nationalities that 

worked the farms and factories of a growing nation have also created cultural landscapes worthy 

of preservation. These special places...bind residents together....Visitors looking for authenticity 

in America treasure them.” (National Park System Advisory Board, Rethinking the National 

Parks for the 21st Century: quotation from NPS website, www.nps.gov/policy/report.htm

(consulted October 2003). 

91 See Adams and Goldbard, op. cit., for a discussion of funding needs for community cultural 

development. 

68