The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County was the scene of a reception this week celebrating the accomplishments of the Boulder County Latino History Project. The Project is a collaborative, grassroots initiative documenting and describing the history of Latinos in our community over the past century. The Community Foundation is proud to have been the first funder and strong supporter of the Project.
The Project was created when Marjorie McIntosh, Distinguished Professor of History Emerita, University of Colorado at Boulder, discovered absence of historical information about Latinos in Boulder County. “With a few small exceptions, Latinos are virtually invisible in the standard histories of Boulder County. For me, it’s a moral as well as a historical issue. What we know about the past should include everybody.”
Between June 2013 and May 2014, ten Latino interns from local high schools and colleges and 95 community volunteers gathered oral, written, and photographic information about the experiences and contributions of Latinos. All of the materials are being loaded onto the Latino History Project’s website. 
In addition to the website, the Project has digitized more than 800 family photos, created interactive maps showing where Latinos lived between 1905 and 1976, and held a pilot summer workshop for teachers in the BOulder Valley and St. Vrain Valley School Districts. These eight teachers (elementary, middle and high school) worked together to create lesson plans from the materials collected for the Latino History Project and will teach these leassons in their classes this fall. In 2015, the Project looks to expand the summer workshop from eight to 20 Boulder County teachers.
The year ahead holds more exciting developments for the Latino History Porject, including finishing a book that describes all that has been learned. More presentations and social events will be happening next year, so be on the lookout!
“Being involved with the project has been an incredible opportunity for me to learn the stories and meet members of Boulder’s Latino community. Through the project I have gained a much deeper appreciation of the struggles of mi gente in northern Colorado.” Jason Romero, Jr., intern witht the project and a recent Honors graduate from
the University of Colorado at Boulder.
