Folks, I am pleased to formally announce the 8 year anniversary of the Texas Heritage Project of American Indians in Texas at the Spanish Colonial Missions
The project, founded on December 12, 2014 by Ramon Juan Vasquez, Executive Director of AITSCM, & Rudy De La Cruz, Jr. started operations at the former AITSCM headquarters on Guadalupe Street. Soon thereafter Art Martinez De Vara, accomplished author & historian, was offered an opportunity to join the Project and did so during the Summer of 2015. The Project, organized as an academia & community partnership, entered into an agreement with its first academic partner, Northwest Vista College, on September 2, 2015.
On November 14, 2015, the Texas Heritage Project held its first History Harvest at Somerset Community Bank in Somerset, Texas. The assets obtained from our Harvests represent an effort to broaden the narrative of South-Central Texas by bringing to light never-before-made public artifacts from the Indigenous & Chicano communities whose culture and contributions have been the target of historical systemic erasure by the broader Euro-American communities in the US.
Not long after, two Faculty Innovation Grant awards (2016 & 2017) from the Office of the President at Northwest Vista College were awarded to De La Cruz, then Higher Education Adjunct Faculty at that college. The grant awards provided the seed funds required for the development of the Texas Heritage Project Digital Repository. Today the digital repository has over 15,000 assets in its collection. The Project holds open-to-the-public exhibits throughout the year with another coming soon.
On February 14, 2017, Martinez De Vara & Ric Baser, then President of Northwest Vista College, entered into an agreement to publish a book series that would be called the Northwest Vista College Series on Texas Heritage, as part of the overall Texas Heritage Project effort. The awarded book series, largely authored by Martinez De Vara, continues today as the American Indians in Texas at the Spanish Colonial Missions Series on Texas Heritage, with a new book soon forthcoming.
On September 8, 2021, Texas Heritage Project would sign with another academic partner, Texas A&M University-San Antonio’s Library to develop a digital gallery of selected assets from the Project’s digital repository. The digital gallery developed under the direction of Ms. Leslie Stapleton of TAMU SA’s Special Collections department has released some it first work found in the following link:
https://cdm15909.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/TxHeritagePrj
Fiscal years 2022-2023 would prove to be one of the most productive in the history of the Project with grants awarded by Humanities Texas, the Texas Historical Foundation, The http://Permanent.org’s Byte for Byte program, and the San Antonio Conservation Society Foundation.
In addition, on November 10, 2022, Texas Heritage Project signed with its newest academic partner, Trinity University Department of Sociology & Anthropology and its Special Collections & Archives department. Together, Texas Heritage Project and Trinity University will continue developing the digital repository and make available its assets for students & faculty conducting academic research.
Faculty members from our academic partner institutions and throughout Texas have contributed greatly to the Project’s efforts and include the late and great Dr. Alston Thoms of Texas A&M University – College Station, Dr. Jennifer Mathews, Department Chair of Sociology & Anthropology at Trinity University, Ms. Abra Schnur, Archivist at Trinity University’s Special Collections & Archives department, Drs. Amy Porter & Francis X. Galan of Texas A&M-SA University’s Department of History, and Dr. Eric Castillo, Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer of Alamo Colleges District.
Together AITSCM, the Texas Heritage Project and its participating academic partners & Faculty will continue to fight against the forces of systemic erasure to continue to enhance the narrative of the South Central Texas region by bringing to light the contributions of the Indigenous & Chicano communities.
– Rudy De La Cruz, Jr.
Texas Heritage Project Director