SW New Mexico News

The Department of Borderlands and Ethnic Studies (BEST) at New Mexico State University has secured $170,000 in congressional funding to advance a research initiative aimed at developing culturally inclusive social studies curricula for K-12 students.

This funding will enable BEST researchers to continue their collaboration with educators in southern New Mexico to create new lessons aligned with the revised social studies standards adopted by the New Mexico Public Education Department in 2022. These standards emphasize ethnic, cultural, and identity studies.

“I am beyond proud that our work made it into this final bill, especially as other states are trying to eradicate and omit stories that come from marginalized communities,” said Dulcinea Lara, head of the BEST department.

The program at NMSU began four years ago amid heightened racial and social justice movements intersecting with the COVID-19 pandemic. During this period, political divisions intensified, including debates over school curricula and critical race theory.

To investigate the situation in New Mexico classrooms, Lara collaborated with Cynthia Wise, a post-doctoral researcher in BEST. Wise recruited several educators from schools in Gadsden, Mescalero, Las Cruces, and Silver City to participate in a study focusing on districts south of Socorro.

“The findings for us were not surprising but similarly disheartening that the New Mexico curriculum is missing women, it’s missing people of color, it’s missing LGBT folks, it’s missing immigrants,” Wise said. “All these stories are not part of the dominant narrative of history.”

Subsequently, Wise and Lara worked with educators, NMSU faculty members, and youth from the Las Cruces nonprofit Learning Action Buffet to develop seven lessons addressing topics relevant to southern New Mexico. These topics include Mexican farm workers known as Braceros, Japanese internment camps, Black communities in New Mexico, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW), and notable figures such as Nadine and Patsy Cordova and Carmelita Torres.

“What we’re doing is getting everyone’s representation into these materials rather than thinking about a political divide,” Lara said. “It’s about a community place-based approach to how we tell the missing stories from New Mexican and borderlands communities like Vado, El Paso, Vaughn and other areas.”

Lara indicated that the new funding would cover costs associated with digitizing historical materials—such as legal records, newspaper articles, and political cartoons—and making them accessible online for students and educators. The lessons will be available along with classroom kits and films.

Wise expressed her desire for New Mexico to produce its own instructional materials instead of relying on out-of-state publishers. She also mentioned plans to expand their work beyond social studies subjects.

Reflecting on her personal experience as an educator introduced to Hispanic heritage through figures like the Cordova sisters during graduate school in California, Lara emphasized that culturally inclusive curricula could significantly impact students' lives beyond academics.

“These lessons will impact students who are growing up here," she said. "Imbue them with a sense of pride; confidence; joy; and a deeper belief in the power of peoples and communities of southern New Mexico."

For more information about this project contact the BEST office at aleena55@nmsu.edu or visit https://healborderlands.org.