Borderlands of Southern Colorado Syllabus
The more we explore the history of Colorado’s borderlands the more we want to know. This syllabus is designed to provide resources to people — like us — who want to know more and learn more about the unique heritage and culture of the Borderlands of Southern Colorado.
While this syllabus stretches wide, it is not exhaustive. It is also dynamic and we will continue to add as new resources are revealed and created. We hope you will use this syllabus for yourself, to build community conversations, to nurture book club discussions, in classrooms, for teachers and mentors, and to guide how we think about this important history.
Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa
Books
The Grounding Text
Borderlands of Southern Colorado is grounded in the writings of Chicana philosopher Gloria Anzaldúa, especially her book:
Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza
Line in the Sand: A History of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border, Rachel St. John
History Texts
Translating Property, Maria Montoya
Creating the American West: Boundaries and Borderlands, Derek Everett
The Apache Diaspora: Four Centuries of Displacement and Survival, Paul Conrad (available April 2021)
No Separate Refuge: Culture, Class, and Gender on an Anglo-Hispanic Frontier in the American Southwest, 1880-1940, Sarah Deutsch
The People of El Valle: A history of the Spanish colonials in the San Luis Valley, Olibama Lopez-Tushar
Line in the Sand: A History of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border, Rachel St. John
Archives of Dispossession, Karen Roybal
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: A Legacy of Conflict, by Richard Griswold del Castillo
Forgotten Cuchareños of the Lower Valley, Virginia Sanchez
Enduring Legacies: Ethnic Histories and Cultures of Colorado, Reiland Rabaka
The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West, Patty Limerick
The Comanche Empire, Pekka Hamalainen
Coast-to-Coast Empire: Manifest Destiny and the New Mexico Borderlands, William S. Kiser
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Pleas and Petitions: Hispano Culture and Legislative Conflict in Territorial Colorado, Virginia Sanchez
La Gente: Hispano History and Life in Colorado, Vincent De Baca (ed.)
Land of the Blue Sky People, Luther Bean
La Sociedad: Guardians of Hispanic Culture along the Rio Grande, Jose A. Rivera
Land of the Penitentes, Land of Tradition, Ruben Archuleta
Pueblo, Hardscrabble, Greenhorn, Janet LeCompte
On the Edge of Purgatory, Bonnie Clark
The Geology, Ecology, and Human History of the San Luis Valley, Jared Beeton, Charles Nicholas Saenz & Benjamin Waddell (eds.)
Poetry
With the River on Our Face, Emmy Perez
Canicula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera, Norma Cantú
Sabrina & Corina, Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Fiction
Cabañuelas: A Novel, Norma Elia Cantú
Bless Me Ultima, Rudolfo Anaya
Woman Hollering Creek, Sandra Cisneros
Sabrina & Corina, Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
Indigenous Captivity
The Other Slavery, Andres Resendez
Violence over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West, Ned Blackhawk
Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands, James R. Brooks
Nación Genízara; Ethnogenesis, Place, and Identity in New Mexico, eds. Moises Gonzales & Enrique R. Lamadrid
Situational Identities Along the Raiding Frontier of Colonial New Mexico, Jun Sunseri
Captives: How Stolen People Changed the World, Catherine Cameron
Borderlands Foodways
Taco USA, Gustavo Arellano
A Tortilla Is Like Life: Food and Culture in the San Luis Valley of Colorado, Carole Counihan
The Good Life: New Mexico Traditions and Food, Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert
Eating the Landscape: American Indian Stories of Food, Identity, and Resilience, Enrique Salmon
Language
A Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish, Ruben Cobos
The Spanish Language of New Mexico and Southern Colorado, Garland Bliss and Neddy Vigil
Memoir/Testimonio
Border Women: Writing from La Frontera, Debra A. Castillo and María Socorro Tabuenca Córboba
Feminism on the Border: Chicana Gender Politics and Literature, Sonia Saldivar-Hull
Querencia: Reflections on the New Mexico Homeland, Vanessa Fonseca-Chavez, Levi Romero & Spencer Herrera (eds.)
Ecological
Ecological Borderlands: Body, Nature, and Spirit in Chicana Feminism, Christina Holmes
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer
Acequia: Water Sharing, Sanctity, and Place, Sylvia Rodriguez
Immigration/Migration
Borderwall as Architecture: A Manifesto for the U.S.-Mexico Boundary, Ronald Rael
Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail, Rueben Martinez
DIGITAL
Digital Exhibits
La Gente: Colorado’s Mexican History
Bent’s Fort: The Fur Trade in Colorado
Websites
Ruben Archuleta’s personal archives, www.eljeferuben.com
Sociedad Protteccion Mutua de Trabajadores Unidos, www.spmdtu.org
Hilos Culturales, http://www.hilosculturales.org/
Manitos: Digital Resolana, http://manitos.net/
Podcasts
COauthored, History Colorado. Episodes “Vera Esquibel, Salt Creek,” “Juan Federico Trujillo, pts. 1-4,” “Emilio Lobato.” www.soundcloud.com/coauthored
UnPacked: History Talks from History Colorado, History Colorado. www.soundcloud.com/unpacked-podcast
Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains, History Colorado. Episodes “A Line in the Sand,” "The Miseducation of Freddie Freak," “Going to Trinidad, Again”
Teaching Hard History, Teaching Tolerance. Season 2, Episode 7 “The Other History.” https://www.tolerance.org/podcasts/teaching-hard-history/american-slavery/the-other-slavery
Teaching Hard History, Teaching Tolerance Season 2, Episode 8 “Silver, Resistance and the Evolution of Slavery in the West.” https://www.tolerance.org/podcasts/teaching-hard-history/american-slavery/silver-resistance-and-the-evolution-of-slavery-in-the-west
Video
Borderlands of Southern Colorado Online Lecture Series, History Colorado. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLl68fplNJM8DloYD2a5Xum4ORsRSWKZGS
A Long Journey: The Hidden Jews of the Southwest, New Mexico PBS. https://portal.knme.org/video/a-long-journey-the-hidden-jews-of-the-southwest-pjxuez/
Settling the Sand Dunes, Colorado Experience, Rocky Mountain PBS. https://video.rmpbs.org/video/settling-the-sand-dunes-4qqavd/
The San Luis Valley, Colorado Experience, Rocky Mountain PBS. https://video.rmpbs.org/video/colorado-experience-san-luis-valley/
Trinidad, Colorado Experience, Rocky Mountain PBS. https://video.rmpbs.org/video/colorado-experience-trinidad/
Boggsville, Colorado Experience, Rocky Mountain PBS. https://video.rmpbs.org/video/colorado-experience-boggsville
Bent’s Fort, Colorado Experience, Rocky Mountain PBS. https://video.rmpbs.org/video/colorado-experience-bents-fort
MEDIA ARTICLES
The Long-Forgotten Vigilante Murders of the San Luis Valley, by Robert Sanchez, 5280 magazine
Designing Democracy Around a Ditch, by Sarah C. Rich, Smithsonian Magazine
Indian Slavery Once Thrived in New Mexico. Latinos Are Finding Family Ties to It. by Simon Romero, The New York Times, Jan. 28, 2018.
Americans Need to Know the Hard Truth About Union Monuments in the West, by Megan Kate Nelson, The Atlantic, July 10, 2020.
TREATIES & PRIMARY SOURCES
Records of the Land Resource Council
Treaty With the Ute, March 2, 1868 (NARA record)
Agreement with the Capote, Muache, and Weeminuche Utes, 1879
To download this syllabus and have it on hand or share it with a friend, click below.
“When you come from the borderlands
is to know that you come from before.”