Historic preservation is necessary for current community organizing. In addition to being remembered, she explained that it’s important to tell the story of the collective in a way that connects to broader histories of indigenous cultures that pre-date colonization:

Ms. Giron-Mushfiq also talked to me about the importance of grassroots histories. She helped organize a community event in June 2021 called “the Day of the Unsung Warrior,” in order to honor

By adding onto dominant narratives about the Chicana/o/x Movement, remembering the power of the many gives a fuller picture of the era’s expansive organizing.

Ms. Prieto wants La Alma to be remembered for the good, rather than being singularly defined by pain, police violence, and systemic racism. There are rich, complex, and hopeful histories that account for the meaningful connections between neighbors, across generations, and to particular places in the West Side.

Another example of efforts to preserve the fullness and love of the neighborhoods is the fight to preserve Casa Mayan as a museum of Mr. Alcaro’s family and Auraria. Mr. Alcaro told me about his hopes for the house and how it can be both a means to connect with others and to understand aspects of history that Aurarians do not want to repeat:

Throughout the interview, Mr. Alcaro emphasized that he wants to further Casa Mayan’s history of including everyone. But now he feels like its nuances are being stripped away by individuals picking apart what happened there for personal gain, rather than keeping alive Casa Mayan’s original goals of collective flourishing.

Mr. Mendoza chose to teach children how to paint murals because he saw value in connecting with young people so they could be empowered to explore the world of art and co-create their own surroundings.

Ms. Giron-Mushfiq also shares power in guiding young people as a mentor of the new Brown Berets chapter. After being a Brown Beret in the Chicana/o/x Movement, a group of Denver youth organically formed and wanted to hear about Ms. Giron-Mushfiq’s experience in March 2021. In weekly Zoom meetings she teaches them about caring for the community:

By actively avoiding putting herself at the top of a hierarchy, she shares knowledge and power with young people.

Ms. Prieto is a long-time friend of Ms. Giron-Mushfiq, and her insight on the new chapter added on to this idea of learning alongside the next generation. She and Ms. Maestas told me about how the new chapter is fighting to include the Chicana/o/x Movement in Denver Public Schools curriculum. Ms. Prieto said:

Ms. Prieto is happy to see the Brown Berets continue the efforts she fought for in the Chicana/o/x Movement, and she wants to pass the torch onto the youth so they are in control.

Whether they hear stories from local elders, teach school kids how to collectively paint a mural in their cafeteria, or pass on responsibility to new Brown Berets, many storytellers care deeply about teaching what they know to young people. The experience of elders can then live on in service of the next generation’s wants and needs.

Many of the La Alma businesses and homes she grew up knowing were since replaced by more expensive options. But the sentimental ties that many long-time residents feel toward the neighborhood and previous neighbors persist. While talking about the changes in the last 15 years, Karma Leigh described the feelings coming over her as she reflected on what she remembers of La Alma before its gentrification:

And in telling me about the significance of the Historic Cultural District Designation, she said that not only does it mark the historical importance of La Alma to those who might not see its value, but on another level,

Mrs. Martínez de Luna also brought up long-time residents’ lasting love for La Alma as a place, with Ms. Giron-Mushfiq’s words from a designation meeting as an example:

Similar to continuing ties to the neighborhoods as places, the connections between long-time residents continue after some are forced to move out. Mrs. Martínez de Luna told me about how Chicana/o/x West Siders still come together even though they live all around Colorado:

For many storytellers, the designation serves as a way to make these connections—between long-time residents’ souls and La Alma itself—into permanent marks on the physical space.

Keeping property in the family is another way that narrators make sense of kinship ties with home and people within the context of displacement. Ms. Prieto inherited her home in La Alma from her parents and hopes to pass it down to her daughter, Ms. Maestas. Much like passing down familial wisdom to future generations, she wants to pass on the home itself. In talking about her hopes for La Alma, the Historic Cultural District Designation, and her advice for her kids and grandchildren, Ms. Prieto said:

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Aurarians were forcibly displaced after city and state officials had been planning for years (without the involvement of residents) to create a consolidated college campus in place of Auraria’s neighborhood (Fairfield & Co. 2019).

Mr. Alcaro described that to justify the mass displacement, urban planners assessed Auraria through imposed standards informed by Western constructs of how a neighborhood ought to look. Despite a lack of investment in the neighborhood, Aurarians shared resources and actively maintained bonds with one another. Through practices such as an economic bartering system, there was practical interdependence. To urban planners, these internal systems were overshadowed by underfunded and deteriorating infrastructure:

Instead of seeing the intricate systems in place that made Auraria’s thriving social fabric, city officials only saw it in the ways it lacked compared to White, wealthy neighborhoods. Planners then used these imposed standards to justify the construction of AHEC at the expense of the community’s connections and systems of mutual flourishing.

Since Auraria’s mass displacement, Chicana muralist Karma Leigh attended Metropolitan State University at the Auraria Higher Education Campus and told me that even though she loved the experience of studying there, Auraria’s history of displacement often goes unseen:

In the late 1960s, activist and artist Emanuel Martínez painted one of his first public murals—a decorative Zapotec design—outside his unit in the Lincoln Park Housing Projects, along with other building tenants.

For painting it without permission, the director of the Denver Housing Authority threatened to evict his family the same day. However, other residents watching the exchange between Mr. Martínez and the director shared responsibility for the mural:

Andy Mendoza is another Chicano muralist who began painting murals in 1974 when a priest at his church, Our Lady of Guadalupe (one of Denver’s first Spanish-speaking churches that welcomed Mexicans) encouraged him to paint something embracing his culture:

Mr. Mendoza and his brother painted the image of an Aztec sunstone in the church’s rectory with black-light paints. People would visit the church at night to see the mural glowing through the windows. The United Farm Workers co-founder Cesar Chavez saw the mural when visiting Denver and asked Mr. Mendoza to paint murals at the UFW headquarters. Even though there were pressures to assimilate into Euro-centric culture, muralism served as a way to share and connect with cultures that existed well before the European colonization of the Southwest.

In talking about the Chicana/o/x Mural Movement of the late 60s and early 70s Lucha Martínez de Luna described how murals were rooted in the community’s rich and fluid history across time and from multiple points of view: