September 15 to October 15 marks Hispanic Heritage Month. This monthlong celebration recognizes the contributions and influence of Hispanic Americans throughout the country. The monthlong observation celebrates the histories, cultures, and contributions of a diverse community. I’m pleased to be the first Latina archivist of the Rio Grande Historical Collections (RGHC) at New Mexico State University Library, I am fortunate to be the caretaker of many rich and historical collections such as research records of organizations, personal papers, and other unpublished materials which document the cultural heritage and history of New Mexico and the Spanish Borderlands. 

As you might expect, the RGHC has a variety of Hispanic-based archival holdings, but I wanted to highlight one of the most utilized holdings, the Amador family papers. The Amador family is a Mexican American family who settled in Las Cruces in the late 1840s. The family operated a general store, livery stable, and hotel. Within the family papers are 15,000 pages of original Spanish-language correspondence which sheds light on family matters, social life, community events, business affairs, health, and education to name a few topics. The letters are a valuable resource due to their historical and cultural context. In addition, the letters provide a unique, first-person narrative of the Mexican American lived experience during an influential period.  

The Amador family correspondence makes up about 40 linear feet of manuscript material and aside from the correspondence, the papers include business records, store ledgers, scrapbooks, children drawing notebooks, announcements of weddings, baptisms and funerals, postcards, and hundreds of photographs. 

The Amador family papers came to the NMSU Library in 1962, and since then the family papers have been a well-consulted free resource on-site for researchers for a wide array of research purposes such as for class assignments, scholarly publications, video documentaries, and for personal research interests. Soon the correspondence will be available digitally, and researchers will have the option to consult decades worth of letters from the comfort of their own home or wherever the Internet is available.  

• Esther Chavez Cano papers  

• Abe Peña papers 

• Lorenzo Torrez papers  

• Rudy S. Apodaca papers  

• Cinco Punto Press records  

• Amador family papers  

• Armijo and Gallagher family papers  

• Juan Jose and Rosaura Sanchez family papers  

• Archivos Historicos del Arzobispado de Durango, Mexico