The University of New Mexico announced on Mar. 12 that it is working to digitize and make accessible hundreds of archival interviews with native New Mexico Spanish speakers, as part of the New Mexico Spanish Language Archival Recovery Project.
The project aims to preserve and share the voices and stories of community elders and leaders, many recorded on outdated technology, by converting them into digital files. This effort seeks to maintain the collective memory of Nuevo Mexicano culture and provide easier access for descendants and researchers.
Center for Southwest Research archivist Samuel Sisneros and Center for Regional Studies fellow MarÃa Feliza Monta-Jameson are leading the initiative. “We’re linking the previous way of doing things to modern technology and making it more accessible. A lot of these collections have been sitting in boxes, and we’re losing ways to play them because the technology isn’t trustworthy anymore,” Sisneros said. Monta-Jameson added, “Our hope is that people can find this footage easily. Oftentimes the descendants of those who participated in the interviews find the archive. We want to keep collective memory of Nuevo Mexicano culture alive.”
The team has digitized around 800 interviews since starting in 2025, editing out technical issues and creating written abstracts for context. Monta-Jameson said her background in educational linguistics and being a native Spanish speaker helped accelerate their progress.
Sisneros said inspiration came from acquiring recordings from The Val De La O Show, one of the first nationally syndicated Spanish-language television programs produced in New Mexico during the 1960s through 1985.
Monta-Jameson reflected on her experience: “It enriches the knowledge in terms of linguistic features because I now understand better why the varieties of Spanish spoken in different areas encapsulate the culture and the people who speak that language.”
The University serves as a cultural resource through its libraries, museums, galleries, and performance spaces while promoting diversity and community engagement as stated on its official website. The campus features Pueblo Revival architecture, a nationally recognized arboretum, popular spots like a duck pond, and is located within a metropolitan area according to university information. More than 24,000 students were enrolled across main and branch campuses in spring 2023 according to university data.
The University has also been ranked among top public schools nationally with recognition for its primary care medical school program’s ranking at sixteenth place as well as fifth place for most diverse medical schools based on U.S. News & World Report categories. It boasts over 200,000 alumni worldwide including fellows of national academies according to its official website.
