ALBUQUERQUE MUSEUM FOUNDATION RECEIVES OUR FIRST QUICK GRANT

The Albuquerque Museum Foundation has received a $2,000 quick grant through the new Quick Grant Program  for its Puertas fronterizas / Border Doors Programming led by Dr. Alicia Romero, Curator of History at the Albuquerque Museum. NMHC will sponsor the upcoming scholar presentations and panel discussion. Stay tuned to the newsletter for upcoming event announcements with specific times and dates.

Through May 4, 2025, the Albuquerque Museum will host an exhibition in the Keleher Gallery, a community gallery space, titled “Puertas fronterizas/ Border Doors.” This exhibition of painted and mixed-media collage doors reflects on the life experiences of Latin American migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Since 2014, the doors were created by high school students enrolled in an advanced Spanish-language course at Sandia Preparatory School. Taught by Claudio Pérez, a faculty member within the school’s Modern Language Department, the course encourages students to think deeply about issues related to immigration. This includes looking at immigrants’ lived experiences as well as the complex historical relationship between the United States and Latin America. Students studied this topic in their classrooms in Albuquerque and through an in-person trip to the US-Mexico border. At the end of the term, students expressed their thoughts, responses, and realizations by using the doors as canvases for mixed-media collages.

During this seven-month exhibition period, the Museum will explore five key themes: COVID-19 and essential workers; kids in cages; family separation; superheroes and immigration which highlights the victims of the 2019 El Paso Walmart mass shooting; and artificial intelligence at the border. Two programs will expand on this exhibition in the spring of 2025. The Museum will host two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, journalist, and author of Enrique’s Journey, Sonia Nazario, in March for a program and Q&A for the public. In April, the Museum will also have a panel discussion hosting Claudio Pérez, founder of the Border Doors project, Rose Mary Sánchez-Guzmán, a pastor and immigration activist from El Paso, J. Roman Pérez Varela, who works with the homeless population, and scholar, Dr. Jesús Pérez, Senior Professor, Latin American History and Global Studies at Cascadia College in Washington state.

With both programs, the Museum is offering a series of dialogues around immigration; its local, regional, and national impact; the firsthand experiences of journalists, teachers, and those working directly with immigrants; and finally, will hear how students understand this topic.

The Museum does not have a specific point of view, belief system, and/or political agenda with this programming. It is to start a conversation, get people to ask questions, and explore the issues around immigration.