Tempe families’ scrapbook project ensures Mexican-Americans’ accomplishments are remembered

Three women who grew up in the barrios of Tempe during the 1950s and 1960s are rewriting history, one family at a time.

When Clara Urbano began researching the genealogy of her family and fellow Hispanic-Americans almost 30 years ago, she discovered that Mexicans were credited with many accomplishments.

"It was ‘A Mexican did this, a Mexican did that,’ " says Urbano. "My fight was to get their names in the history books, and I think we’ve accomplished that."

Urbano and childhood friends Irene Gomez Hormell and Rachel Burgos Arroyo have since created family albums — "extreme scrapbooks" — that trace their family histories. Some date to the 1800s.

The albums are part of the "Scrapbooks for History" exhibit now on display at the Tempe Historical Museum. The exhibit will be free to the public 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday; families involved in the project will share stories of their ancestry, and visitors can get helpful information on how to begin their own family histories.

"It just brings out people and shows what they did to contribute to the beginnings of Tempe," says Gomez Hormell, who says her grandmother was the first Mexican woman in Arizona to lease a plot of land and grow cotton. "It really has brought a lot of unity and renewed relationships," Hormell says. "It’s given us a sense of pride."

"It’s for our descendants," Burgos Arroyo says. "They’ll know what (our ancestors) looked like and what they did."

The family histories include not only black-andwhite photos of long-gone relatives, but also stories, passed among family members, with dates and details that give people a sense of who they were.

"We’re kind of infiltrating the scrapbook craze," says John Akers, the museum’s curator of history. "We’re trying to encourage families to write down the stories as well as use the photos in the family album."

When the museum opened an exhibit hall that included the city’s history in 1991, it mostly featured white families. But within a year, the Hispanic community created an oral history project called Barrios, which became a catalyst for many people to create their own family albums.

"There were many communities started by Hispanics, and that was lost or forgotten over time," says Akers.

Families from other cultural backgrounds then began to show interest in the project.

Now, Akers is helping create an album with a black woman who moved to Tempe in the 1960s — a pioneer, since there weren’t many black families living in the city at that time. A Danish-American family shares stories of its ancestors, who were recruited by Niels Petersen to come from Denmark and work on his farm in the 1800s. Their albums will also be on display Saturday.

"This helps us know what’s out there and learn about the history of Tempe," says Akers. "Many of these families have experienced national history in the local community."

Creating a family history scrapbook

Tempe Historical Museum’s historical curator, John Akers, offers these tips for starting a family history album:

• Begin with yourself and work backward. Look in your home for certificates, official records and photographs.

• The four keys to your family histories are names, dates, places and relationships. Use these to identify people in pictures and records.

• Find out if there is a historian in your family. Get him or her to share stories with you. You also can find family information on the Web.

• Make sure you have pictures, important documents and written comments and stories before you begin putting it all together in a book.