A new bilingual history exhibition developed by University of Arizona faculty and students showcases the people and rich history of Santa Cruz County, along the Arizona-Mexico border.

The exhibit "Beyond Fronteras: Treasuring an Arizona Border Community's Past and Future" opened Oct. 25 and is on permanent display at the Historic 1904 Santa Cruz County Courthouse in Nogales, Arizona. Designed to foster pride and a sense of identity in Santa Cruz County residents, the exhibit was curated by Carlos Parra, an assistant professor of history in the U of A College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. It includes photos, videos, paintings and essays detailing the history, culture and people of the region.

The project was funded as part of a $236,000 Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds grant provided by the Arizona Department of Education to the Santa Cruz County School Superintendent's Office during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Santa Cruz uncovered

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Parra, a native of Nogales, Arizona, and an inaugural Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at the U of A, said he wanted "Beyond Fronteras" to tell the story of the people and places that make up the region "without focusing on the usual topics" associated with the border region.

"When our community figures so prominently in national debates about border security and immigration, you often miss out on the nuances of daily life here at the border," Parra said. "I wanted to make the people of Nogales and the rest of Santa Cruz County excited about themselves."

Santa Cruz County is one of 44 U.S. counties that share a border with Mexico. The county was established in 1899 by the Arizona Territorial Legislature and is relatively small, totaling just over 1,200 square miles and 47,669 residents as of the 2020 census. About 83% of the population – 39,504 – identify as Hispanic or Latino.

Santa Cruz County is defined by more than its residents, Parra said. The region is also characterized by a diverse landscape that includes mountain ranges, river valleys and desert grasslands – and it is home to the elusive jaguar.

Humanizing history

To distill the history and culture of Santa Cruz County into a museum exhibition, Parra enlisted the help of Michelle Berry, an assistant professor of history at the U of A. In the spring, Berry taught a course on environmental history and provided her students with an opportunity to collaborate with Parra on the "Beyond Fronteras" exhibit.

"I love project-based learning because of the engagement that it creates in students – and that is when deep learning happens," Berry said. "When Carlos (Parra) came to me and asked for help, I knew I could bring this project into the classroom because my students were already such a great group. Even though not all the topics ended up being environmental-focused, we spent a lot of time thinking about archives, about history and telling the stories of the invisible people of the past. This project fit very well into my learning objectives."

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The research conducted by Berry's students was integrated into the "Beyond Fronteras" exhibit and ultimately became the "Nogalepedia," an online resource that details Santa Cruz County's founding, geography and natural history and also includes stories of the region's various communities. Parra provided the students with a list of topics to research and helped them develop and edit their work. 

While U of A students crafted the Nogalepedia, Parra also worked with K-12 students in Santa Cruz County to develop "My History, My Comunidad," a series of poems by children throughout the county. The collection includes writings about growing up in a rural border community, what makes Santa Cruz special and memories of the COVID-19 outbreak. 

These poems and the Nogalepedia can now be found on the "Beyond Fronteras" website, which also includes Arizona Academic Standards-aligned lesson plans on local history that Arizona teachers can use in their classrooms.

"I used to teach in Nogales, and a lot of my former colleagues tell me there is almost nothing useful for the classroom written at a higher level about Santa Cruz County," Parra said. "I wanted to focus on using academic standards to develop a sense of community pride through humanities."