Assistant Professor Vanessa Fonseca (right) interviews Connie Coca for her project Following the Manito Trail.
Through her research and mentorship, Assistant Professor of Latina/o studies and English Vanessa Fonseca helps Latino students and residents connect with their heritage.
“Assistant Professor Lilia Soto and I are faculty advisors for MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán)—a UW student organization that focuses on education, empowerment and cultural knowledge of Chicanos,” Fonseca says. “MEChA has been a registered student organization for more than 40 years at UW and has helped Chicano and Latino students to better connect with their heritage as a means to create positive social change.
“In the Latina/o Studies Program, we provide students with conference opportunities, speaking engagements and work with other programs around campus to prepare Latinos and non-Latinos to think critically, embrace cultural diversity and become leaders,” she says. “These students are breaking traditional boundaries in their own families and communities by being the first in their families to go to college and providing important pathways for younger generations.
“Many of our students have a strong commitment to the state of Wyoming; thus, we are creating a new generation of leaders who are devoted to diversity, social change and empowerment that can be very impactful throughout the state.”
In addition to her mentoring work with UW students, Fonseca helps document and celebrate Latino contributions to Wyoming. “I am working with the American Heritage Center and a UW Manito Trail research team—Robert Perea, Adam Herrera and a University of New Mexico professor and graduate student, Levi Romero and Trisha Martínez—on a project titled Following the Manito Trail: Los nuevomexicanos en Guayomín (Wyoming),” she says. “The project celebrates the cultural legacy of New Mexicans to the Wyoming landscape. Many of these families migrated to Wyoming in the late 1800s or early 1900s to work in agriculture, sheepherding and railroad industries.
“AHC will host a Latinos in Wyoming exhibit in fall 2017 that will highlight some of the images and interviews that we collect. In spring 2018, this exhibit will travel throughout Wyoming in an effort to return the narratives and photos to the communities in which they were created,” Fonseca says.
“The No. 1 goal here is to show that Manitos (and all Latinos) in Wyoming have made significant contributions to the state of Wyoming and need to be celebrated for all they do in this state—politically, socially and culturally.”
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