Angeles Tena, a freshman at New Mexico State University, began her college experience by jumping into a prestigious project happening at the NMSU Library – the Amador Family Correspondence Digitization Project.
“The most interesting part is learning so much about the Mexican culture and how the letters are written,” Tena said.
Tena is one of eight students from different majors who were hired to create high-quality digital scans of 15,000 pages of original correspondence and extract the essential descriptive information from the letters that will make them discoverable to researchers around the world.
Dennis Daily, department head of NMSU’s Archives and Special Collections, said the students are provided an experiential learning opportunity while discovering the unique stories that happened on our border.
“We have been amazed by the work and enthusiasm shown by these students as they help us undertake this challenging digitization project,” Daily said. “We are fortunate to have here at NMSU an incredible resource in these talented, bilingual students who are able work with these original Spanish-language materials. Most of the students working on this project grew up here in the environment of the U.S.-Mexico border, just as the Amador family did, so they bring an understanding of the trans-border experience and heritage that is tremendously valuable.”
The team meets every week and students share what they’ve worked on so far. On many occasions, students have been able to connect the dots about the family drama.
“It was interesting to see the interactions between the parents and the kids, or between siblings,” said Gabriela Gutierrez, junior at NMSU. “You can also notice in the letters that when they’re getting frustrated or getting mad, their handwriting changes."
“It’s cool to see the family dynamics through these letters; you know the fighting and the love. It’s cool to interpret it into my own culture because it’s the same with my family. We’re a bicultural family in Mexico and here,” said Oscar Garcia, a sophomore at NMSU.
“For each component, the students need to be detailed, focused, and at certain times, students reach out to one another to decipher handwriting or exchange information about the Amador family,” said Jennfier Olguin, NMSU’s Rio Grande Historical Collections Archivist. “Nonetheless, the students have become a close-knit group since the inception of the project. I enjoy learning from them and the information they catch when reading the letters.”
While focusing on their main duties and deciphering the letters, the group of students shared that seeing the different kinds of handwriting has been compelling to them.
“I feel like reading these letters has really challenged me,” said Laisha Corona, freshman at NMSU. “As a reader, I love reading and the handwriting is just beautiful but also sometimes a little ugly. It’s super cool learning how people used to be back then.”
“What I love about this project is that students already recognize individual styles of writing among the family members, phrases or comments specific to one person that others would not use,” said Monika Glowacka-Musial, principal investigator on the project. “By analyzing the letters, students start seeing how writing reflects personalities and complex family relationships.”
Their reading skills have also been put to the challenge, and the work benefits their knowledge of Spanish, as well.
“Since I first got here, I wasn’t too big into reading in Spanish. It’s never been my primary language and reading a lot of these letters has really improved my Spanish,” Garcia said. “I want to get a minor in Spanish, so this project helps me practice my Spanish and learn the language from years ago,” said Yadira Leyva, a sophomore at NMSU.
Although the students have different majors, the project allows them an opportunity to carry over those skills acquired into their future careers.
“We have students majoring in criminal justice, psychology, nursing, engineering technology, computer science, communication disorders, museum studies, and biochemistry,” Olguin said. “We hope that students involved with this project take pride in their work, since they are making these one-of-a-kind letters available to the public and without their expertise, this initiative would be challenging to fulfill.”
“As a Hispanic-serving institution, NMSU plays an important part in the academic and professional development of the amazing students from this region,” Daily added. “In turn, we are very lucky to have students whose backgrounds make them the experts in a project of national significance like this.”
Other NMSU students involved in the project include senior Emily Duke, senior Brandy Lozano, and graduate student Melissa Perez.
The Amador family digitization project is expected to be completed in August 2025. For more information and background, visit https://newsroom.nmsu.edu/news/nmsu-library-awarded-national-endowment-for-the-humanities-grant/s/a2d2024b-08de-4cf7-8ee2-c650101c6cf1.