Walk into the O'Donnell Hall lobby on New Mexico State University's Las Cruces campus, and you'll be transported back in time to witness three watershed moments in southern New Mexico history.
A new hand-painted mural adorns much of the walls throughout the expansive lobby, created over the fall 2024 semester and completed in January 2025 by a group of local artists as the latest installment in the Borderlands Mural Project run by the Department Borderlands and Ethnic Studies Department, or BEST.
Titled "Homecoming/Bienvenida," the mural depicts vivid, colorful scenes from the Pueblo Revolution of 1680, the Mexican Defection of 1848 and the Black migration to New Mexico in the early 1900s – historical turning points often left out of modern-day classrooms.
"Our mural celebrates the marking of these lands as the crux of civilization in the western hemisphere, resulting from the uncovering of footprints in what is now called White Sands," said Dulcinea Lara, BEST department head. "It honors the sacredness and people power in this region while inviting guests to imagine a healthier, informed and thriving future."
The BEST Research Center, established in 2024, commissioned six local professional artists and two NMSU art students to complete the mural. The artists include A. Billi Free, Al Na'ir Lara, Celina Corral Arreola, Norma Chairez-Hartnell, Ryan Duran, Saba, Beatrice Chavez and Citlali Delgado.
Working on the "Homecoming/Bienvenida" mural was an empowering experience for Corral Arreola, who views the artwork as reflective and representative of the Tortugas, Mesilla/Chamberino and Vado communities.
"This mural allows people from these communities to see themselves and take ownership of their communities," she said.
Corral Arreola encourages those passing through O'Donnell Hall to stop and take time to fully appreciate the mural, its details and its meaning.
"We hope this inspires others to want to learn more about our region's history," she said.
"Homecoming/Bienvenida" is the third mural in the Borderlands Mural Project. The mural series is a research-art endeavor that places art in highly visible campus locations to give prominence to Borderlands peoples often omitted from dominant narratives and institutions. Other murals in the series can be found in the BEST offices in Garcia Center and the Astronomy Building.
"The murals and the collaborative artistic practice help make sense of peoples' histories, reveal their brilliance and power, and celebrate their persistent resistance to colonial violence," said Manal Hamzeh, director of the BEST Research Center. "It has the potential to inspire collective decolonial imaginations for ways of living outside coloniality – logics and practices in all modern institutions."
Lara added, "The murals honor all commitments in the College of Health, Education and Social Transformation through attention to knowledge and education, well-being and health, and social transformation."
A version of this story originally appeared in the 2025 issue of Pinnacle, the College of Health, Education and Social Transformation magazine. To read more, visit https://pinnacle.nmsu.edu/.
The full article can be seen at https://newsroom.nmsu.edu/news/nmsu-mural-pays-homage-to-southern-nm-s-indigenous--mexican-and-black-roots/s/86e6dce0-8b24-4633-a8d4-ed80a9e7fdd5
