Chicanx Archaeology

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Chicanx Archaeology," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Traditional frameworks for studying culture contact and colonialism dominate archaeological understandings of Hispanic-descent communities in the United States. Spanish colonial archaeology often glosses over the centuries after any recognizable peninsularity has faded from the material record, and an emphasis on Spanish coloniality has obscured the impact of American settler colonialism on both Hispanic-descent and Indigenous communities. In what is currently the American West, most "Spanish" settlers came from Mexico. These settlers established communities and developed relationships with surrounding Indigenous nations for almost 500 years. An emphasis on peninsular policy, identity, and material culture has occluded the specific sociocultural trajectories of Mexican settlers located within Pueblo, Apache, Tohono O’odham, Chumash, and other Indigenous worlds. The complex layering of kinships, violences, and colonialities in the history of Mexican-Indigenous-Anglo-American relations demands nuanced theoretical approaches to interpreting this past. This session draws Chicanx Studies into archaeological theory. Papers outline major currents in Chicanx Studies as they relate to the interpretation of sites and materials. Participants might address political ecology, kinship, borderlands, colonialisms, indigeneity, heritage, or community engagement, amongst other topics. The session centers scholarship from the northern Rio Grande in reflection of the conference’s location in Albuquerque, NM, but other relevant work is welcome.

Other Keywords
Historic • Ethnography/Ethnoarchaeology • Ethnohistory/History • Identity/Ethnicity • Historical Archaeology • Cultural Heritage and Preservation • Linguistics • Theory • Experimental Archaeology • Phytoliths

Geographic Keywords
United States of America (Country) • North America (Continent) • Arizona (State / Territory) • Utah (State / Territory) • Nevada (State / Territory) • California (State / Territory) • USA (Country) • New Mexico (State / Territory) • Oklahoma (State / Territory) • Texas (State / Territory)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-12 of 12)

  • Documents (12)
Documents
  • Absent and Present: Contested Landscapes and Undocumented Migration at the U.S.-Mexico Border (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabriella Soto.

    This is an abstract from the "Chicanx Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In pursuing archaeological research on contemporary undocumented migration at the Arizona-Sonora border, it became necessary for me to address the myriad and potent absences that made the entwined processes of undocumented migration, humanitarian efforts on behalf of migrants, and border security aimed against migrants tangible to me through scales of space and time....

  • Betwixt and Between: Negotiating Hispanic Identity from Past to Present (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Heather Atherton.

    This is an abstract from the "Chicanx Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research on Hispanic-descent communities in the American West appears to be betwixt and between discussions of indigeneity and nation-building, and for good reason. Drawing on historical and archaeological research of Spanish colonial land grants from the northern and middle Rio Grande, this paper examines some of the ways "Spanish" settlers navigated the tumultuous...

  • Chicanx in the Wilderness: Tree Graffiti and Perceptions of People and Place (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Troy Lovata.

    This is an abstract from the "Chicanx Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines how historic and modern tree graffiti left by Chicanx and Latinx in Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico impact understanding both these peoples and the wild lands they inhabit/ed. Archaeologists have been at the forefront of countering ideas that graffiti is primarily a modern phenomena of urban decay with studies that bring forth concepts of...

  • Chicanxperimental Archaeology: Inclusion and Inclusions in the Experimental Construction of Earthen Ovens (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Albert Gonzalez.

    This is an abstract from the "Chicanx Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper describes the pedagogical and scientific results of the construction and testing of several miniature scale Mexican-style adobe ovens (hornos) by faculty and students in Anthropology at California State University, East Bay (CSUEB). Findings are divided into three sections: Adobe as Teaching Technology, Adobe as Construction Technology, and Adobe and...

  • Conjuring the Archaeology of Aztlan - Through the Looking Glass and Material Lens of the Chicana/o Counterculture, 1976-2018 (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Rubén Mendoza.

    This is an abstract from the "Chicanx Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. With a pedigree firmly rooted in the evolution of the American automobile, lowriders trace their origins to the low-slung custom cruisers and social clubs of the 1930s and 40s. In effect, Mexican immigrants of that time were drawn to mutual aid societies in their quest for identity, kinship, camaraderie, and support. This thereby fueled the rise of lowriders and...

  • Genízaro Ethnogenisis and Futurism (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Moises Gonzales.

    This is an abstract from the "Chicanx Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Genízaro Ethnogenisis, Emergence, and Futurism is an emerging story about the evolution of identity and cultural practices of the Genízaro people of New Mexico. The term Genízaro was the designation given to North American Indians of mixed tribal derivation living among the Hispanic population in Spanish fashion: that is, having Spanish surnames from their masters,...

  • A Global Taste: Rethinking Foodways in Colonial New Mexico (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Dawson.

    This is an abstract from the "Chicanx Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. "I was a global creature before globalization became a buzzword; I am a Heinz 57, a mestizo with my taste buds on several continents" (Arellano 2014: 10). Previous research on colonial-era foodways in New Mexico has often focused on the arrival and use of Old World foods as a way to maintain a distinct Spanish identity. Yet, many of the earliest colonists, despite...

  • Mi Querencia: A Connection Between Place and Identity (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Levi Romero.

    This is an abstract from the "Chicanx Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. What is the connection between place and identity? The story of human existence is one of movement and settlement. Origin stories the world over feature accounts of where a people came from as a way of telling how they came to be. Northern New Mexico cultural envoy, Juan Estevan Arellano, used the traditional northern New Mexico concept of querencia to define the...

  • The Pueblo de Abiquiú Library and Cultural Center as Leader in Genízaro Archaeological Investigations (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Isabel Trujillo. Jun Sunseri.

    This is an abstract from the "Chicanx Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Berkeley-Abiquiú Collaborative Archaeology (BACA) Project has been in partnership with the Merced del Pueblo de Abiquiú and the Pueblo de Abiquiú Library and Cultural Center for several years now. Recruiting assistance from a non-local academic partner, Abiquiú leaders created not only an opportunity for testing the utility of archaeology for achieving community...

  • Strains of Different Cultures Embedded in the 400 Year Old Spanish Language of Northern New Mexico (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alejandro López.

    This is an abstract from the "Chicanx Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As the oldest center of Hispano/Mexicano culture in the United States, northern New Mexico offers a unique view into this culture’s presence in what is now the continental United States. Due to the centuries-long isolation of the region and the relatively dense population of Spanish speakers, northern New Mexico’s four hundred year-old Hispano/Mexicano culture...

  • The View from Here: An Introduction to Nuevomexicano and Chicanx Theory for Archaeology (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Valerie Bondura.

    This is an abstract from the "Chicanx Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper is an introduction to an organized session on Chicanx Archaeology. It argues for the ethical and intellectual imperative of drawing Chicanx Studies scholarship in to archaeological method and theory. Archaeological frameworks for studying culture contact, ethnogenesis, and identity have tended to bypass theory that falls under the umbrella of Chicanx...

  • Where No Mestiza Has Gone Before: Brokering Colonialism, Ethnogenesis, and Gendered Landscapes in Alta California, 1775-1845 (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Lucido. Scott Lydon.

    This is an abstract from the "Chicanx Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The triple consciousness that is the Afro-Mestiza or Mestizo experience conjures nationalism, racialization, and ethnicity and thereby, the ongoing negotiation of identity on the Spanish and Mexican borderlands frontier. Where archaeology and historical studies are concerned, the effort to interrogate the lives of mestiza women within such contested landscapes is...