Latino communities’ longstanding ties to Nevada date back centuries to the Old Spanish Trail, and the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) wants to trace that history by hearing from community members about which places are most important to them and what can be done to help preserve them. 

The Cultural Resources Latino Project, launched on Feb. 1, is funded by the National Historic Preservation Act and will focus on buildings, sites and people from the 1950s through the early 2000s, according to Cliff Creger, chief of cultural resources at NDOT. He said participants can access NDOT’s website or use a new app where they can anonymously submit information by flagging a location and providing a brief description. 

“This is the second community, after Native Americans, that we have outreached to do this kind of work,” Creger said. 

He said NDOT is the second state transportation department in the country to participate in such a project, after Colorado. 

NDOT’s similar partnership with the Native American community has had practical benefits. Seven years ago, NDOT completed a project to enhance traveler safety and roadside water quality on U.S. 50 in the Cave Rock area of Lake Tahoe. Creger said heavy rains had loosened boulders on the rock face above the Cave Rock Tunnel, so NDOT removed debris above the tunnel and installed temporary netting to help catch potential rockfall. 

“When the rocks fell, we immediately went to the Washoe Tribe to talk about the rocks falling and how to prevent that, but also how to keep the rocks from falling on the road,” Creger said. “We proposed a shed to catch the rocks and they had a lot of very useful details on how to hide it and blend it into the mountain so it serves its use but also doesn’t stick out and becomes an eyesore.” 

Creger said the collaboration helped speed up the project and promote better understanding amongst different interest groups — something he hopes NDOT will achieve with Latino communities. 

The NDOT project’s outreach efforts started on Feb. 1 and will continue through March 31. 

After the soft deadline of March 31, Creger said the cultural resources team will conduct a field survey based on the community outreach results and gather suggestions on where to focus their efforts. He said the survey will aid in nominating important sites to the National Register of Historic Places. 

Latino history in Nevada

The Old Spanish Trail was a route that connected northern New Mexico settlements with those of present-day California, and it was first established by indigenous people and later used by Spanish explorers. The trail crossed six states — New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and California — and was widely used by migrants and traders. 

“We often forget how important Mexicans were to some of the industries that established Nevada,” said Maria Raquel Casas, cultural advisor for the project and a professor of history at UNLV.

In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brought an end to the Mexican-American War and its terms ceded 55 percent of Mexico’s territory to the U.S. — including present-day Nevada. 

Today, the majority of Nevada’s Latino population — 75 percent — comes from Mexico, with the rest originating from Central American countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala. Casas says the representation from different countries and regions is changing the face of what it traditionally means to be Latino or Latinx in Nevada. 

“The reasons why the Latino immigrants come here are complex, but they generally boil down to economic conditions,” John Tuman, professor of political science at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, said. 

Casas and Tuman said Nevada’s Latino population was relatively small until the 1980s, but drastically increased between 1990 and 2010 — by 82 percent. Tuman said poor economic conditions prompted people to leave their countries, while plentiful job opportunities in construction, gaming and hospitality attracted them to Nevada’s metropolitan areas.

Regarding NDOT’s initiatives, Tuman said it would be interesting to look into social hubs formed by immigrants over the years. He said immigrants, particularly from Mexico, tend to form organizations or clubs based on the state they come from in their home country. 

“A lot of immigrants create social clubs to engage in activities to not only form cultural cohesion and to maintain their identity, but also to receive help with financial activities and charitable causes,” Tuman said.

He added that Rafael Rivera Community Center in Clark County is an example of a location where such social clubs take place. But experts say geography has become less of a factor.

“The east side is still more heavily Latino, but I don’t think it’s the case that Las Vegas is clearly segregated for historical reasons,” Casas said. “Latinos have the capacity to economically choose to live in places beyond just a neighborhood of ethnic enclave.” 

Regarding NDOT’s outreach efforts, Casas said, “This is an important project to show how significant and important Latinos are to the lifeblood of the city and that we, Latinos, cannot be ignored. And that the development of the city needs to benefit Latinos just as the Latinos are benefiting the growth and stability of this city and of the state.”