Sites identified as potential Latino national parks
Continuing his push to identify more historic sites important to the nation’s Hispanics, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar touted a new report Wednesday that identified several sites tied to Latino heritage in Colorado and New Mexico — including one in his own back yard — that could one day become national parks or historic landmarks.
The report, requested by Salazar, is part of the secretary’s push to establish more national parks and historic sites tied to minorities. The Obama administration’s most senior Hispanic official and Colorado’s former senator and attorney general, Salazar visited his home state Wednesday to discuss the report, published last month. It identifies 3.26 million acres in Colorado’s San Luis Valley and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico that could become part of a national park or historic site.
Salazar is a native of the San Luis Valley, and his family has farmed in the region for five generations, according to his official biography. The region includes “nationally significant American Latino heritage sites” and Colorado’s oldest town and church, according to the National Park Service.
In October, Salazar said that the Park Service needed to identify more sites tied to minorities that could be added to the park system, noting that less than 3 percent of all national landmarks are designated for women, Latinos or African Americans. Noting that most Americans might understand the history of Latinos through the prism of the ongoing immigration debate, “There’s also a huge history of Latinos in the United States that’s never been told.”
full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sites-identified-as-potential-latino-national-parks/2012/01/04/gIQAExQCbP_story.html
