I am Ricardo Guthrie, a professor of Ethnic Studies, employed by NAU—the third largest public university in Arizona—and I utilize my faculty position to teach the history and culture of Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans and Asian Americans on a campus with 25,000 students, in this southwestern US city populated by 60,000 residents. Because Flagstaff is actually a small town with a large university housed within it, I draw connections between community dynamics and the pedagogy of race and ethnic studies by creating community projects.

 

Working in collaboration with the Southside Community Association, I directed artists and community residents to produce a mural that reflected the collective memory of people of color, whose contributions were largely unknown to the general public. The Murdoch Center envisioned the mural project as a “community building” exercise—in line with its RARE assessment team’s report which called for community-engaged activities, signage, historical markers, and a mural depicting the Southside as a cultural destination, rather than merely a neighborhood passage to the more lucrative Downtown and Route 66 historic sites.