Associate Professor Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez with her co-author Angela Perea-Murphy pictured. Photo courtesy of Fonseca-Chávez

Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez, assistant vice provost for ASU’s Polytechnic campus and associate professor of English in the School of Applied Sciences and Arts at the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, or CISA, was drawn to Concho, a small town in northeastern Arizona, because of the similarities she saw in her youth growing up in western New Mexico. She first learned about Concho from her college roommate's father. She wanted to know more about Concho; she was certain the similarities were there because somehow the two places were connected.

Research confirmed that they were indeed. After three years into a project to create a book and documentary about the place, she also discovered she had a personal connection to Concho.

Through research and conducting oral histories related to extended homelands, the book shows that New Mexicans and Arizonans are connected through ancestral lines and shared traditions. In January 2020, she and two narrative studies graduate students went to Concho to interview 16 people. Following two days of gathering oral histories, Fonseca-Chávez continued to go back to the small town located between her two homes, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Mesa, Arizona, to learn more.

“The people who live in Concho have ancestors who came to Arizona in the late 1800s; they migrated from New Mexico and honor that history, but have created a new sense of identity and place in Arizona” says Fonseca-Chávez.

In 2023, she received a fellowship from the University of Texas at Austin Center for Mexican American Studies/Voces Oral History Center. She received notification of the fellowship in February that year and by June, she and a production crew of 20 were in the town of Concho, population 60, to interview 18 people. Among the group were a Pulitzer-prize-winning photographer from Los Angeles, five videographers, five interviewers, a director and a team of people to scan documents from families and gather stories.

“It was a whirlwind project. There are no hotels in the town, so everyone was staying in Show Low, but the community of Concho would feed us breakfast and lunch, and invite us into their homes for dinner,” says Fonseca-Chávez. “The project’s director Maggie Rivas-Rodríguez expressed that in her 26 years of being in her career, she had never had a warmer welcome than the one she had in Concho.”

The video footage shot for a documentary still waits for its moment in the sun, but the photos and stories are now part of Fonseca-Chávez's book, "Hispanics in Concho," co-authored with 80-year-old Angela Perea-Murphy, who was raised in the community and always wanted to be an author. This local historian provided an important connection to gathering memories and newspaper clippings, while Fonseca-Chávez managed photos, captions and all things related to the book contract. Many community members helped with verifying information about the people and places that appear in the book.

The book was released on August 15, with a special book signing event for Perea-Murphy at the Arizona Broadway Theatre in Peoria, Arizona, on August 24.

Fonseca-Chávez is now working on a scholarly book about Concho, its original inhabitants from New Mexico, its connection to the church and a diocese that spans multiple states, its agricultural roots, the local newspaper, and the change the town underwent when men left in 1942 to serve in World War II.

The connection that Fonseca-Chávez found amid the project was more than she had anticipated. She discovered she is in fact related to members of the community.

“In 2023, I took my mom with me to see the town and meet the woman I stayed with every time I went to Concho. As we were standing in the kitchen with a group of people, my mom recognized a cousin of hers,” says Fonseca-Chávez. “As we were putting the finishing touches on the book, I confirmed that I was, indeed, related to the woman who had welcomed me into her home all these years.”

The book shares stories from the town’s founding families, along with Concho family photos, project photos and photos taken by WPA photographer Russell Lee. Published by Arcadia Publishing, the book can be ordered online.

Follow ASU's Latinx Oral History Lab @latinxoralhistory on Instagram to see more photos and stories from the book.