The Abuelas Project: Immortalizing Latinx Stories and Spaces With GIS

To preserve a culture is to sustain people—people with stories that are too valuable to be erased. Yet, that is often the case, especially for communities whose narratives have previously been suppressed. While culture may not always be physical, it is deeply rooted in place.

Recognizing this, The Abuelas Project—an initiative of the Latinos in Heritage Conservation (LHC), a nonprofit supporting Latinx communities—uses geographic information system (GIS) technology to preserve and elevate the culture of their Latinx community through a digital community archive.

The Abuelas Project documents oral histories, photographs, community-submitted materials, and maps. It is built using ArcGIS technologies and offers a growing, interactive space where communities can share their stories, contribute historical materials, and support recognition of Latinx cultural sites across the United States and Puerto Rico.  

Across the US, Latinx communities remain largely invisible in official preservation records. Although Latinx people represent nearly 20 percent of the US population, fewer than one percent of the more than 95,000 sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places reflect Latinx history. In Texas, where Latinx communities make up the largest share of the population, over 300,000 records exist for historic sites. Yet only a small number acknowledge places of Latinx significance.

To bridge that gap, the Abuelas Project needed a platform that was both widely accessible and visually compelling. Latinos in Heritage Conservation chose ArcGIS Online, a cloud-based, secure, and scalable software as a service (SaaS) platform for geospatial workflows that allows communities to map, document, and share the sites that hold meaning for them.

“We explored several tools and ultimately chose ArcGIS because we needed an accessible platform that could support visual storytelling online,” said Sehila Mota Casper, Executive Director of LHC. “This gives communities a powerful way to document and advocate for places they care about.”

With ArcGIS Online and a suite of other GIS tools, users can contribute oral histories, photographs, documents, and publicly submitted artifacts that reflect migration, neighborhood change, family memory, and cultural preservation.

For example, LHC built a custom site using ArcGIS Experience Builder, a versatile tool that creates custom web apps for a variety of devices—ensuring the archive remains accessible and interactive.

Using ArcGIS Survey123, a form-centric data collection tool that allows users to create surveys, LHC created a crowdsourced map featuring neighborhoods, landmarks, family recipes, or stories of migration. Through a simple online form, users can share photos, audio recordings, written reflections, and other materials tied to places that matter. The archive is designed to grow with the community. As more people contribute, it becomes a deeper record of Latinx cultural life, grounded in memory and shaped by those who live it.

Collected information helps build digital stories created with ArcGIS StoryMaps. These interactive stories allow visitors to explore maps, personal narratives, and historical context, covering topics such as the Bracero Program and Latinx life along Route 66. Each story is developed by a team trained in urban planning, geography, and history. The process combines spatial data, testimony, and archival research to support nominations at the local, state, and federal levels.

The Abuelas Project’s impact is already taking shape through the stories it has gathered and the communities it continues to engage with. What began as a response to underrepresentation is now a living, evolving archive—built by and for the people it represents.

So far, the project has collected 26 oral histories, recorded over 40 hours of interviews, gathered more than 700 photographs, and published seven digital stories. These engaging narratives combine interactive maps, multimedia, and text. Each story is the result of more than 100 hours of research, weaving together spatial data, maps, personal narratives, and historical timelines to support preservation efforts.

Karina Amalbert, the geospatial project manager for LHC, emphasizes the dual nature of working with ArcGIS: it produces complex 3D models and compelling visuals that support their preservation efforts while remaining approachable for everyday users. Though capable of sophisticated, multilayered work, the use of GIS in The Abuelas Project remains user-friendly—even to those without technical expertise.

Casper adds, “While [The Abuelas Project] is a cloud-based GIS platform, it’s also a very human-centered platform made for the community. It’s something my mom can use and become involved in.”

Through GIS, the Abuelas Project created a practical avenue to document a history long overdue for recognition. Preserving culture means preserving spaces where it lives—where moments are born and stories take root. Those stories, in turn, preserve the people who came before them.