Arizona Barrio Stories awarded grant to continue preserving history of Latino barrios

When Frank Luna, a Phoenix native, retired from a career in education, fundraising and development, he knew he could carefully choose where he wanted to focus his efforts. He had the time and the patience to wait for something great involving his Latino community to come along.

A major advocate for student associations, he was asked by a friend to help organize a fundraiser for Phoenix College’s Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán student chapter, commonly known as MEChA.

The April 2024 event was a success in more ways than one; he helped raise $25,000 for the student organization and he met the people leading a project that centered Latino stories as a means to prevent erasure of their lifelong contributions to the state.

He remembered telling them, “I'm in, however you wanna use me… for this project, I'll do everything I can,” Luna said.

A year after joining them, he helped secure a $25,000 grant for Arizona Barrio Stories (ABS), a Phoenix-based non-profit focused on preserving the history of Arizona’s Latino neighborhoods via storytelling.

“Our Stories, Our Voices, Our People” is the driving vision behind ABS, a Facebook group turned nonprofit serving as a digital archive that, since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, has been advocating and preserving the history of Latino Arizonans.

In 2024, ABS formally became a nonprofit organization. The funds, according to Luna, will allow the organization to bring in a consultant for four to six months, working with their core group of volunteers to establish a strategic growth plan.

“We need to lay the groundwork now and set some infrastructure… put a business plan together for the next three to five years,” Luna said.

When this grant came along, it fit perfectly for their organization, he said. Given its recent designation as a 501(c)(3), ABS encountered barriers to obtaining large grants and had mostly relied on smaller fundraising events and in-kind donations. 

The grant was awarded through the Nuestra Herencia Grant Program — a first of its kind for the Latinos in Heritage Conservation, a Texas-based organization leading nationwide preservation efforts of Latinx heritage, which awarded $600,000 in support of 14 projects across the U.S.

The Tucson League of Mexican-American Women, an association that encourages women to become involved in community efforts, was also awarded funds to protect and celebrate the South Tucson neighborhood.

Preserving the forgotten history of Arizona’s barrios

According to U.S. Census figures, Arizona is home to over two million Latinos, most of whom live in the metropolitan area of Phoenix and in southern Arizona counties.

But some bulldozed and forgotten barrios are spread throughout Arizona.

“Arizona Barrio Stories has emerged to honor these stories of growth and transformation, providing a space for our community to connect, share and preserve the vibrant heritage of our neighborhoods,” the organization’s website states.

ABS was launched as a Facebook group of the same name by Gil Bivens and his wife Joann Bivens, creating a digital space for Latino Arizonans to share stories of the barrios in which they grew up. 

The nearly 40,000 Facebook users share photos, videos and experiences growing up in historic neighborhoods across the state, And the engagement never disappoints, with multiple users sharing their own memories in the same post and leading to conversations and sometimes reconnections of long-lost friends.

The organization soon began enlisting volunteers and added a video storytelling component where ABS members would interview Arizonans and share that video in the group and other social platforms. 

In 2023, with a Facebook group still active, the organization began a collaboration with Latino USA TV, a global streaming channel, that took their stories to a national level on YouTube, Cox and Roku, garnering 500,000 viewers a month. 

On its website, the group lists 50 Arizona barrios — some still existent, withstanding the test of time; others not so lucky, having been bulldozed and erased from city limits, like Golden Gate, where Gil Bivens, the organization’s founder, grew up. In the 70s, the neighborhood near downtown was demolished by the city of Phoenix’s use of eminent domain, displacing the many Mexican and Chicano residents in order to expand Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

His passion and that of his wife for preserving their history is what has led to the success of ABS, Luna said. It’s “the idea of erasure, we are in danger of losing our culture” that keeps Luna, Bivens and the rest of the team focused on their mission.

“We all are on the same page. We have to document, save our stories — collect, document, save our stories and put them out there… so they're not lost,” he said.