“The Wyoming Betabeleros’ News: La Pagina Espanol of The Powell Tribune (1927)” is the topic of research from Professor Conxita Domenech and Assistant Professor Chelsea Escalante, both in UW’s Department of Modern and Classical Languages. Their discussion is from 3:30-5 p.m. in UW’s American Heritage Center (AHC).

Nearly 100 years ago, Mexicans and Mexican Americans from California came to Wyoming to work for the Great Western Sugar Co. in northern Wyoming. One of the instruments of outreach to them was “La Pagina Espanol de La Tribune (the Spanish page of The Tribune).”

This page, which was incorporated in the local Powell English language newspaper, was published entirely in Spanish throughout 1927. As the only source of news in Spanish at that time for the non-English-speaking community, the collection of newspapers allows students and scholars in the humanities and the Wyoming community a glimpse into the life of Mexican and Mexican American communities in the state’s early history.

This history includes stories of the betabeleros — main consumers of the newspaper — and the “Spanish school,” a school that segregated Mexican migrants from local Powell students.

“The archived newspapers reveal how Wyoming has been, in some ways, encouraging to the migration of Spanish-speaking individuals to the state and supportive of the public use of Spanish but also staunchly against the intermixing of Anglo and Mexican or Mexican American communities,” say Domenech and Escalante about their research. “We will discuss the betabeleros and their experiences living in Wyoming in the 1920s and their impact on the state.”

They will then discuss their AHC exhibition, “The Wyoming Betabeleros’ News: La Pagina Espanol of The Powell Tribune (1927),” which includes large printed photographs of the Spanish newspaper page La Pagina Espanol of The Powell Tribune from the 1920s; translation of the newspaper pages into English; and photos of the Mexican American community of Wyoming from the 1920s and 1930s.

They will present an edited video of their interview with Gonzalo Guzmán, an assistant professor of educational studies at the University of Macalester. Guzmán, a historian specializing in the racialization and educational histories of Latina/o/x communities of the western United States, will discuss his Wyoming betabeleros research.

The video also includes an appearance by Raymond Silva, of Torrington, the son of Wyoming betabeleros. He is among the first Wyoming Mexican American educators and one of the last living Wyoming residents able to give a firsthand account of this time in the state’s beet labor history, Domenech and Escalante say.

For more information, email Domenech at cdomenec@uwyo.edu or Escalante at cescalan@uwyo.edu.