This historical market in Tucson made it on the 2025 Endangered Latinx Landmarks list

A new list aims to shine light on thirteen sites with historic significance to the Latinx community. The 2025 Endangered Latinx Landmarks report includes a Texas cemetery, a bar in LA, agriculture labor housing in Colorado and a market in Tucson.

This is the first list of its kind the group Latinos in Heritage Conservation has released. Sehila Mota Casper is its executive director. She spoke with The Show and they started with what the thinking was behind doing this.

Latinos in Heritage Conservation

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Handout

Full conversation

SEHILA MOTA CASPER: What we know is that Latinx landmarks throughout the country are being demolished at such a rapid rate and a faster rapid rate than any other cultural resources throughout the United States. So the endangered landmarks list was really to call attention to that, to say that there are so many significant sites. And in this case, we selected 13 sites across the U.S. that embodied various different types of historical things, but also really big threats — like demolition.

And so this listing being the inaugural list was really to bring wide attention to these types of issues that's occurring in every state, including Arizona.

MARK BRODIE: Why is it that these kinds of historic landmarks are being demolished or destroyed more quickly than those maybe of other communities?

MOTA CASPER: Yeah. A lot of it is that no one is focused on saving Latinx places at this point. There's a lot of issues when whenever we think about what is history, what is valued as history, what's an important historical site, what's an important architectural site, cultural site.

And because those items can be so subjective, it makes it really hard sometimes for people to recognize just how significant or important a regular mundane site could be to your local historical narrative or state narrative.

And they can face anything from like threatened by demolition, deterioration, rising costs and lack of investment. And so because there's lack of resources actually given to these types of sites and lack of attention, people just think that they're tear-me-downs and that they should be torn down and not really looked at for what makes it truly important.

BRODIE: So you mentioned that this process is somewhat subjective. So I'm curious, like when you were looking through the nominations, what were you looking for to determine, yes, this is historic, yes, this does need to be protected, this does need to be on a list to try to draw attention to preserve it.

MOTA CASPER: Yeah, absolutely. We looked at multiple things. We looked at the stories. that were embodied in each of these places. We looked at the memory and the identity of each community and what they represented to each community.

And there were also stories that aren't really talked about in Latinx communities. We selected an LGBTQIA site. We selected a site associated with farmworkers. We selected, you know, an old market within a barrio. And so these are stories that can play a role in our everyday lives and everyday history. Yet people don't realize how important they are to our broader narrative.

BRODIE: Is part of the goal with this, in addition to drawing attention to the specific sites, to maybe in some way draw attention to the idea of landmarks, of historic places associated with this community broadly?

MOTA CASPER: That's right, yeah. When we lose a historical site, and we purposely called it a landmark because within historic preservation, you have different sites that are designated as you know, this is a historic site. This is a National Historic Landmark. This is a protected landmark.

And so just in the naming of itself, we intentionally chose endangered Latinx landmarks to be able to share that, OK, these places may not be in a traditional registry, but they are a landmark to the community. And when we lose those landmarks, we're not just losing bricks and mortar. We're not just losing an old building. We're losing that memory.

And, you know, those buildings really are cultural anchors. They're classrooms. They're symbols of resilience. They're places where history happened and occurred. And so saving these sites really just ensures that we have these for future generations and that children can actually learn from them, adults can learn from them and really understand the full American experience.

BRODIE: So it's interesting you mentioned that there are classrooms, that they're sort of living places, because the location that you mentioned in Arizona that's on the list, Anita Street Market, is very much that, right? Like, it's still a store that people can go into and it serves as a market.

So I wonder, like, what is the hope by putting that landmark on this list in terms of preserving it, but also, you know, making it so that it continues to be able to serve its purpose and serve its community into the future?

MOTA CASPER: Absolutely. We were so excited to be able to highlight Anita Street Market in Tucson. Tucson is such a historically and culturally rich city.

And when we were looking at Anita, what we loved about it is that it was nestled within this old historic barrio, and it was established in the '30s. It's woman-owned and it was passed on from Chinese history and now to Mexican-American history. And so with this site, we wanted to say that there are lots of different legacy businesses, heritage businesses, multi-generational businesses like Anita's that are so important and that are struggling.

Anita's itself was dealing with some issues that needed a lot of rehabilitation work. And so we really wanted to highlight that, yes, that Tucson is known for being a UNESCO City of Gastronomy. But the gastronomy is about the people, right? It's about the culture and the anchors there.

And in this case, it's Anita Street Market, which is an old historical market where people used to be able to walk into and buy food, buy fresh tortillas, be able to get there. And so we still see it as being a community anchor.

And because we know that it is threatened by things like food gentrification or displacement because of all of the rapid growth that's happening there in Tucson, we really wanted to shine a light that this place, as small and as beautiful as this building is, is really important to the community and we hear you and we applaud the work that the community is doing trying to preserve it. And so we wanted to share that story and just share that this place, along with other places similar to it, are very much worth preserving.

And then we also wanted Americans at large just to know that Latinx history is vast, it's part of American history, and there is a multitude of various spaces that it looks like, including, you know, a tortillera where you can go in and get fresh tortillas.

BRODIE: So given sort of where the economy is now, and given the fact that, you know, most historic preservation budgets are not overflowing with dollars, What realistic goals do you have for this list? Like, what's a reasonable expectation for the impact of being on this list for the places that are?

MOTA CASPER: We've already seen the impact occur since we announced this listing. Anita's itself has seen more foot traffic over the last few weeks, and they were so grateful for it. Because of this listing, they were able to use this as a catalyst to get a grant. So there's a lot of things that happen, but the biggest thing is really just having that big national call, sharing that these sites are out there, they're threatened and they're endangered, and that they need our community's help.