National Trails Office Regions 6|7|8 Staff Highlight: Angélica Sánchez-Clark, Ph.D. Historian

Lobanillo Swales on El Camino Real de los Tejas in Texas.

NPS Photo

Angélica Sánchez-Clark has been working for the National Park Service (NPS), as a linguist-historian, then historian, for the past 14 years, first for the Spanish Colonial Research Center (SCRC) at the University of New Mexico (UNM) and now for the National Trails office of the National Park Service (NTIR), headquartered in Santa Fe.

Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, with NTIR, INAH, and BLM colleagues.

NPS Photo

Dr. Joseph P. Sánchez established the SCRC as a partnership between NPS and UNM in 1985, and when he retired from NPS in 2014, Angélica joined NTIR as part of the history team. At SCRC, Angélica worked as a researcher, Spanish-language translator, and managing editor of the scholarly journal, Colonial Latin American Historical Review.

In April 2015, Aaron Mahr, superintendent of NTIR, established a new partnership with UNM, where Angélica serves as the full-time point of contact for the partnership. As a historian with NTIR, she works with colleagues, students, and partners across the country on the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program and the nine national historic trails administered and co-administered by NTIR: the California Trail, Oregon Trail, Pony Express, Mormon Pioneer, Trail of Tears, Santa Fe Trail, Old Spanish Trail, El Camino Real de los Tejas, and El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. Thanks to the enabling legislation of the two caminos, Angélica also collaborates with partners in Mexico, primarily the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH).

Through the NTIR-UNM partnership, and NPS programs such as the Latino Heritage Internship Program, many students have benefited from numerous internship and volunteer opportunities to work on interdisciplinary trail projects involving GIS, historic preservation, landscape architecture, translations, historical research, and partner outreach. UNM also established a trails advisory committee made up of faculty from several departments that work together to ensure the success of the partnership. Among the various success stories, the committee and NTIR developed an interdisciplinary trails course that has been taught at UNM for the past three years.

Rainy day out on El Camino Real de los Tejas, McKinney Falls, Texas, with Steven Gonzales, Executive Director, El Camino Real de los Tejas NHT Association.

NPS Photo

Angélica’s passion is working with partners and students to protect, develop, and promote the national historic trails. Importantly, through outreach and collaboration with underserved trail communities, she and her colleagues ensure that their diverse stories and perspectives are included and shared in the telling of trail histories. In this way, her bilingual skills and academic background in Hispanic literature, history, and cultural studies have served her well in the interdisciplinary and multicultural world of trails.

Angélica and her niece Sofia Sánchez at the Gutiérrez-Hubbell House, a certified site on El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro NHT, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

NPS Photo

Angélica’s career path in NPS has not been very traditional, and she recognizes the important role that mentors have played in her life, both academically and professionally. She looks forward to providing similar opportunities to others who perhaps never thought about working for NPS while, at the same time, bringing to life the rich, complex histories of the national historic trails for which she helps care.