Meetings

Due to the nature of the PCE, Glover and Rissolo have been in contact with each Municipal President, the Chiquilá Mayor(s), ejido members and the comisario of the ejido, INAH and CONANP officials, and members of the Chiquilá community since the beginning of the project. Ideas pertaining to the creation and establishment of a community museum have been present in dialogues between Glover and Rissolo and the local community for years. While there are various reasons as to why one has yet to be established, it by no means implies that the community has given up on the idea. The opportunity did not fully take shape until a year after I joined PCE.

I began work on PCE in May of 2017 after being accepted into the MA program at Georgia State University. This initial work laid the foundation for my understanding of the region’s history, archaeology, and community engagement. I decided to focus my thesis on a community museum project in Chiquilá following the construction for the Chiquilá Tourist Parador Project, which had been completed in March of 2018.

A very early meeting occurred during May of 2017 that included: Glover and Murtha from PCE; municipal President, Emilio Jíminez Ancona; Allen Ortega and Nicholas Guevara Labastida, two officials from INAH; and Andres Cohou Martinez, the alcalde of Chiquilá at the time. They discussed the prospect of a Chiquilá community museum for the first time and were given the go- ahead by the Municipal President. The community museum was thus proposed to be located where the current park now resides, just east of the center of town (Figure 7).

Work on the museum project gained traction during a trip to Kantunilkin at the end of May 2018, attended by Murtha, Glover, Carlos Cisneros (Georgia State graduate student), and me. Three weeks were spent meeting officials and people, scheduling meetings, and gaining a better understanding of the project. We met with Francisco Cab Ku, the CONANP representative for the Yum Balam region. This was an introductory meeting where we discussed the Chiquilá museum as a space for interpretations and the incorporation of and collaboration with CONANP. We also met with the municipal President at the time, Emilio Jíminez Ancona; the Sub-secretary of Tourism of the Quintana Roo State, Luis de Potestad Clements; the Councilor of Tourism of the Lázaro Cardenas Municipality, Marta Loya; the Coordinator of Tourism of the Lázaro Cardenas Municipality, Jesús Gabriel Tah Moc; and the Director of Urban Planning and Tourism of the Quintana Roo State, Sergio Vásquez. A formal email was sent to the Secretary of Tourism of the

Quintana Roo State, Marisol Venegas Pérez, detailing the current desire to see the advancement of the museum project and attached with a copy of the proposal that we developed (Appendix A.1).

A brief trip was made in December of 2018 to meet with the new Municipal President, Nivardo Mena Villanueva, and the three candidates for the upcoming Mayor election in Chiquilá. This allowed us to reaffirm the proposal with new officials and reflect our interest in collaborating on this project. Once the proposal was updated in February (Appendix A.2), Glover circulated it to officials and key figures within the Chiquilá community. This trip was then followed by another in March by me and Nathania and Carlos. We spent 6 days working in Chiquilá to distribute proposals and disseminate information about the CCMP to anyone who would listen. We specifically targeted the Directors of the schools in Chiquilá to begin including them in conversations about content that might be useful to their prospective curricula. We explicitly stated that the content of each proposal was only meant to present possibilities and that nothing was set in stone. This is because we are interested in having feedback from the community and as we are only facilitators in this process, we truly want this project to stem from community interest and involvement.

Figure 6 (From left to right) Event coordinator, Omar Govea (Director of Projects and Tourist Infrastructure, SEDETUR), Sub-Secretary of Tourism, Nivardo Villanueva (Municipal President), Marisol Venegas (Secretary of Tourism for the State of Quintana Roo), and Valerio

Mayoral (Mayor of Chiquilá) (photo by Mikaela Razo)

The inauguration ceremony on April 11, 2019 led to a brief visit to attend the event and reaffirm PCE’s presence in the CCMP process. I attended the event to pass out proposals and business cards with the project’s email. I was introduced to Marisol Venegas, the Secretary of tourism for the State of Quintana Roo. The invitation and itinerary for the event (Appendix B.2 and B.3) outlined the attendees and outlined the proceedings. Five officials were present to preside over the event and inaugurate the building (Figure 6; from left to right): Omar Govea (Director of Projects and Tourist Infrastructure, SEDETUR), Sub-Secretary of Tourism, Nivardo Villanueva (Municipal President), Marisol Venegas (Secretary of Tourism for the State of Quintana Roo), and Valerio Mayoral (Mayor of Chiquilá).

Valerio provided the introduction to the event and was then followed by the Sub-Secretary of Tourism who gave a succinct speech about the Chiquilá Tourist Parador Project. The accordance

(Appendix B.1) was then signed by all present at the table. The signing was then followed by short speeches from Villanueva and Venegas (respectively), both discussed the potential of the spaces and their hopes for the future. The formal portion of the event concluded with Venegas’ speech, after which Govea took over to walk Villanueva and Venegas through the posters. These posters were basic in nature and included information about the cost of the CTPP and what each space was designated to be used for. One poster had a small mention of the museum and its placement within the parador and the educational nature of the panels. Govea and I performed a walk-through of the tourist parador reaffirming the space(s) we originally negotiated and further discussed their potential uses and realities.