Maria Reyes Pacheco '24 Archives the History of Her Hometown

This summer isn’t the first time Maria Reyes Pacheco ‘24 is working at Heritage Frederick, an archive center and museum dedicated to the history of Frederick County, MD. As a high school senior, she previously volunteered there, working with the events coordinator. But as a current Haverford history major, Reyes Pacheco was eager to learn more about how this repository of her hometown’s history worked. 

“I wanted to better understand how archives are accessed and maintained,” she said. “I also wanted to give back to my local community which has helped me become the person I am today and has a rich history of its own.”

Her work this summer, which includes conducting property history and genealogy research requests and processing new collections in an online catalog, is still a first. Reyes Pacheco is the inaugural recipient of the new Kevin Jones ‘94 Career Development Fund, which is supporting her summer internship. Family, friends, and classmates of Jones, an attorney who died of cancer in 2020, celebrated his deep commitment to social justice and student success by creating a fund to support internships for current Haverford students who share Kevin’s commitments. 

“As the first intern [supported by] this fund, I am so grateful to all those who knew Kevin Jones and came together to make this possible,” said Reyes Pacheco. “Speaking to some of the people that knew him and learning about his legacy has inspired me to give my best work this summer and to continue looking for ways to give back to my community.”

In both her academic and extracurricular interests Reyes Pacheco–who is minoring in sociology and concentrating in Latin American, Iberian, and Latinx studies–is focused on the preservation and education of Latinx communities. Though she has found the archives at Heritage Frederick lacking in their documentation of such communities, as part of her summer internship she was able to write an article for Frederick Magazine about the area’s Latinx immigrants.

“Unfortunately, the history of communities of color has not been well kept throughout the years at Heritage Frederick’s archive,” she said. “This is something that is true about many archive centers in the US which often rely more on physical forms of archives compared to ‘non-traditional’ forms of history, such as storytelling or oral histories. I have definitely learned a lot about the logistics of maintaining an archive, but I think, more importantly, it has encouraged me to question the significance of archives within our field and has affirmed my commitment to the teaching and preservation of Latinx history.”
 

"Summer Centered" is a series exploring our students' campus-supported summer work.