Over the past eight years, a grassroots movement has been quietly documenting the heartbeat of northern New Mexico. What began as a personal mission to link people to their landscape has blossomed into Voices of the Northern Rio Grande, a community memory project that has captured over 250 stories since its inception in 2018.
Program founder Claire Coté launched the initiative, originally known as Questa Stories, to preserve the culture, traditions, language, and lived experiences of people from Questa and communities of Northern Taos County. The archive now contains a diverse range of narratives, from three-minute snapshots to deep-dive interviews lasting over two hours. By capturing interviews with elders at their kitchen tables, youth at Alta Vista Elementary and Vida Del Norte Summer Camp to patrons at Questa Farmers Market, the program seeks to include all community voices.
“I knew I wanted to come back home,” said Coté, who grew up in El Rito and was homeschooled before pursuing a master’s degree in art and ecology in England. Her time in the UK reinforced the necessity for historical preservation. “When I came back, I felt very strongly to protect and celebrate the place where we live.”
Coté’s interest in archiving began as early as 2006. Though she initially questioned if she was the right person for the job, she realized the work wasn’t being done. “I felt passionate about our local culture and traditions being documented,” she said. Alongside co-founder Gaea McGahee and organized by LEAP (Land, Experience and Art of Place), a program under the nonprofit Localogy, the project now serves as a pathway between generations.
The initiative is highly visible through several key programs. Voces de Nuestro País is a monthly story-sharing event held at the Questa Public Library on the second Saturday of each month. These gatherings, which feature guest speakers and local open mics, are recorded and released as a podcast on Youtube, Spotify and Applepodcasts. During the summer, visitors to the Questa Farmers Market can enjoy listening to “StoryBoxes” featuring short audio segments that offer shoppers a snippet of local voices and history.
The Voices program is also developing a “Community Memory Lab” offering audio, video and scanning equipment to capture longer form interviews and “object stories” in which residents discuss the significance of family heirlooms or photographs. A portable recording setup is used for field recording, at events and people’s homes. Through a partnership with the Manitos Community Memory Project, these efforts are being digitized into a permanent community archive at QuestaStories.org and archive.manitos.net.
At its core, Voices of the Northern Rio Grande is about celebrating the voices of the community. The mission is to build a resource that supports grassroots “archive activations” and learning opportunities for all ages. By encouraging authentic conversations, the program seeks to strengthen cultural bonds and even work toward healing historical trauma through restorative justice principles.
Looking ahead, Coté aims to upgrade the project’s website to create a truly accessible online archive where individuals maintain ownership of their files. The partnership with Questa Public Library remains a cornerstone of this vision, providing a logical home for the area’s collective memory. The project extends an open invitation to all community members, including those who have left the area but still hold “Tesoros,” or treasures, of local knowledge. Residents are encouraged to share their own stories, help record relatives, or contribute family photographs to be scanned and added to the archive.
