The Hector P. Garcia Memorial Library recently held their first ever History Harvest event, an effort that aimed to collect and preserve the  history of Mercedes residents by recording their oral histories.

Dr. Carlos Cantu, one of the organizers of the event and an expert in conducting oral histories, was very happy with the turnout for the event.

“I’m impressed with the number of folks that are coming in,” Cantu said. “These interviews have been taking… a good long piece, 30 minutes, 40 minutes,” he continued.

Dr. Cantu says that while the standard for oral histories are usually a bit longer, the interviews they were able to get are still very good. 

One of the volunteer interviewers for the event, Isaiah Ramirez, says that the point of the interviews is to get every single person’s personal story, no matter how big or small.

“Their lives growing up, what they’ve experienced, what they’ve seen… we want to treat everybody who comes in today as the main characters of their own story.” Ramirez said.

As a resident of Mercedes for his whole life, Ramirez hopes that the history of his community doesn’t get lost.

“I really encourage people to continue this tradition with their family as well…just retell these stories so that way they can keep going and being passed along and they won’t get erased in history,” he said.

Deborah Car, an attendee at the History Harvest and life-long valley resident, says she decided to go because was interested in the history of at time that she was not alive for.

“My friend and I are really into history…when she told me about this event here, I said let’s go, it’ll be interesting to find out more things about history prior to me being born,” Car said.

When asked what kinds of changes she had seen in her own personal life, Car said that there is still room for improvement. 

“I’ve seen some improvement and some [areas] that still needs to be improved, but I know that with time, it can be done,” she said.

Although Dr. Cantu views this event as a success, he would like to continue doing these types of events all across the valley, particularly in cities that have changed drastically over the years, such as McAllen.