New Huntington Curator to Bridge Past and Present in California’s Hispanic Heritage

The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino embarked on a new era of cultural preservation and representation with the appointment of Diego Godoy as associate curator of its California and Hispanic collections. Starting last week, Godoy brings his expertise to bear on expanding and diversifying these crucial historical resources.

Godoy, previously a librarian for Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Studies at Duke University Libraries, holds a Ph.D. in Latin American history from the University of Texas at Austin. He aims to balance the preservation of historical documents with the acquisition of contemporary materials. His approach recognizes that today’s collections will become tomorrow’s invaluable resources for researchers and the public.

“The Huntington is a powerhouse institution and a great match for my interests and skills,” Godoy said. “The collections over which I’ll have responsibility are absolutely first-rate and wide-ranging, offering innumerable possibilities for research and interpretation.”

The California and Hispanic collections at The Huntington span from the 15th century to the present, focusing on Spanish rule in California and Mexico for early periods. These materials include Mexican Inquisition records, letters and books of religious orders, mission records, governmental administrative papers, maps, and photographs.

Twentieth-century holdings document political history, featuring papers of conservative Catholic activist Pedro Villaseñor and pioneering LA politician Gloria Molina, as well as records of the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinión. Godoy plans to expand the collection’s diversity, emphasizing underrepresented perspectives and implementing a bilingual approach to curation and presentation.

“Everything that I do is always going to be bilingual, Spanish and English are going to have an equal position,” Godoy explained. “They’re going to have an equal weight.”

With his focus on Mexican American media history and print culture, as well as contemporary immigrant experiences, Godoy aims to provide a more comprehensive representation of Southern California’s diverse communities. He expressed particular interest in adding materials from smaller, more underground alternative sources to broaden the collection’s scope, including documentation of the Chicano movement and punk scenes.

“I would be more interested in adding smaller, more underground alternative representations of Mexican-American media history,” Godoy stated, highlighting his intention to move beyond mainstream media outlets. He also emphasized the importance of representing newer waves of immigrants, particularly those from Southern Mexico and indigenous communities.

Godoy’s appointment signals a shift towards a more inclusive representation of California’s cultural history at The Huntington, an institution founded by Henry E. and Arabella Huntington. His strategy includes making the collections more accessible and relevant to today’s diverse population through exhibitions, public talks, and published pieces that avoid academic jargon and highlight the human drama within the collections.

The curator’s approach to balancing historical preservation with contemporary acquisition reflects his understanding of the collections’ long-term significance. 

“You can’t really prioritize one over the other because what we collect now in the 20th and 21st century, those are the materials that are going to be important for researchers and for the public a hundred years from now, 200 years from now,” Godoy said.

As The Huntington enters this new phase under Godoy’s curation, the institution aims to enhance its role as a cultural and educational center of global significance. The expansion and diversification of its California and Hispanic collections promise to offer researchers and the public a more nuanced understanding of the region’s rich cultural tapestry.