KU graduate receives grant for film documenting Latino community in Lawrence
Humanities Kansas awarded $3,500 in grant money to the Lawrence Corporation for the Advancement of the Visual Arts in support of Lourdes Kalusha-Aguirre, a 2020 KU graduate, and her documentary project “La Yarda.”
La Yarda is a neighborhood that was owned by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad that provided housing for Mexican families working on the railroad in eastern Lawrence in the 1920s.
Aguirre graduated from KU's Film and Media studies department in 2020 and has already presented “Apertura,” a film she produced, at the 2020 New York Latino Film Festival.
“The Kansas history that I learned growing up in school, there was not a lot of Latinos,” Aguirre said. “I can’t even think of one name.”
Aguirre wants the Latin community to know that there have been people of their heritage before them and that there is a history of the Latin community in Kansas.