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 âLa Yarda.â
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 âApertura,â a film she produced, at the 2020 New York Latino Film Festival.
âThe Kansas history that I learned growing up in school, there was not a lot of Latinos,â Aguirre said. âI canât even think of one name.â