Uncovering New Mexico's Hidden History: Archived Prison Voices as Rhetorical Spaces of Possibility, 1956-1971

Abstract

Broadly, this project speaks to the inseparable connections among community, education, and incarceration. Uncovering New Mexico’s Hidden History: Archived Prison Voices as Rhetorical Spaces of Possibility, 1956–1971 begins as a historical rhetorical recovery project and concerns a period in New Mexico’s penal history that emphasized rehabilitation through legitimate prison programs. Between 1956 and 1971, incarcerated residents at the Penitentiary of New Mexico published an award-winning prison news publication, The Enchanted News. During this time, the New Mexico Corrections Department prioritized treatment programs including higher education, as reflected in the news publication. For this historical rhetorical project, I examine how the incarcerated writers situate themselves professionally as journalists of the penal press and how they exercise rhetorical power to promote success through education in a public forum. To support my analysis, I showcase a successful historical model of prison higher education at the Penitentiary of New Mexico in part through the lens of the incarcerated journalists. I contend that their voices and perspectives make a valuable contribution to New Mexico’s penal history. In addition to bringing attention to this rhetorical history, I next problematize archival practices and historiographic methodologies, arguing to unsettle practices that further marginalize. Drawing from critical archival studies and feminist rhetorical historiographic methods, I highlight my own research experience to question how to locate and ethically present dismembered, wounded, and marginalized histories of incarceration. My concerns over crossing barriers of time and privilege and dwelling in others’ histories prompt me to question how we, as researchers, situate ourselves in relation to the incarcerated individuals we write about when practicing community listening in carceral spaces. Bringing attention away from the past to reflect on my prior teaching experience in prison, I lastly expand on theorized listening to frame proximate listening as a praxis for community listening in prison.