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Nicholas Puente has been awarded a $750 Mini-Grant to establish the Museo Najil Tucha with the contemporary Maya community in Punta Laguna, Yucatan, Mexico.ÌýÌýPuente remarked, “I am honored to have received a 2023 Mini-Grant from the Spicer Foundation. The funding will be part of a larger research project, the Punta Laguna Archaeological Project directed by my PhD advisor Dr. Sarah Kurnick, that works collaboratively with a contemporary Maya community at the site of Punta Laguna, Yucatan, Mexico. Specifically, it will support a community museum project that emphasizes the persistence of Maya peoples over time. The Museo Najil Tucha project will increase pride in disappearing indigenous languages by creating Yucatec Mayan signage and tell a local history of the Punta Laguna Maya. The project hopes to honor the Spicer’s commitment to persistent peoples by supporting the community in telling the history of the ancient and modern Maya communities of Punta Laguna and simultaneously demonstrating the persistence of Maya peoples and practices.