Sarah Zenaida Gould, PhD
She | Her | Hers
Sarah Zenaida Gould, Ph.D. is Executive Director of the Mexican American Civil Rights Institute (MACRI), an emerging national museum collecting and disseminating Mexican American civil rights history based in San Antonio, Texas. A longtime museum worker and public historian, she has curated over a dozen exhibits on history, art, and culture. Before joining MACRI, she was founding director of the Museo del Westside, a community participatory museum housed at the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center’s Rinconcito de Esperanza in San Antonio’s Westside, the historic center of Mexican American San Antonio. In 2019, her visionary work for the Museo earned her the “crown” at the biennial Reimagining the Museum: Conference of the Americas held in Oaxaca, Mexico. Prior to launching the Museo, Gould was the lead curatorial researcher at the Institute of Texan Cultures, a museum dedicated to telling the stories of Texas’ diverse cultures. While at ITC she curated exhibits on a range of topics from fashion to folklife and toys to Tejanos, and guest curated Bexar County’s tricentennial exhibit “Nuestra Historia – Our History: Spain in Bexar County,” featuring maps and documents from the Archivo General de las Indias in Seville, Spain.
Outside of museum work, Gould is a noted preservationist. She is co-founder and former co-chair of Latinos in Heritage Conservation, a national organization that promotes historic preservation within Latino communities and advocates for the protection of Latino tangible and intangible heritage, at local, state, and national levels. She frequently speaks on topics related to historic preservation and representation of Latino histories, serves as an Advisor to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and is a member of the Westside Preservation Alliance, a coalition dedicated to promoting and preserving the working-class architecture of San Antonio’s Westside. Additionally, she serves on the boards of the Friends of the Texas Historical Commission, the fundraising arm of Texas’ state historic preservation office, and Texans for the Arts, a non-partisan statewide arts advocacy organization. She formerly served on the boards of the American Association of State and Local History, El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail Association, San Anto Cultural Arts, and the South Texas Popular Culture Center.
Gould received a BA in American Studies from Smith College and an MA and PhD in American Culture from the University of Michigan. She also holds a certificate in Philanthropic and Fundraising Administration from NYU’s School of Continuing Studies. She is a former fellow at the National Museum of American History, the Winterthur Museum, and the American Antiquarian Society, and is an alumna of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture Leadership Institute.
Her publications include “Latinos in Heritage Conservation: Establishing a National Vision for American Latinos and Historic Preservation” in Bending the Future: Fifty Ideas for the Next Fifty Years of Historic Preservation in America (University of Massachusetts Press, 2016); “A Fair to Remember: HemisFair ‘68,” in 300 Years of San Antonio and Bexar County (Trinity University Press, 2018); and “Field Guide to the Westside,” in Vernacular Architecture of San Antonio and its Environs (Texas A & M University Press, 2021).
Gould is a native Tejana and the descendant of farmers and farmworkers. Her maternal grandparents were active members of LULAC.
