The Foreign Service Journal, April 2020

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | APRIL 2020 51 community about my discoveries. Afterward, some colleagues approached me to discuss ideas of how to ensure our consulate maintained its history. Should we frame old consular despatches? Create a partnership with a local university to digitize all that we’ve discovered? One colleague excitedly told me after my presentation that understanding the past can help us understand the consulate’s integral role in northeastern Mexico. “We belong here, and we’re part of the richness of this area,” he said. “Seeing that come to life is really inspiring.” v So why put effort into researching your own post’s history? There’s the abstract argument that knowledge of history can help right past wrongs, honor forgotten heroes and inspire us all toward a better future. But there’s also a more practical perspective. Posts can con- vert their own unique story into concrete public diplomacy and morale-boosting deliverables, just like in Matamoros. And the really good news: It’s not that hard at all. Your starting place should be the State Department’s Office of the Historian, which has great resources and advice. Historian Tiffany Cabrera started me off by emailing me digitized copies of “consular cards,” file cards begun in the 1800s that listed all U.S. consular personnel assigned to Matamoros through the 1950s (although, as I later found out, the records weren’t completely accurate). She also recommended other places to explore, such as the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training’s oral his- tory project, the State Department’s Bunche Library and AFSA’s website, which has an amazing digital archive of every issue of The Foreign Service Journal since 1919. By mining the above resources, you’ll have a decent amount of information. But there’s more. Your next step should be the National Archives and Records Administration, the repository for the permanently valuable records of the U.S. government, includ- ing the State Department. The department’s central files are the key records. The pre-1907 diplomatic and consular despatches (reports to the department) are available through various issues The coolest finds, however, were the stories of heroic employees who had been forgotten over the years.