The Santa Fe Trail was best known as a commercial trade route from Independence, Missouri, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. But while Americans called it “the road to Santa Fe,” Mexicans knew it as “el Camino a los Estados Unidos” (the road to the United States). The number of immigrants making their way up the corridor eventually outnumbered Americans coming the other way. David Aamodt, administrator of the National Frontier Trails Museum in Independence, and Richard Edwards, the museum’s curator of education, examine the Santa Fe Trail from the Mexican perspective, how it made early Independence more a Mexican than an American city, and how the trail helped blend cultures and economies and shape the American identity – from the once-vibrant Missouri mule industry to the country’s enduring passion for Mexican food. This event is part of the Missouri Latinos series.