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MARCH 14, 2024: ANNOUNCING 13 NEW INTERVIEWS, INCLUDING A NEW FOCUS ON LEADERSHIP

By Daniel Velásquez

New Roots announces the publication of thirteen new oral histories from North Carolinians with Latin American ancestry. These stories focus on salient themes such as environmental emergencies, education, integration, and LGBTQ experiences, while also expanding our coverage of Latine leadership in NC through the new Pathways to Leadership initiative.

Continuing our focus on key themes:

In her oral history, Elsi Bautista recounts the devastation of Hurricane Mitch (1998) on Honduras, including the lack of sufficient warning before the disaster and the loss of local leadership to guide recovery efforts. Similarly, Lornaida Avilés de León, who teaches Spanish at UNC-Chapel Hill, details her family’s experience with Hurricane María (2017) and the resource shortages, financial instability, and other difficulties that Puerto Rico faces in the aftermath of a hurricane, which are exacerbated by the Jones Act of 1920.

Cynthia Brendenberg, also a Spanish teacher, focuses her interview on the challenges faced by many Latine students at the Siler City high school where she has worked for many years. One such challenge is achieving a sense of belonging, to which both Martín Luna and Andrés Cáceres attest in their corresponding oral histories. Drawing from different generational experiences, Martín and Andrés each credit other students, particularly fellow Spanish-speakers, with helping them navigate their new North Carolina environments after their arrival from Mexico and Venezuela, respectively.

In contrast, Ana Muños Molina, who migrated from Cuba, mentions her difficulty finding other students who share her experience at UNC-Chapel Hill, where the majority of Latine students are now first-generation Americans. Lastly, in sharing his perspective on the intersection of queer and Latine identities in his native Ecuador, Durham’s LGBTQ Youth Center Assistant Director Niccolo Roditti reminds us that belonging remains a goal that many marginalized communities within Latin America have yet to fully achieve.

Pathways to Leadership initiative:

In 2023, New Roots launched a new and ongoing series of interviews targeting Latine leaders in North Carolina with the goal of gaining a deeper understanding of the external factors and intrinsic qualities that helped set our interviewees on their leadership journeys. Conducted by Community Documentarian Daniel Velásquez, these oral histories highlight leaders working in various roles, from state and local government to community organizations.

By and large, the interviewees would agree with Luis Olivieri-Robert, Community Relations Analyst for the City of Raleigh, who strongly advocates that prospective leaders “find a mentor to help you navigate, grow… and model a path.” The importance of mentorship and personal support networks emerge as key factors that can help Latine people navigate local and state institutions—especially when such institutions lack linguistically- or culturally-appropriate information and resources. For this reason, Katelyn Robalino, Community Connections Coordinator for Affordable Housing at the Town of Chapel Hill, is grateful for having “encountered people who spurred [her] on,” since she did not have the generational knowledge to “know how to plan ahead and think through career advancement” in the U.S. Many of the leaders we interviewed actively work to address the gaps in institutional support; Hannia Benítez, for instance, joined The Hispanic Liaison and became Deputy Director of their Lee County office, precisely so she could “advocate for the next person that comes in and pass information and knowledge along.”

The leaders we interviewed also collectively point to a persistent challenge: insufficient representation. Our interviewees think through the issue in various ways. For example, Norma Martí, Latinx Community Co-Lead for NC’s Community Engagement Alliance, advocates “finding partners… because you are not going to knock it down by yourself.” Similarly, Yazmin García Rico, Director of Latinx and Hispanic Policy and Strategy at NC DHHS, urges listeners of her story to “make sure we are still working on that pipeline… because what feels heavy is that one person cannot change everything, and many people are that one person in their space.” Of course, the implication of highlighting this challenge is that discrimination remains a factor hindering Latine communities. But Adolfo Briceño, Program Manager of Human Relations and DEI at the City of Winston-Salem, is hopeful that with time, Latine people will be leaders “not only in the Hispanic community, but leaders period, of all the community.”

However, it is clear that to make Adolfo’s vision a reality, our state needs more leaders in “the pipeline,” and they will need guidance. We hope that by sharing these stories of resilience and the advice that our interviewees provide, New Roots may help inspire and inform both future leaders and mentors, and thus contribute to this important effort.

 

October 30, 2023: New Roots Celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month with a Presentation for the State Library of NC

By Daniel Velásquez 

New Roots was invited by the  State Government and Heritage Library of NC to be a part of their Hispanic Heritage Month events. In this webinar presentation, Community Documentarian Daniel Velásquez explores historical connections between Latin America and NC, provides a brief overview of Latine migration to the state, and highlights how the New Roots archive is an important tool for exploring stories that address these themes and more. Outreach Coordinator Skylar Zee provides further resources, including a lesson plan based on New Roots oral histories. Watch the recording below:

 

May 24, 2023: Recent New Roots oral histories continue focus on migration stories and the impact of COVID-19 and climate change on NC communities

By Daniel Velásquez 

New Roots announces the publication of eight oral histories conducted by Sophie Therber and Marisa Carlton during 2021 and 2022. The interviews explore various topics such as COVID-19, climate change, farmworkers’ support programs, U.S immigration policies, migrants’ journeys, adapting to new communities, identity, and more. They have now been archived by the Southern Oral History Project and the University Libraries and are available on the bilingual New Roots website. Below are brief descriptions and links to each interview.

Marlene Castillo tells us about her involvement with the Association of Mexicans in North Carolina (AMEXCAN) and her experience helping Latino immigrants face the COVID-19 pandemic and hurricanes. She manages AMEXCAN’s NC Latino COVID-19 Task Force, connecting a variety of stakeholders such as health departments, community-based organizations, community partners, and state leaders. Marlene emphasizes the need for collaboration and the importance of community networks. (Interview by Sophie Therber)

Isaías García García originally from Totonicapán, Honduras, he shares the story of his arrival to the US during his adolescence. He details the entry process, his experience in immigration facilities, and the emotions he felt when was finally released to the custody of his brother-in-law. Isaías continues with his journey as a business owner of Barbería García, in Boone, North Carolina. (Interview by Marisa Carlton)

Lariza Garzón shares her experience working with the Episcopal Farmworker Ministry helping farmworker communities recover from hurricanes, mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic, and deal with other challenges that farmworkers and immigrants face. Lariza draws connections between the trauma of immigration and the trauma associated with disasters such as hurricanes and COVID-19, discussing the importance of allowing community members space to discuss collective healing. (Interview by Sophie Therber)

Nicandro Mandujano helped support farmworkers during COVID-19 and other disasters through his involvement with the North Carolina Farmworker Health Program. In this interview, he describes the tension between developing thoughtful emergency response plans and the unexpected, unplanned nature of emergencies. Nicandro also explains the pandemic’s effect in fomenting better communication among farmworker health sites and between sites and farmworker communities. (Interview by Sophie Therber)

Mónica Pagnini-Ibarra is a former business owner and family lawyer from Maracay, Venezuela and currently serves as the Client Services Advocate at El Centro Latino in Hickory, NC, where she runs workshops and special events for her community. She shares the story of the political insecurity that ultimately led her to flee her native country in 2015 and explains the challenges she faced starting a new life in NC. (Interview by Marisa Carlton)

Natalie Rivera was born in rural North Carolina and has been working with immigrant communities since college in a number of roles. The main focus of the interview is Natalie’s involvement with the Farmworker Health Program and her experience helping farmworkers mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic and extreme weather, as well as other challenges such as HIV education, internet access, and emergency-related communication in Spanish. (Interview by Sophie Therber)

Gianella Romero tells us about her roots in Mexico, her experience in school in North Carolina and how that shaped her identity, and her occupational transition from healthcare to the non-profit sector as Executive Director of El Centro Latino in Hickory, NC. She comments on the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and her role providing resources to Spanish-speaking communities. (Interview by Marisa Carlton)

Soraya Valdez Place tells the story of her early life in El Salvador and the ways in which her family was affected by the violence and natural disasters. She continues with her journey adapting to life in the US, the struggles she faced learning English, and her work as a Spanish Professor at Lenoir Rhyne University and the Community Outreach Specialist for the Catawba County Library system in Hickory, NC. (Interview by Marisa Carlton)

 

November 15, 2022: Meet Our Community Documentarian

Daniel Velásquez is a Ph.D Candidate in History at UNC and holds a Master’s degree in Public History from the University of Central Florida. His research interests center on the migratory and commercial links between Latin America and the US South. He has conducted archival research in the United States, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom, and has been involved in numerous projects ranging from historic preservation to history podcast production. Since 2021, he also serves his local community as a member of the Mebane Racial Equity Advisory Council. As Community Documentarian at the Institute for the Study of the Americas, he looks forward to conducting oral histories with Latine leaders across North Carolina and working with the Building Integrated Communities and New Roots programs.

 

August 24, 2021: New Roots adds 11 interviews exploring COVID times, climate change

By Staff at the Institute for the Study of the Americas

The New Roots Oral Histories announce the publication of new oral histories of North Carolinians with Latin American ancestry. Narrators explore topics such as COVID-19, climate change and migration, U.S. immigration policies, community services and programs, culture and identity, access to education, migrants’ journeys, and much more. The interviews were conducted by trained bilingual staff and students at the Institute for the Study of the Americas from 2018-2020 and archived by the SOHP and the University Libraries in 2021. The interviews, described more below, are available on the bilingual New Roots website. Visit the hyperlinked name to explore each interview.

Bob Bridwell shares his responsibilities as Deacon at St. Stephen Catholic Church and his work surrounding immigration legal services. He describes his long career of city planning and activism and discusses the biggest challenges facing immigrant families in North Carolina. He shares how his church is working to provide solutions and resources to those problems. (Interview by Alexandra Graham)

Victor Canales Gamiño is the youth organizing director at Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF)at Duke University. In this interview, he discusses his migration to the United States from Mexico when he was eight years old, his experiences working with farmworkers, SAF’s mission and initiatives, and he elaborates on the ways in which one can get involved to support farmworkers during the Covid-19 crisis. (Interview by Sarah Blanton)

Peter Gordon is a UNC faculty member who provides a three-part series of interviews in which he narrates the WWII migration story of his father, Samuel Chrabolowski Gordon, who was born to a Jewish family in Poland. Sam Gordon escaped Nazi persecution by migrating to Mexico, where he served as the doctor of a refugee camp in León, Guanajuato before eventually settling in the United States. (Interviews by Hannah Gill)

Jorge Gutiérrez shares two interviews with New Roots. In the first, he discusses his former position as the Coordinator of the Building Integrated Communities Initiative in North Carolina. He describes the Chapel Hill Carrboro school systems’ efforts to support immigration integration and shares his experience as a father of two children. In the second interview, Jorge describes his current position as an interpreter at UNC hospitals in Chapel Hill. In the spring of 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic spread to North Carolina, Jorge volunteered to work with Spanish speaking patients being treated for COVID-19. He describes his experiences interpreting for patients and describes his family’s support of this work and the precautions that hospital staff take to protect themselves. Language and communication play a critical role in the treatment process, underscoring the importance of a hospital providing care that is language accessible for patients. Spanish-speaking North Carolinians and people of color have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. (Interviews by Hannah Marable and Laura Villa Torres)

Vicky Muñiz Quiñones tells us about her history in education as a student and as a professor at the University of Puerto Rico. She details her experience of moving to the United States after Hurricane Maria in 2017 and explains why many Puerto Ricans are moving to North Carolina (Interview by Alexandra Graham).

Alba Sánchez describes her experience of living in Costa Rica and shares her migration journey to the United States. She talks about her passion to learn English and her role as the Immigrant Welcome Center Manager at the Latin American Coalition in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Interview by Marisa Carlton)

Yesenia Pedro Vicente shares a second interview with the New Roots initiative and reflects on the past five years of living and teaching in Phoenix, Arizona after graduating from UNC in 2013. She contrasts between living in North Carolina and the Southwest and talks about her hometown of Morganton, NC and its annual Food Festival. (Interview by Hannah Gill)

Abu Zaeem shares about his role as Principal of the Doris Henderson Newcomers School in Greensboro, a unique school where new immigrant students receive language training and preparation for public schools. (Interview by Hannah Marable)
 

February 1, 2021: Software updates improve the New Roots' site

New Roots' Software Development team has upgraded some of the site's underlying technologies, including transitioning the audio files from Flashplayer to Duracloud streaming. The new format will enhance listeners' experiences and make audio files easier to access.

 

MARCH 8, 2020: OCRACOKE WELCOMES UNC CHAPEL HILL STUDENTS LEARNING ABOUT MIGRATION AND HERITAGE

By Staff at the Institute for the Study of the Americas

Ocracoke, NC

Ocracoke Island’s residents can trace their ancestry to many parts of the world. In March, the Ocracoke community welcomed a group of visitors from UNC Chapel Hill learning about the island’s connections to Latin America as part of a class that examines demographic change in North Carolina. Nearly half of Ocracoke residents have Latin American ancestry, with strong connections to the state of Hidalgo, Mexico.

The UNC group consisted of seven students and two staff members in a class called “Heritage and Migration in North Carolina” that is part of the Latin American studies curriculum and uses oral history as a primary learning method. The UNC group spent the week of March 9 with high school students in Charles Temple’s classes at the Ocracoke School in the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, the temporary school facility and former Coast Guard Station. Together, Ocracoke and UNC students learned about oral history methods and how to conduct a family interviewing project that explores ancestral roots.

They also learned about oral histories of Ocracoke community members at the Ocracoke Preservation Society, the Core Sound Museum, and the New Roots Nuevas Raíces Oral History Initiative at UNC Chapel Hill, which features an online archive of stories of immigrants who have settled in the state. The New Roots initiative organizes bilingual oral history workshops with community organizations and schools throughout North Carolina. UNC students particularly enjoyed their visit with local historian Philip Howard, who shared several incredible stories about the Coastguard and lifesaving traditions of the Ocracoke community.

The UNC students also presented a bilingual College Preparation Information Session on the evening of March 11 at the Ocracoke School that was attended by more than fifty parents and students. These experiences and the ability to make personal connections made an impact on UNC students’ learning. Sarah Blanton, a PhD student who participated in the trip shared, “One evening during our trip, the Ocracoke community of Latin American descent came together to hear UNC students’ presentations on how to navigate the college application system. This, by far, was the most meaningful moment of the trip for me, as I was able to listen to my classmates and friends share their recent, lived experiences of going through this process. Trust, hope, and appreciation permeated the room and the importance of sharing stories and building trust across communities was evident.” The UNC group invited Ocracoke students to tour the UNC campus, hoping to reciprocate the warm welcome they received on the island (several students have followed up to arrange visits once the COVID-19 restrictions end).

The group also learned about the effects of climate change, extreme weather and displacement after Hurricane Dorian’s landfall last year. They were impressed by the resilience of community members who have worked together to clean up debris, find housing for the homeless, restart local businesses, and navigate the complicated federal and state disaster assistance processes. Hannah Gill, the UNC course instructor, observed how Ocracoke School staff and students are working hard to sustain learning efforts in a temporary location. “We really appreciated how school staff and teachers made an extra effort to accommodate our group on top of all the work they are already doing to address students’ needs and rebuild after the hurricane.” UNC graduate student Keylen Renteria highlighted how much she learned about community building and crisis response from Ocracoke residents: “The Ocracoke trip was an amazing opportunity. I learned how this community was able to put aside their differences and work together as a family during times of hardship. A community like this is one I aspire to live in someday.”

During the visit, board members of the local non-profit organization Ocracoke Alive hosted a dinner for the group so they could learn about how the annual Festival Latino started several years ago to honor and celebrate the island’s Latin American heritage. The Festival was cancelled last fall after Hurricane Dorian destroyed the Deepwater Theatre, a community space. Marisa Carlton, a senior undergraduate student on the trip, was enthusiastic about the educational value of this experience: “Being able to laugh, dance, and share stories with people I had just met showed me what Ocracoke was all about and it was truly the highlight of my trip. In class, we had been learning about the importance of oral history interviewing. This impacted my learning because I saw firsthand the importance of oral histories and how sharing our stories can create solidarity and influence others.” Last fall, the UNC group and the Institute for the Study of the Americas collaborated with Ocracoke Alive to apply for disaster relief funds to repair the Deepwater Theatre. Together, they secured a Disaster Recovery Project Grant from the Carolina Center for Public Service from the UNC Disaster Relief Fund at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the amount of $4,600.

Funding for the UNC trip was made possible by a grant from the Humanities in the Public Good program, the APPLES Service Learning Program, The Institute for the Study of the Americas, and the Center for Global Initiatives at UNC Chapel Hill. The class, “Migration and Heritage in North Carolina” is part of the Latin American Studies Curriculum of the Institute for the Study of the Americas at UNC Chapel Hill and the APPLES Service Learning program.

 

December 31, 2019: Community Collaborations, New Roots in local schools

By Kierra Hyman

In 2019 and 2020, New Roots collaborated with community organizations and schools to offer a series of oral history workshops for K-5 students and their families that supported ongoing educational curriculum about local history and identity. The workshops took place in Orange County at Frank Porter Bilingüe Elementary School, where the majority of students have recent ancestry in Latin America.

During the summer of 2019, New Roots staff spent two days at the school with more than 150 students leading activities that focused on family history, listening skills, and creative expression. We read the book “Island Born” by Junot Díaz and then students interviewed each other, asking the question, “What place or places are important to you and your family?” Students illustrated their answers, creating art depicting geographies across Latin America and the United States. Students were invited to return with their relatives for an oral history night at the school, where they could interview each other about family and community stories.

In January 2020, New Roots continued this work by partnering with the Marion Cheek Jackson Center for Making and Saving History and the Coalition of Leaders for African-descendant Student Success. Together, we hosted two oral history workshops, or “Family History Nights,” centered around the importance of documenting family and community histories. At each workshop, 25 students and family members learned how to conduct interviews and oral histories. After the training, students interviewed their family members.

It was moving to see students interviewing parents and grandparents and the inclusion of all generations, young and old. Two families, for example, represented three generations of a family, all who have lived and experienced life in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro community. Special guest and Chapel Hill native Ronnie Bynum was especially impactful. He shared stories about the importance of his grandmother in his life and his experience attending Carrboro Elementary School in the 1960s when the school was integrated. For Mr. Bynum, this period of time is marked by tension, as he discussed the difficulty of maintaining friendships with his white friends despite their parents’ disapproval. His story can be found in the Jackson Center archives, or by clicking the following link: https://archives.jacksoncenter.info/LH/LH_0197. At the end of workshops, student interviewers took home a copy of their interviews with a family member on a flash drive.

The Jackson Center, which collects oral histories from black community members in Chapel Hill-Carrboro living in the Northside neighborhood, and the New Roots/Nuevas Raíces Initiative, a digital archive concerned with the experiences of Latin American migrants in North Carolina, both prioritize the celebration and public dissemination of community histories.

 

October 3, 2018: The Town of Chapel Hill engages with oral histories for Building Integrated Communities

By Hannah Gill

The New Roots interviews provided important data for the new report “Building Integrated Communities in Chapel Hill, NC, Community Perspectives and Recommendations for Local Government.”  Building Integrated Communities (BIC) is a collaborative initiative of the Latino Migration Project, the Town of Chapel Hill, and community residents and organization leaders that provides recommendations for the Town Council to consider that support the integration, well being, and leadership development of immigrant and refugee community members. The report involved the analysis of 25+ oral histories from the New Roots/Nuevas Raíces Latino Oral History Initiative, The Carrboro Oral History Project, and the Arab Refugee Oral History Project at Duke University.

 

March 8, 2017: LMP Welcomes Professors Laura Diaz Leal and Maria Eugenia Reyes Ramos

By Laura Villa Torres

LMP staff (center) with visiting scholars (far right and left)

LMP staff (center) with visiting scholars (far right and left)

The Latino Migration Project hosted visiting scholars and professors Laura Diaz Leal and Maria Eugenia Reyes Ramos, from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Unidad Xochimilco.

As part of their visit, professors Diaz Leal and Reyes Ramos presented their research at the Southern Oral History Program and Duke University using some oral histories that are part of the New Roots/Nuevas Raíces collection. They also participated in the APPLES Guanajuato Class where they interacted with students who travel to Guanajuato for their Alternative Spring Break experience.

Visiting scholars also met with local representatives from Mexico and other community leaders, to explore issues faced by the Mexican community in North Carolina. Finally, the professors explored collaborations with the Latino Migration Project to possibly replicate the New Roots Archive in Mexico, as a sister archive, to open the possibility for students exchanges in the future, and to explore the publication of a special edition of their home department´s journal for a publication of Spanish articles to disseminate the work done in NC for Spanish-speaking audiences.

Professors commented about their experience:

“Our experience in UNC, from the arrival we have been attended and taken care of at all times, with a well elaborated program of activities to realize. It has been surprising to know the University of Chapell Hill, with a campus so large and well distributed and attended.

The activities that have been planned have been covered in time and form and schedule and the people we have had the opportunity to interview, have been cordial, attentive and have accessed our interviews, both Mexican immigrant population and people who run institutions.

They have been an important learning and exchange experience for our development, learning and new knowledge. We hope to continue this exchange, since there are many things that we can contribute from Mexico and many aspects that we have understood and that you contribute to us.

The campus of the University has impressed me a lot because of its size, the organization, the number of programs it offers, the areas where it is working because of the number of students it serves. We are impressed with all the services that students have, it's something to draw a lot of attention. We see a university city and that makes the stay very comfortable for the students. As guests, it is to know another model of university, which also makes us reflect on our own universities, what we have in Mexico and gives us an idea of ​​the things that we could implement there.”

We were so glad to host such wonderful guests! We hope you will come again!

  

February 17, 2017: LMP staff participate in 2017 annual Engagement Units Summit

 

From left to right: LMP team members Laura Villa Torres, Jessica White, Sara Peña and Maria Silvia Ramírez.

From left to right: LMP team members Laura Villa Torres, Jessica White, Sara Peña and Maria Silvia Ramírez.

 

The Latino Migration Project (LMP) presented a poster at the annual Engagement Units Summit Feb. 10, which was hosted by the Carolina Engagement Council at the Carolina Club, George Watts Hill Alumni Center. Team members discussed LMP initiatives of Building Integrated Communities, New Roots/Nuevas Raíces, and APPLES Global Course Guanajuato.

The summit focused on engaged experiential education: to enhance student learning and support communities. The summit was for campus engagement units and community partners. Centers, institutes, schools, departments and student organizations sent teams that represented overall units or specific efforts within a unit.

The program included:

Keynote address by Dr. Tania Mitchell, nationally recognized expert in the field of experiential education from the University of Minnesota, Presentations on successful models for undergraduate, graduate and professional student experiential education, and Roundtable discussions on how the University could better support and enhance experiential education on campus and with communities.

  

February 7, 2017: New Roots Welcomes Roman Scholar Micol Drago

 

From left to right: Building Integrated Communities Researcher and Program Coordinator, Jessica White, Roman Scholar Micol Drago, and LMP Director Hannah Gill

 

As New Roots rolled out its new website in 2016 thanks to support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, we are delighted that our efforts to make the oral histories globally accessible are having some initial success. In October 2016, New Roots staff had the opportunity to meet Micol Drago, a student from the University of Roma 3 in Rome, Italy, while on a visit to North Carolina. She discovered the New Roots online resources in the course of her research on Latina and Latino identity in the United States. The New Roots Latino Oral Histories have become the primary source for her PhD thesis, which is entitled “Identity in Latinas and Latinos’ oral histories from the New Roots – Latino Migration Project.” We asked Micol some questions about her research and use of the archive in order to better understand how it is being used by foreign scholars.

Hannah Gill (HG): How did you find the New Roots Oral Histories?

Micol Drago (MD): I conducted extensive research looking for archives of oral histories of Latinos and Latinas in the United States. This is the best archive I’ve found in terms of accessibility and quality of interviews on Latino identity. Also, it’s an ongoing archive with recent materials that is well-structured.

HG: What are some of the more interesting things you have discovered using the archive for your research?

MD: Race and culture are important parts of the complex Latino and Latina identities in the United States. . . Anyone can be “American,” it’s an identity linked to choice. By contrast, in Italy, being “Italian” is not a choice, it’s more linked to one’s heritage and race.

HG: How has migration impacted Italian society in recent years?

MD: Europe has been impacted by the global refugee crisis, and many migrants from the Middle East and Africa now live in Italy. Society is really changing in Italy, and Rome is an international place. What is happening in the United States with migration is relevant to Europe, and we can learn a lot from understanding the history of migration in the United States.

Thank you, Micol! We wish you the best of luck with your studies!

  

November 18, 2016: New Roots/Nuevas Raíces team member María Ramírez featured in SILS news

 

Read it now!

We are so pleased to share New Roots/Nuevas Raíces team member and current Master’s student Maria Ramirez is featured in the UNC School of Information and Library Science (SILS) news. She and SILS alumna Jaycie Vos (MSLS ’13) presented their work with New Roots/Nuevas Raíces: Voices from Carolina del Norte at the Oral History Association Annual Meeting on October 14, 2016, in Long Beach, Calif. At the meeting, Vos, Ramirez, and New Roots Director Hannah Gill accepted the OHA’s 2016 Elizabeth B. Mason Project Award, which recognizes outstanding oral history projects.

  

November 8, 2016: New Roots/Nuevas Raíces serves on “Migration Narratives” panel

Thank you to everyone who came out to the “Migration Narratives” panel! Special thanks to our own panelists Laura Villa Torres, Dr. Hannah Gill, and Felicia Arriaga from the New Roots/Nuevas Raíces oral history project. We enjoyed every minute!

About New Roots/Nuevas Raíces

This digital archive and information system is a joint effort between the Latino Migration Project, SOHP, and University Libraries. It’s a fully bilingual platform for sharing the oral history interviews collected as part of the New Roots: Voices from Carolina del Norte project, which focuses on stories of migration, settlement, and integration in North Carolina. Explore it now!

 

Felicia Arriaga (far right) spoke about her oral history on New Roots/Nuevas Raíces.

 Felicia Arriaga (far right) spoke about her oral history on New Roots/Nuevas Raíces.

 

Laura Villa Torres (far left) and Dr. Hannah Gill (center) spoke about collecting narratives and disseminating stories on NewRoots.lib.unc.edu

Laura Villa Torres (far left) and Dr. Hannah Gill (center) spoke about collecting narratives and disseminating stories on NewRoots.lib.unc.edu

  

October 17, 2016: New Roots/Nuevas Raíces team members receive Elizabeth Mason Award in Long Beach, CA

 

Pictured left to right: Maria Silvia Ramirez, Dr. Hannah Gill, Jaycie Vos. Photo credit: Adrienne Cain, MLS, CA; Creator and Curator of Oral Histories

Pictured left to right: Maria Silvia Ramirez, Dr. Hannah Gill, Jaycie Vos. Photo credit: Adrienne Cain, MLS, CA; Creator and Curator of Oral Histories

 

New Roots/Nuevas Raíces team members Maria, Hannah and Jaycie traveled to Long Beach, CA to accept the team’s Elizabeth Mason Award. In 1993, the Oral History Association established a series of awards to recognize outstanding achievement in oral history. We are so honored the New Roots/Nuevas Raíces Latino Oral History Initiative (http://newroots.lib.unc.edu/) has received the Elizabeth B. Mason Project Award. Thank you to the selection committee, the New Roots/Nuevas Raíces team, the National Endowment for the Humanities , The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the U.S. Department of Education.

Congratulations again, team!

  

August 8, 2016: New Roots/Nuevas Raíces wins Oral History Association award

 

See the list of winners here.

 

In 1993, the Oral History Association established a series of awards to recognize outstanding achievement in oral history. We are so honored the New Roots/Nuevas Raíces Latino Oral History Initiative (http://newroots.lib.unc.edu/) has received the Elizabeth B. Mason Project Award. Thank you to the selection committee, the New Roots/Nuevas Raíces team, the National Endowment for the Humanities , The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the U.S. Department of Education.

  

August 3, 2016: NEW interviews available, New Roots/Nuevas Raíces

 

 

New oral history interviews are now available in the New Roots: Voices from Carolina del Norte digital archive. The interviews were conducted in the spring of 2015 by UNC undergraduate students in Dr. Hannah Gill’s APPLES Latin American Immigrant Perspectives: Ethnography in Action course. These recently added stories delve into the complex social dynamics that many immigrants navigate in the United States and include themes that explore the relationship between family and food. The interviewees, like our friend who we’ve featured before, provide first-hand accounts of their motives for migrating, their family traditions, and offer compelling perspectives on the healthcare and educational systems of this country. To learn more follow these links (below) to their individual stories.

 

 
 

Special thanks to all the students who conducted the interviews and each interviewee for sharing their story.

  

July 7, 2016: A look at “accessioning” in New Roots/Nuevas Raíces

By María Silvia Ramírez, New Roots Bilingual Archivist

At New Roots we are constantly looking for ways to improve access to a growing collection of oral history interviews related to Latin American migration that provide first-hand accounts of the demographic changes that have occurred over the last 20 years. I had the opportunity to examine one of the core functions of archival practice and collection development: accessioning.

 

Accessioning is an essential first step that allows the archivist to gain intellectual control over the materials by knowing what is to be included in the collection and which restrictions apply for access. Our research team conducted semi-structured and contextual interviews in order to examine the current system for adding oral history interviews to the archive and provide recommendations that can help streamline the process. Read the full report here.

  

June 30, 2016: New Roots/Nuevas Raíces featured in The Southern Sociologist

We are very pleased to share that New Roots/Nuevas Raíces is featured by our very own Felicia Arriaga in The Southern Sociologist, Summer 2016 edition. Check out the article (below)!

Teaching Note
Felicia Arriaga, Duke University

Incorporating Art into Lessons on Immigration, Race, and Development in the United States

I am the only graduate student studying immigration in my department, which means grad students and faculty often ask me to guest lecture on immigration. I teach immigration with an intentional focus on racialized immigrants and citizenship status as a marker of stratification. I also incorporate popular education techniques where I draw from both my own and the students’ lived experiences.

One way to begin having this conversation is to introduce them to these subjects with background readings by Natalia Molina and Douglas Massey and incorporating visual aids into group work. This visual aid allows us to have an in-class discussion analyzing a mural borrowed from Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF), a non-profit I interned with for two years and where I currently serve on the board. These types of aids provide a holistic understanding of seemingly simple issues and appeal to different learning styles. The mural depicted is a production of the Levante Leadership Institute and the Beehive Collective (please see the original post for images).

The youth who worked on this mural are from farmworker families and most have worked in the fields at some point in their lives. I was initially drawn to work with this non-profit to learn more about educational issues facing the Latino/a community in North Carolina, but I stayed because of the connections I’ve made between my parents’ experiences as farmworkers in the Southeast and those of the families participating in SAF programs.

The left hand side of the mural depicts the current conditions of farmworkers and on the right is the aspirations and dreams of the young people, some of whom aspire to achieve more education but who also recognize that farmworkers should be able to complete their work with dignity. In class sessions, I typically ask the students to get into small groups and then choose an area of the mural they are able to contextualize with evidence from class readings, an area they don’t understand, or an area that just draws their attention.

Each group then describes why they chose that area and other students are welcome to respond if they believe they know more about that particular topic. For example, this section of the mural depicts the words NAFTA (North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement) in barbed wire. In a course titled Nations, Regions and the Global Economy, I emphasized this area of the mural where the implementation of NAFTA
resulted in a surplus movement of goods, but not people, back and forth across the U.S./Mexico border. This trade agreement particularly impacted small farmers within Mexico, influencing first internal migration and then external migration. The letters are in barbed wire to indicate the simultaneous militarization of the border, which also results in the deaths of economic migrants searching for alternative routes to cross the border.

Because I study both race and immigration, I’ll also include another example specifically tied to my research. This section reminds the students and myself that it is impossible to have a conversation about agricultural workers without tracing the legacy of slavery, particularly in the South. This section also allows us to dive into the relational nature of race, explained in the assigned readings from Natalia Molina’s book, How Race is Made in America: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Historical Power of Racial Scripts. There are also handcuffs in this section, allowing us to begin discussing how black and brown bodies are criminalized in the present day. For many farmworkers, who are also undocumented, this criminalization means they are also subject to the threat of deportation, particularly if they desire to stand up against unjust and antiquated labor laws specific to agricultural work. This criminalization of an immigrant’s legal status and the broader
criminalization of immigration law and procedure, known as crimmigration in the legal field. Once students understand that an immigration offense (i.e., illegal crossing of the border) is different than a criminal offense, they recognize that arbitrary and sometimes retroactively implemented immigration enforcement parameters are unjust and essentially  more complicated than the national rhetoric would have us believe. By initially talking about economic and historical relationships between Mexico and the United States, students also understand that the immigration “problem” is complicated and based in historically racialized immigration policies.

Finally, I often ask individuals to come share their personal narratives and have students listen to stories about migrants, through the use of New Roots/ Nuevas Raíces collection housed at UNC-Chapel Hill in the Southern Oral History Program. This brings the theoretical to the individual level where students, particularly in the Voices in Public Policy course I teach, are able to recognize how policies implemented without involvement from those most impacted may have differential impacts depending on one’s social position.

  

June 10, 2016: NEWEST feature of New Roots/Nuevas Raíces: Meet the interviewers!

 

Pictured : Fran Reuland, UNC Global Course Guanajuato Class of 2016

Pictured : Fran Reuland, UNC Global Course Guanajuato Class of 2016

 

We are so excited to share the NEWEST feature of New Roots/Nuevas Raíces called “Meet the Interviewers“/”Conoce a las y los entrevistadores.”

Get to know featured faces from the UNC Global Course Guanajuato class, who were behind some of the interviews on newroots.lib.unc.edu. Read more to learn about their projects and reflections on the experience.

  

June 10, 2016: WATCH NOW: New Roots/Nuevas Raíces Documentary

WATCH

New Roots/Nuevas Raíces is a digital archive that contains the oral histories of Latin American migrants in North Carolina and the experiences of North Carolinians that have worked for the integration of new settlers into this southern state. Latino migrants have put down new roots in the United States South and opened up a distinct chapter in the long history of Latin American migration to the United States. Visit newroots.lib.unc.edu to explore the archive.

  

April 29, 2016: Latino/a Lives in the South: A workshop on oral histories for the K-12 classroom

 

Sixteen K-12 teachers from across North Carolina gathered on April 23, 2016 to participate in “Latino/a Lives in the South: A workshop on oral histories for the K-12 classroom.” Teachers were introduced to the New Roots/Nuevas Raíces Oral History Archive and had the opportunity to visit the exhibit ¡NUEVOlution!. Teachers left inspired to use the tools learned to integrate Latino/a voices in their classrooms. The event was sponsored by the Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the Latino Migration Project, and the Levine Museum of the New South.

 

The New Roots team would like to thank Kamille Bostick, Vice President for Education at the museum for facilitating our visit and meeting with participant teachers. We also want to thank Claire Shuch, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Geography & Earth Sciences at UNC Charlotte for a great presentation.  

   

February 7, 2016: New Roots/Nuevas Raíces Program Reception and Launch

 

Thank you to the over 90 community members who came to celebrate the launch of the New Roots / Nuevas Raíces Latino oral history collection. This bilingual collection of interviews, transcribed in both Spanish and English, focuses on Latino/a migration and the formation of new communities throughout the South.

Featuring the voices of students, workers, and activists, this collection brings home the challenges faced by recent immigrants as well as their children and grandchildren. The program included a brief video which documented the project’s evolution, followed by comments from library archivists and community partners. The reception featured music by Charanga Carolina and held listening stations where guests could experience interviews first-hand.

  

October 18, 2015: New Roots feature in Oral History in the Digital Age

 

Click here to read Jaycie Vos’s post.

 

An article written by Coordinator of Collections, Southern Oral History Program and Metadata Task Force co-founder Jaycie Vos about the upcoming New Roots/Nuevas Raices metadata site was published in Oral History in the Digital Age, a product of an Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Jaycie Vos, sohp.org/staff

Vos writes about the inception of the new site and the process of increasing visibility, reaching larger audiences, and improving access to New Roots oral histories. She also explains the advantages of metadata, and the exciting features coming spring 2016 when the site launches.

“This New Roots project gave the team at UNC fresh eyes toward oral history metadata and inspired us to ask ‘What do we really need?’ and ‘What do our users want?’ in ways that encouraged clarity, directness, and ease of use in describing oral histories and developing new features to reach new audiences,” said Vos. “This also informs and reflects the work of the Oral History Association’s Metadata Task Force, founded in 2014, which seeks to promote knowledge about oral history metadata and collaboration across the profession.”

Learn more about the OHA Metadata Task Force here.

About

Since 2007, faculty, staff, and students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) have conducted oral history interviews focused on issues relating to Latino migration to North Carolina and the formation of Latino communities. The interviews are in English or Spanish, and interviewees include immigrants, U.S.-born second generations, professionals who work with immigrants, policy makers, religious leaders, educators, students, and local business owners. This growing initiative, called New Roots, is part of the Latino Migration Project, under the direction of Dr. Hannah Gill, in collaboration with the Center for Global Initiatives, the Institute for the Study of the Americas, and the Southern Oral History Program (SOHP). Since 2011, these interviews have been archived and made accessible online through the SOHP’s collection in the Southern Historical Collection in Wilson Library at UNC. Thanks to a generous award from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Latino Migration Project, the SOHP, and University Libraries at UNC are working to make New Roots accessible to broader regional, national, and global audiences in new ways beyond the library catalog, finding aid, and SOHP digital archive.

  

July 28, 2015: Staff Spotlight: Meet Maria Silvia Ramirez

 

  Established in 2006, The Latino Migration Project is a collaborative program of the Institute for the Study of the Americas and the Center for Global Initiatives at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Today we are delighted to feature our newest staff member, Maria Silvia Ramirez, who works as an Archival Assistant. Maria took some time out of her day to tell us more about herself, her role with the Latino Migration Project, and where we can find her when she’s not in class or working (hint, it involves making something warm!).

Q: Maria, thank you so much for joining us today! Tell us a little more about yourself.

A: I was born in 1988 in Caracas, Venezuela. We moved to Ft.lauderdale, Florida in 1997 when I was 9-years-old. I was fortunate to be so young when we arrived. I feel that at that age, it’s much easier to adapt to a new culture and language. After graduating from the University of Florida with a B.A in German Studies, I wasn’t sure which direction my career should take. Eventually I decided that Librarianship was the right fit for me – I love organizing information and am passionate about helping communities. The SILS program here at UNC has been really great and I’m very happy to call North Carolina my new home!

Q: Well we’re certainly glad you’re here! Tell us what brought you to the Latino Migration Project. 

A: I was lucky to come across a job posting in the SILS [School of Information and Library Science] listserv. At first I didn’t know much about the organization, but I knew I could use my Spanish language skills in this position. I’ve since realized this job offers a very special connection to my own roots. The perspectives of minority groups can easily be neglected in historical narratives, so preserving the oral histories of latino people who made a journey similar to my own is very rewarding.

Q: We look forward to the great work you will do with New Roots/Nuevas Raíces and more! Tell us what you’re looking forward to the most.

A: I look forward to working with such a wonderful group of people to enhance access to these important stories. I have listened to many of the recorded interviews as part of my daily tasks and I’m truly humbled by the difficulties many of the interviewees face. I am proud to be part of an organization that actively seeks these narratives out and I’ll do my best to help the team make a great website that both scholars and the general public will be able to easily access.

Q: When you’re not in class studying Information and Library Science or working with us here, where can we find you?

A: I’m a bit of a homebody. I recently started learning to crochet and have been obsessed with making blankets. It’s a good thing winter is coming. I also love to draw, read, and watch the news. I live in Carrboro which has these great coffee shops I enjoy spending time at.

Wow, we’ll know who to come to once the snow gets here! Thank you SO much for your time, Maria! We look forward to a great year!

About Maria

Maria Silvia Ramirez was born in Caracas, Venezuela and immigrated to the United States with her family when she was 9-years-old. Adjusting to a different culture and learning to speak a new language instilled a deep fascination for languages and understanding other cultures that later led to a Bachelor of Arts in German from the University of Florida and a study abroad experience in Europe. Maria currently works for the Latino Migration Project as an Archival Assistant and is also earning a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from UNC.

About New Roots/Nuevas Raíces 

New Roots / Nuevas Raíces Latino Oral Histories document demographic transformations in the North Carolina by collecting extraordinary stories of Latin American migration, settlement, and integration throughout the state. Learn more here.

  

March 23, 2015: Call to Teachers: Explore New Roots / Nuevas Raíces Latino Oral Histories

Click: New Roots World View Teacher Resource

Teachers ​with particular interest​s​ in migration, storytelling, ​Spanish, ​bilingual education and teaching with oral histories are encouraged to explore New Roots / Nuevas Raíces Latino Oral Histories.

New Roots / Nuevas Raíces Latino Oral Histories document demographic transformations in the North Carolina by collecting extraordinary stories of Latin American migration, settlement, and integration throughout the state.

These interviews can be used in high and low tech classrooms to engage students with the political, social, linguistic, cultural and human elements of Latino immigration in North Carolina. In-depth interviews in this collection are in Spanish or English and include immigrants, US-born second generations, professionals who work with immigrants, policy-makers, religious leaders, educators, students, and local business owners.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill provides access to these 175+ interviews which tell stories of courage and perseverance that chronicle journeys by foot, car, train and bus over thousands of miles from Mexican and Central American homelands, and the experiences of settling in rural and urban places unfamiliar with Spanish-speaking cultures.

For lesson ideas, classroom resources, upcoming training and events, or to plan a class or community center visit with New Roots staff, please join the New Roots listserv.

  

February 20, 2015: New Roots Update

Author Jessica English, Bilingual Documentation Archivist, catches us up on the New Roots/Nuevas Raíces team and their recent projects. 

IT staff has been hard at work…

Speaking of metadata…

After briefly considering manually entering Spanish-language metadata and metadata fields directly into the new Omeka site, and therefore separately from the current CONTENTdm-based Southern Oral History Program’s database, New Roots staff has decided to enter all bilingual metadata in CONTENTdm.

The cataloging folks on the New Roots staff had been concerned that duplicating Spanish-language metadata fields in CONTENTdm would be confusing, irrelevant and clunky for the other 5000 English-language interviews in the SOHP database. However, IT staff overcame this challenge with an elegant solution: synchronizing repeated metadata content so that only a couple of new metadata fields need to be added to CONTENTdm, minimizing the confusion and streamlining manual data entry.

Where the CONTENTdm metadata field contents are the same in English and Spanish, the CONTENTdm metadata field [Interviewee name] will feed into two Omeka metadata fields—[Interviewee name] and [Nombre de entrevistado]—and contain the same content [Borges, Jorge Luis].

We are also currently developing a new metadata schema for the project that will enhance access to the New Roots collection in both the Southern Oral History Program database and in the new Omeka site. Some of the additional metadata we are in the process of adding to New Roots records in CONTENTdm include:

Other exciting updates to the new Omeka test site:

And the drumroll, please…

Stay tuned for more exciting updates!

  

February 20, 2015: New Roots Snapshot Available Now!

 

 

Emilio Vicente (right) photographed with LMP alum Antonio De Jesus Alanis is featured in the New Roots Snapshot.

As an ongoing, permanent research initiative, New Roots / Nuevas Raíces has so far generated more than 175 audio-recorded interviews (a total of 200+ hours) and their full transcriptions, field notes, and tape logs.

  

February 11, 2015: Latino Migration Film Guide

 

Films Relevant to North Carolina

This film guide was prepared to provide a resource on understanding of Latin American migration experiences in North Carolina through documentary film. All films listed are available for free loan at http://lafilm.web.unc.edu/.

Included are documentaries and feature films on Latino immigration and settlement in North Carolina and the U.S. Southeast.  Film titles, their descriptions, and relevant discussion topics like North Carolina agriculture, migrant labor, and impacts of migration in sending countries are also featured.

Check it out! Click the link: Latino Migration Project Film Directory

  

January 23, 2015: New Roots Oral History IT Development

IT development for the New Roots Oral History project has begun! As part of the process we are reviewing our options for collection management and web publishing software. We had planned to use Omeka, but after compiling data we gathered from our stakeholders (global educators and scholars, Latino communities, museums and the media), we thought we should revisit that choice to be sure it would meet our diverse users’ needs.

 

  

January 23, 2015: New Roots/Nuevas Raíces Introduction and Summary

Oral History Presentation from jsircar1

New Roots: This growing collection of oral histories focuses on issues related to Latino migration to North Carolina and the formation of Latino communities. Interviews are conducted by LMP staff, UNC faculty and trained students in courses relating to the topic, including APPLES Global Course Guanajuato, which began conducting interviews in 2007. In-depth interviews in this collection are in Spanish or English and include immigrants, U.S.-born second generations, professionals who work with immigrants, policy-makers, religious leaders, educators, students, and local business owners. Our partners in the Southern Oral History Program and Wilson Library assist with digitization, catalogue, and preservation of audio recordings and transcripts.

  

November 20, 2014: Alumna Featured on The State of Things

 

Natalie Teague, Latin American Studies ’04, is featured on The State of Things. Teague and bilingual immigration attorney, Evelyn Smallwood, speak with Frank Stasio about their experiences providing pro bono services to women and children being help at a detention center in Artesia, New Mexico. Most of the women and children are fleeing violence in their home countries but are facing legal barriers.

  

September 22, 2014: Staff Spotlight-Jessie English

Established in 2006, The Latino Migration Project is a collaborative program of the Institute for the Study of the Americas and the Center for Global Initiatives at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Earlier, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Jessicalee White, who works with Building Integrated Communities as a Researcher and Program Coordinator. Today, we chat with Jessie English, the new Bilingual Documentation Archivist for the Latino Migration Project. Jessie took some time out of her new job to tell us a little more about herself and her future hopes, which include (but are not limited to) imagining creative solutions to discover relevant oral histories for international research, as well as outside-of-the-office hopes of becoming a cyclist to work.

Learn more about Jessie below, and we hope you will enjoy!

Q: Jessie, thank you so much for joining us today! Tell us a little about what brought you here. 

A: I came to UNC to be the bilingual documentation archivist (BDA) for the Latino Migration Project because it is pretty much my dream job! This position brings together my background in Spanish and digital humanities with my professional ambition of developing open access bilingual research resources. I am so thrilled to be working on this project that brings these diverse voices into the historical record and will provide contemporary access to them for research and learning.

Q: We’re thrilled you’re here! What are you looking forward to the most as a bilingual archivist? 

A: I am most looking forward to three years from now when we can share the finished New Roots/Nuevas Raíces Oral History Project with the world! Oral histories are a captivating mode of storytelling and important historical documents that illustrate the political, social and daily struggles and triumphs of everyday people; however, they can difficult and cumbersome to navigate. I look forward to imagining creative solutions to discover relevant oral histories for international research, as well as describing them in ways that are accessible to the general Spanish- and English-speaking public. And to make it all very pretty.

Q: We look forward to that too! When you’re not in the office, what do you enjoy doing?

A: Hiking and camping are two of my most favorite things and I am so happy to live in such a beautiful state to explore. I spend a lot of time wandering the campuses, libraries and parks in the triangle. I also like to cook delicious vegetables, read novels, and am trying to convince myself to be a bicycle commuter.

All of those things sound wonderful. Thank you again, Jessie!

Jessie English earned an MLIS from the University of Illinois where she completed an independent study to digitally preserve the community memory of the Cuban National Literacy Campaign. For the project she conducted oral history interviews with former literacy teachers, scanned newspaper clippings from 1961, and described and arranged this data for preservation at the Cuban National Literacy Campaign Museum. She has worked in public libraries to improve services for Latinos in the South as a librarian and former president of REFORMA Southeast. She has a BA in Spanish from Berea College.

  

June 6, 2014: New Roots/Nuevas Raíces Celebration!

We had a wonderful launch of “New Roots: Improving Global Access of Latino Oral Histories.” Attendees came from across UNC networks, including libraries, students, and ISA staff, to celebrate the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) award of $240,000 to the collaborative initiative of the Latino Migration Project, The Southern Oral History Program, and the University Libraries at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The NEH grant, which is awarded from the NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resources division, will make the New Roots collection accessible to new regional, national and global public constituencies, particularly within Spanish-speaking Latino and Latin American communities. Activities will include the creation of a visually engaging bilingual website for public audiences and people who have contributed their stories; a digital catalogue and finding aids in English and Spanish; an interactive portal for teachers to share lesson plans; and a dissemination plan with Latino communities, K-16 educators, national and international oral history networks, and Mexican universities in the origin states of migrants living in North Carolina. The project will be based at UNC Chapel Hill and carried out over the course of three years.

“The growth of our Latino communities in the U.S. South is one of the most significant demographic changes in the recent history of the nation,” Dr. Gill said. “The New Roots Oral History Initiative was established in 2007 to document this important history from the perspectives of migrants themselves.”

Both Richard Szary, Director of the Wilson Library and Associate University Librarian for Special Collections, and Louis A. Pérez, Director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas, emphasized the immense amount of time invested to make this project a reality.

“Years ago, we felt there was this huge blind spot: migration, people from Latin America coming into this state,” Pérez said. “Little by little, it’s been developing into a full scale program that belongs to what we see as a new paradigm for studying Latin American presence not only in Latin America, but the Latin American presence in the United States.”

New Roots was established in 2007 to document demographic transformations in the U.S. South with stories of migration, settlement and integration in North Carolina. Read more at http://migration.unc.edu/programs/new-roots/

This growing collection of oral histories focuses on issues related to Latino migration to North Carolina and the formation of Latino communities.  Interviews are conducted by LMP staff, UNC faculty and trained students in courses relating to the topic, including APPLES Global Course Guanajuato, which began conducting interviews in 2007.  In-depth interviews in this collection are in Spanish or English and include immigrants, U.S.-born second generations, professionals who work with immigrants, policy-makers, religious leaders, educators, students, and local business owners. Our partners in the Southern Oral History Program and Wilson Library assist with digitization, catalogue, and preservation of audio recordings and transcripts.

Listen to the audio samples from the archive here.

 

 

Group enjoys a presentation summarizing the project.

 

 

Dr. Gill shares an oral history excerpt.

 

ISA Intern Antonio Alaniz (left) and Emilio Vicente (right)

 

Richard Szary, Director of Wilson Libraries, speaks about the incubation of this project and its long awaited arrival

  

May 21, 2014: Exciting News! NEH Grant will Support Latino Oral History Initiative

The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded a grant of $240,000 to NEW ROOTS: Improving Global Access of Latino Oral Histories, a collaborative initiative of the Latino Migration Project, The Southern Oral History Program, and the University Libraries at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The New Roots Latino Oral History Initiative was established in 2007 to document demographic transformations in the U.S. South by collecting extraordinary stories of migration, settlement, and integration in North Carolina. The collection receives regular contributions of at least forty interviews annually from UNC scholars through an ongoing research program of the Latino Migration Project at the Institute for the Study of the Americas and the Center for Global Initiatives. Oral histories are archived with the Southern Oral History Program and their collections in the Southern Historical Collection in the University of Libraries of UNC Chapel Hill. The NEH grant, which is awarded from the NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resources division, will make the New Roots collection accessible to new regional, national and global public constituencies, particularly within Spanish-speaking Latino and Latin American communities. Activities will include the creation of a visually engaging bilingual website for public audiences and people who have contributed their stories; a digital catalogue and finding aids in English and Spanish; an interactive portal for teachers to share lesson plans; and a dissemination plan with Latino communities, K-16 educators, national and international oral history networks, and Mexican universities in the origin states of migrants living in North Carolina. The project will be based at UNC Chapel Hill and carried out over the course of three years.

“The New Roots project will provide wider access to this record of the many changes affecting North Carolina. The bilingual features of the project are especially noteworthy in expanding access and will be a model for similar projects to making oral histories at UNC more discoverable to a wider audience,” said Richard Szary, Director of the Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library and Associate University Librarian for Special Collections.

Contact: Hannah Gill, Project Director

hgill@email.unc.edu

Contact: 919-962-5453

  

May 21, 2014: Upcoming event: New Roots Oral History

 

You are invited to the Launch Celebration of New Roots/ Nuevas Raíces!

June 4, 2014 * 4:30 pm on the Rooftop of the Fed Ex Global Education Center

301 Pittsboro St, Chapel Hill, NC 27516

Join us for a celebratory launch of “New Roots: Improving Global Access of Latino Oral Histories.” This NEH-funded project is a collaborative initiative of the Latino Migration Project, The Southern Oral History Program and the University Libraries.

New Roots was established in 2007 to document demographic transformations in the U.S. South with stories of migration, settlement and integration in North Carolina. Read more at http://migration.unc.edu/programs/new-roots/

This growing collection of oral histories focuses on issues related to Latino migration to North Carolina and the formation of Latino communities.  Interviews are conducted by LMP staff, UNC faculty and trained students in courses relating to the topic, including APPLES Global Course Guanajuato, which began conducting interviews in 2007.  In-depth interviews in this collection are in Spanish or English and include immigrants, U.S.-born second generations, professionals who work with immigrants, policy-makers, religious leaders, educators, students, and local business owners. Our partners in the Southern Oral History Program and Wilson Library assist with digitization, catalogue, and preservation of audio recordings and transcripts.

RSVP by May 28 to Hannah Gill, hgill@email.unc.edu

  

March 3, 2014: Read the 2014 LMP Newsletter

 

The 2014 Newsletter is out!

Click to read it now!

  

February 14, 2014: Building Integrated Communities Receives Grant to Expand

 

 

The Latino Migration Project at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received a two-year grant from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation to expand Building Integrated Communities, an initiative that strengthens civic engagement, linguistic achievement and economic and educational advancement for immigrants in North Carolina municipalities.

Building Integrated Communities is a statewide initiative that helps North Carolina’s local governments engage with immigrants and refugee populations to improve public safety, promote economic development, enhance communication and improve relationships. The program helps local governments and diverse community stakeholders develop tools to generate locally relevant strategies to strengthen immigrant civic engagement, linguistic achievement and economic and educational advancement.

Read more here:

UNC Global Announcement

Z. Smith Reynolds Announcement

  

April 19, 2014: First Listen: New Roots/Nuevas Raíces

“Years ago, we felt there was this huge blind spot: migration, people from Latin America coming into this state. Little by little, it’s been developing into a full scale program that belongs to what we see as a new paradigm for studying Latin American presence not only in Latin America, but the Latin American presence in the United States.” -Louis A. Pérez, Director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas