In this episode of LatinXperts, Dr. María Cotera has a wide-ranging conversation about the past, present, and future of Latina/o Digital Humanities with Dr. Gabriela Baeza Ventura and Dr. Carolina A. Villarroel of the University of Houston and Arte Público Press.
In this podcast, we discuss the importance of recovering, preserving, and sharing Latina/o cultural heritage through emerging digital tools, and how digital humanities changes when we shift the center to Latina/o communities and their knowledge practices. Dr. Baeza Ventura and Dr. Villarroel discuss their experience working on recovery projects with Arte Público Press, and how their early efforts to digitize Spanish-language newspapers prepared them to take a leading role in establishing a center for Latina/o Digital Humanities, a project that is funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation. Baeza Ventura and Villarroel reflect on the current state of Latina/o Digital Humanities and on how their commitment to community and their identities as Latinx scholars shape their approach to digital preservation.
Resources / Related Links:
A home for Latino digital humanities at the University of Houston
Q&A with Dr. Carolina Villarroel of the Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Project
María Cotera, “Nuestra Autohistoria: Toward a Chicana Digital Praxis,” Special Issue of American Quarterly: Toward a Critically Engaged Digital Practice: American Studies and the Digital Humanities, vol. 70, no. 3 (Sept. 2018).
For information on the U.S. Latina/o Digital Humanities project
A brief list of Latinx-focused Digital Humanities projects:
Arte Publico-supported projects
Chicana por mi Raza
Border Studies Archive
Bracero Archive
Chicana Diasporic
Refusing to Forget
Celebrating Selena
Civil Rights in Black and Brown
Digital El Diario
East of East – El Monte Digital Project
The Latina History Project
Adobe Structures in San Antonio
Jotería Archive
Veteranas y Rucas
Voces Oral History Center
This episode of LatinXperts was recorded by Ean Herrera and mixed and mastered by Harper Carlton.