Announcing the Esther Campos Collection

Color photograph of Esther Campos in red suit seated at her assigned chair on the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Board of Education Trustee dais.

Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage, an initiative housed at the University of Houston and dedicated to preserving and making accessible the written legacy of US Latinas and Latinos, announces the launch of the Esther Campos Collection in its Digital Collections platform. The newly available collection celebrates the life and career of Maria “Esther” (Estrada) Campos (1930–2025), a pioneering Mexican-American educator, civic leader and public servant who devoted her life to advancing educational opportunities for Houston’s youth.  Born in Houston on October 6, 1930, Campos earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Houston College of Education at a time when few Latinas pursued higher education. She became one of the first bilingual instructors hired by the Houston Independent School District (HISD), later serving as counselor, assistant principal and ultimately as HISD Trustee for District VIII from 1993 to 2003. In recognition of her lifelong commitment to education, …

Launch of Updated Digital Collection Featuring Puerto Rican Poet and Activist Delis Negrón

Arte Público Press’ US Latino Digital Humanities Center (USLDH) at the University of Houston proudly announces the launch of the Delis Negrón Digital Collection, a new addition to the Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Digital Collections. This bilingual digital collection honors the life and work of Delis Negrón (1901-1956), a Puerto Rican poet, journalist, educator and civil rights advocate who lived and worked in Texas. Donated by Negrón’s family, the collection contains photographs, postcards, handwritten poetry, personal correspondence and clippings from historic Latino newspapers, such as La Prensa, El Jicote and The Laredo Times. Negrón was a prolific writer and a key editorial voice in US Latino civil rights activism, contributing to the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) newsletter and participating in organizations such as the Gran Cadena Fraternal Filantrópica and Sociedad Fraternal Mexicoamericana. The project also includes family reflections, making it a model of collaborative, community-engaged scholarship. …

USLDH-Morales Memorial Foundation Internship for Undergraduate Students

UH’s USLDH (US Latino Digital Humanities Center) & the Morales Memorial Foundation Internship offers an undergraduate student at the University of Houston the opportunity to learn first-hand the scope of US Latino archives and digital humanities. This internship will give you the opportunity to learn about archival practices, best practices, digital scholarship and tools, US Latino digital humanities methodology and research approaches. These skills will help you to pursue academic careers and introduce you to a network of scholars, practitioners and community members.  This intern will: Receive training in archival processing, digitization and digital humanities. Preserve the Morales Funeral Home records by creating digital surrogates of all files. Contribute to the creation of a dataset. No prior experience in digital humanities required. Near-native Spanish reading and writing knowledge is preferred. Applicants must be current University of Houston undergraduates. Deadline to apply: Sept. 16, 2024 Total number of hours a week: …

Record Number of Summer Students Join Arte Público Press

Arte Público Press, Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage and US Latino Digital Humanities Center welcomed 14 summer students this year from the University of Houston (UH), Rice University, Harvard Divinity School, University of St. Thomas and Houston Community College. These interns joined 6 UH Graduate Research Assistants, for a total of 20 students. These interns and fellows had the opportunity to work closely with archival texts, such as periodicals, manuscripts, photographs, albums, correspondence, books, ephemera and other documents. In doing so, they gained valuable experience with archival collections and asset management. The organization provided training in digital tools and students contributed to digital humanities data and projects. This summer they gained a wide variety of skills, such as: Scanning of archival items Microfilm scanning Handling and preserving archival texts Inventory of primary documents Organizing collections Creating finding aids Curating exhibits Database research Primary document research Asset management  Data management …

US Latino Digital Humanities Summer Workshop

open laptop on left, open notebook on right

The US Latino Digital Humanities Center (USLDH) at the University of Houston announces its annual Manos a la obra digital humanities virtual summer training course. The course will take place May 28-20, 2024 via Zoom. Participants will learn about US Latino digital humanities methods and theory, archiving, metadata creation and free, easy-to-use digital platforms (Omeka, TimelineJS and StoryMapJS). The course will be taught by Dr. Gabriela Baeza Ventura, Dr. Carolina Villarroel, Dr. Lorena Gauthereau and Mikaela Selley. No prior experience is required. Anyone with an interest in US Latina/o studies and digital studies is welcome.  This workshop addresses the following topics: How to identify materials for future projects (research, copyright issues, etc.) How to create metadata How to create meaningful and respectful data following ethics of care and reparative description How to nourish communities of practice How to conceptualize and develop the scope for your project And other topics No …

Predicting College Student Loan Repayment: The Texas Hinson-Hazlewood College now available on APPDigital

The University of Houston’s US Latino Digital Humanities Center (USLDH) announces the digital publication of Predicting College Student Loan Repayment: The Texas Hinson-Hazlewood College, a dissertation submitted by Salvador Gómez for the Ph.D. degree at the University of Texas at Austin in 1978. The text analyzes the evolution of financial aid to college students in Texas and especially the relationship between student indebtedness, ethnicity and academic dropout. It also critically examines notions such as “ethnicity” and “delinquency” and the various social and administrative factors that condition this phenomenon.   This is an ideal text for researchers in different areas (from administration to psychology to economics) who seek to address the phenomenon of university indebtedness or the causes of dropping out of school after high school. This digital text will soon be complimented by a digital exhibit of Salvador Gómez’s scrapbook and an oral history interview with his daughter, Rosanna Moreno.  This …

2024 USLDH Summer Internship Opportunities

The US Latino Digital Humanities Center (USLDH) announces two summer internship opportunities for University of Houston undergraduate students. These internships will expose students to archival research, best practices, digital scholarship and tools, US Latino DH methodology and research approaches. These skills will help interns to pursue academic careers and introduce them to a network of scholars, practitioners and community members. ​​Students will be able to receive both professional and intellectual formation during the course of the program. The internship sessions offer different opportunities and take place during different times of the summer (please see below for details). No prior experience in digital humanities required. Near-native Spanish reading and writing knowledge is preferred. Applicants must be current University of Houston undergraduates (Main campus). Internships take place at the Arte Público Press offices at the University of Houston’s Technology Bridge Annex, Building 19. Arte Público Press is open Monday-Friday, 8:00 am – …

Documenting Discrimination: Alonso S. Perales Correspondence (1927-1952)

The University of Houston’s US Latino Digital Humanities Center (USLDH) announces the release of “Documenting Discrimination: Alonso S. Perales Correspondence (1927-1952).” This digital collection compiles letters written to and by Alonso S. Perales (1898-1960), a Mexican-American lawyer, diplomat, civil rights activist and co-founder of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). Perales, in his mission for social justice, encouraged the Latino community to submit their experiences of discrimination at public establishments. Community members signed affidavits and wrote letters to Perales that detailed racism faced at restaurants, theaters, schools, bars, dance halls, clinics and many other places. They also wrote about the prejudice encountered while seeking employment or purchasing homes. Perales later published many of these letters and affidavits in his book, Are We Good Neighbors? (1948).  Two undergraduates contributed to this collection: Cynthia Díaz, a Leadership Rice Mentorship Experience (LRME) summer intern at Rice University and Cruz E. Almonaci, …

US Latino Digital Humanities Summer Workshop

Hands typing on a laptop

The US Latino Digital Humanities Center (USLDH) at the University of Houston announces its annual Manos a la obra digital humanities virtual summer training course. The course will take place June 12-14, 2023 via Zoom. Participants will learn about US Latino digital humanities methods and theory, community archiving, metadata creation and free digital tools such as how to create interactive timelines, digital archives and maps. The course will be taught by USLDH team members, Dr. Gabriela Baeza Ventura, Dr. Carolina Villarroel and Dr. Lorena Gauthereau. No prior experience is required. Anyone with an interest in US Latina/o studies and digital studies is welcome.  This course is based on the work of the Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage program located at the University of Houston, one of the premier research programs for US Latina/o scholarship with a trajectory of more than 30 years of locating, preserving and making available the …

Call for 2023 USLDH-Mellon Grants-in-Aid Projects

The University of Houston US Latino Digital Humanities (USLDH) program is a digital scholarship/research undertaking to provide training and research on US Latino recovered materials. Proposals must draw from recovered primary and derivative sources produced by Latinas/os in what is now the United States, dating from the Colonial Period to 1980 (such as Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage collections, other repositories and/or the community). The Grants-in-Aid program is designed to provide a stipend to scholars for research and development of digital scholarship in the form of a digital publication and/or a digital project. The grant covers any expense connected with research that will advance a project to the next stage or to a successful conclusion. Scholars will have the opportunity to publish their digital scholarship on Arte Público Press’ APPDigital publication platform. See sample digital scholarship/research on the following sites: Reanimate, CUNY, University of Washington and Temple University Press. …