HOUSTON, TX–The University of Houston’s US Latino Digital Humanities (USLDH) Center announces the release of a comprehensive dataset on Editorials published in Hispanic periodicals. Since 1996 Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage (Recovery) scholars and graduate students have worked on indexing newspapers at an article level to produce metadata in English and Spanish to facilitate discoverability for researchers. The output is reflected in several datasets that speak of the diversity of the cultural, political and intellectual life of the Hispanic/Latina/Latino/Latinx community in the United States. Out of 288 indexed periodicals, this rich dataset includes editorials and letters to the editor. This dataset demonstrates the breadth of topics represented in Spanish-language periodicals published in the United States between 1808 and 1960; some of the topics include politics, women’s rights, intellectual life and social conditions, among others. The dataset is hosted on the Cougar ROAR’s (Research Open Access Repositories) Dataverse Repository, a …
News release: Gabriela Baeza Ventura elected to MLA’s Digital Humanities Forum
Gabriela Baeza Ventura was elected to serve on the Modern Language Association (MLA) Transdisciplinary Connections Digital Humanities Forum Executive Committee for 2022-2027. As part of this forum, Baeza Ventura will help to represent areas of scholarly and professional interests for MLA members. MLA Forums “promote scholarly and professional activities within their areas of concern. The executive committees of the forums arrange sessions at the MLA Annual Convention, make nominations for executive committee elections and for the election of the forums’ representatives in the MLA Delegate Assembly, and provide information of interest to their members through association periodicals or mailings to forum members. Forums advise appropriate MLA committees on research and pedagogical needs in their fields of interest and may propose to the Executive Council projects that the association might wish to undertake” (“Policies for Forums and Allied Organizations”). Baeza Ventura brings a unique perspective to the forum based on her …
Mikaela Selley joins Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage as Program Manager for Periodicals in the US-Mexico Border Region Project
University of Houston alumna, Mikaela Selley, joins Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage (Recovery) Program/Arte Público Press as Program Manager for Periodicals in the US-Mexico Border Region. She will work closely with Recovery’s Director of Research, Dr. Carolina Villarroel, to oversee the digitization and metadata efforts for historical periodicals. This includes scanning, organizing, cataloging and describing archival records. Selley has eight years of professional experience as an archivist with hands-on expertise in the preservation, documentation and digitization of historical manuscripts and photographs significant to Houston’s Hispanic and Latino heritage. Additionally, she has worked in all stages of curatorial planning, design and execution of history exhibits. Selley brings knowledge of heritage preservation, a creative eye for engaging displays and a personal devotion to Houston’s Hispanic and Latina/o culture. She previously served as the Hispanic Collections Archivist at the Houston Public Library’s Houston Metropolitan Research Center (HMRC). Periodicals in the US-Mexico Border …
News release: Printed Pathways in US Latino Periodicals
Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage’s US Latino Digital Humanities program (USLDH) announces the release of “Printed Pathways in US Latino Periodicals.” This digital project is a comprehensive authority list that contains robust bibliographic information about Latina/o authors and poets who published in US Latino periodicals. With over 4,800 records, “Printed Pathways” makes visible the complex network of Latina/o authors–who published where and who was mentioned in which newspapers. The records include data such as author name, nationality, gender, newspaper title and place of publication, genre, pseudonym and more. Over the past 30 years, Recovery scholars have contributed to this growing bibliography. The program’s initial deliverables included, among others, the creation of a comprehensive bibliography and index of periodicals. Thus, the records visualized in “Printed Pathways” is the culmination of decades of research by Recovery scholars. Gabriela Baeza Ventura (co-founder of USLDH, Executive Editor of Arte Público Press, and Associate …
Rare Book School Awards 15 Fellowships for Diversity, Inclusion & Cultural Heritage
Congratulations to Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage’s USLDH Digital Program Manager, Lorena Gauthereau, for being selected as one of the fellows for the 2021-2023 cohort of The Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship for Diversity, Inclusion & Cultural Heritage. ***Rare Book School news release: Fellowship program seeks to enhance understandings of multicultural collections among professionals, local community members, and broader publics Charlottesville, VA, 12 April 2021–Rare Book School (RBS) at the University of Virginia has selected the second cohort of 15 fellows to join the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship for Diversity, Inclusion & Cultural Heritage (RBS-Mellon CH Fellowship). Fellows will participate in a three-year program which includes an orientation, Rare Book School coursework, community symposia, and other activities relating to multicultural collections and trainings. “We are especially grateful to the Mellon Foundation for granting us the flexibility to adapt key aspects of the program in light of the global pandemic. With …
UH Receives Mellon Foundation Grant to Establish Puerto Rican Literature Database
$1.35 Million Grant Funds Open-Access Digital Portal of Archival and Contemporary Materials ***Reposted from UH News & Events press release: Sara Tubbs, “UH Receives Mellon Foundation Grant to Establish Puerto Rican Literature Database.” 19 April 2021. uh.edu.*** The University of Houston has received a nearly $1.35 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to establish a free, open-access digital portal for anyone to learn about or teach Puerto Rican literature. “El proyecto de la literatura puertorriqueña/The Puerto Rican Literature Project” (PRLP) includes a database in Spanish and English of approximately 50,000 assets (photographs, manuscripts, poems, videos and archival materials), a digital archive and additional resources that document the material existence and experiences of key Puerto Rican poets in the archipelago and U.S. diaspora. The data collected dates back to 1917, when President Woodrow Wilson enacted the Jones-Shafroth Act extending U.S. citizenship to all residents of Puerto Rico, to the present. …
CLIR Announces 2020 Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives Awards
***Reposted from: Smith, Kathlin. “CLIR Announces 2020 Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives Awards.” Council on Library and Information Resources. 31 March 2021. https://www.clir.org/2021/03/clir-announces-2020-digitizing-hidden-special-collections-and-archives-awards/ Please visit full list of projects and summaries to read the abstract for Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage’s Periodicals in the US-Mexico Border Region. Washington, DC, March 31, 2021—The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) today announced the award of $4.02 million to fund 16 digitization projects through the Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives program. Twenty-eight institutions located in nineteen U.S. states and one U.S. territory will be involved in the projects covering subjects ranging from hip hop, fashion, and public media to plant specimens and whale reproduction. See the full list of projects and summaries at https://www.clir.org/hiddencollections/funded-projects/. This is the sixth group of projects supported by the Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives awards program, which is generously funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. …
2020-2021 Research Assistants and Interns
Arte Público Press/Recovering the US Hispanic Heritage welcomes its 2020-2021 Research Assistants (RAs), undergraduate interns and volunteers.* RAs, interns and volunteers gain specialized training with regard to archives, archival scanning, document preservation, description protocols, metadata creation, databases, archival research, data curation and digital humanities platforms. Graduate Student Research Assistants Roselia Bañuelos, MSW/PhD student, Graduate College of Social Work. “What I’m most looking forward to at Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Program is being part of a project that is resurrecting the voices of our ancestors. I believe that life is created by the stories we share and what an honor to be part of a project that is revisiting history so we may have a more complete story to our beginnings.” Chris Flakus, MFA student, Creative Writing-Fiction. “As a long time admirer of Arte Publico Press, I am thrilled to begin working as a Research Assistant with this unique and culturally …
Leonor Villegas de Magnón: Entre Balas y Rugidos
We invite you to explore the new digital exhibit, “Entre Balas y Rugidos” (available in English and Spanish) that explores the various roles of Leonor Villegas de Magnón during the Mexican Revolution, her indispensability to the cause, and her wider significance in history. These digital exhibits were created by Melinda Mejia, an instructor of English and Humanities at Houston Community College. Mejía worked on the Villegas de Magnón archive during the Spring 2020 semester. La Rebelde Villegas de Magnón (1876-1955), known as “La Rebelde,” was a supporter of the revolutionary efforts and founded La Cruz Blanca Constitucionalista in 1913, an organization of nurses formed in 1913 to treat those injured in the fighting. Aware of the importance that women were playing in the Revolution, Villegas de Magnón hired a photographer to document their historical role. “Exploring the life and legacy of Leonor Villegas de Magnón through the rich collection of …
