SPA 500: Mapping Black Literary Networks in Latin America/ Mapeando Redes Literarias de Intellectuales Negros en America Latina: Oral Histories

Welcome to New Roots: Voices from Carolina del Norte! This 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.

This course focuses on the experiences of Latino—Mexican, Salvadoran, Cuban, Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Guatemalan—transnational migrants living in the U.S. The literature draws from anthropology and its neighboring disciplines in an attempt to understand the social, political, and economic processes that shape the varied experiences of Latino migrants. In so doing we discuss issues of race, class, ethnicity and gender, raised by recent immigration through a comparative, integrative, global-historical perspective. In order to apply knowledge from the texts to real life experiences of Latinos in this country, each student interviews a first generation migrant the migrant from Latin America or the Caribbean.

For centuries, the Transatlantic Slave Trade forcibly displaced millions of Africans, generated huge amounts of wealth for the colonial powers, and created social and political power dynamics, the effects of which are still felt today. Barely taught in standard US curriculum is the fact that the overwhelming majority of enslaved Africans were sent to Latin and South America, forever changing the landscape of those countries. Dialogues in Afrolatinidad is a collection of oral history videos that discusses the slave trade, the global implications, ramifications, and history we are disentangling today, and the positionality of those identifying as Afro-Latinx. The voices included in this project are those of University of Pittsburgh professors who have dedicated their study to the subject of Afrolatinidad, and PhD students and people of Afro-Latin descent. These videos represent and discuss the often-overlooked voices of those that identify as Afro-Latin American.

LATINO AMERICANS is the first major documentary series for television to chronicle the rich and varied history and experiences of Latinos, who have helped shape North America over the last 500-plus years and have become, with more than 50 million people, the largest minority group in the U.S. The changing and yet repeating context of American history provides a backdrop for the drama of individual lives. It is a story of immigration and redemption, of anguish and celebration, of the gradual construction of a new American identity that connects and empowers millions of people today.

The Onda Latina Collection consists of 226 digitally preserved audio programs including interviews, music, and informational programs related to the Mexican American community and their concerns from the radio series "The Mexican American Experience" and "A esta hora conversamos" the Longhorn Radio Network, 1976-1982.