The Latin American Diaspora Archive aims to collect, preserve and exhibit personal stories, experiences, memories, and affect that stem from having left a homeland. We seek to preserve these memories through voice and video recordings of interviews and conversations.

The collection of these stories and experiences will provide our communities a sense of belonging and pride by finding that many others identify and recognize themselves in the narratives. It can help us understand the different roles that the Latin American diaspora has played in building our communities and the deep roots that hold together the social fabric of the United States.

• Examine the political, historical, social, and cultural realities of the Latin American Diaspora in the United States.

• Record individual experiences of migration from the different countries of Latin America through oral narratives focusing on the themes of agency, homeland, community, immigration, gender and memory.

• Use a multidisciplinary research methodology that incorporates history, literature and anthropology to apply different approaches to this study.

• Produce and distribute a range of cultural products and design processes to assist local communities and researchers explore the diverse experience of the Latin American Diaspora in the United States.

• Engage in scholarly dissemination of the research findings through audio-archives, visual documentary, podcast productions and scholarly publications focused on understanding the places and roles the Latin American Diaspora has had in the history of the United States.

Methodology

• The project is actively collecting the stories from people who identify as Latin Americans currently residing in the United States regardless of their proficiency in Spanish, English or any indigenous language. This includes the stories of first, second, and subsequent generations of Latin Americans born in the U.S.

• During 2022, we aim to conduct and record approximately 50 in-depth, semi-structured interviews in audio and video.

• The project will use qualitative analysis and collaboration tools to help answer questions, understand issues, and uncover opportunities that arise from the narratives.

• Through data analysis and encoding of interviews we aim to explore the possible convergences and divergences that arise from the experiences relating to different nationalities and the timeframe of homeland departure.

• Development of a toolkit that will allow us to collaborate with other scholars interested in replicating the collection of stories. This in turn will allow the archive to grow exponentially, gathering stories from different communities across the nation.

• In order to collect the stories we will schedule an interview that should last approximately one and a half hours. During that time we explain the objectives of the archive, the interview process and the ways in which the stories will be analyzed, studied and published. The interview will be recorded and transcribed.