Our Story | Nuestra Historia
Core Values/Mission - What is Our Mission?
This site is the official archive of Latino history in Rhode Island. The information you will find here is the result of what began as one single interview in 1991. It has grown into a comprehensive collection of personal stories, photos and pieces of paper documenting the history of Rhode Island’s Spanish-speaking community. Our mission is to collect, share and celebrate the diverse experiences through the voices of Latinos in Rhode Island. What you will find on this website has been generously shared by the people whose stories we tell. Nuestras Raíces encourages Latinos of all ages to record audio or video and to write down their own and other people's life stories. Use this site to share your photos or personal papers, and you can become part of the people’s history of our state.
History and Provenance - What’s our history?
The Rhode Island Latino Community Archives is housed in Central Falls, RI. It is the first comprehensive collection of an archival collection that tells the complete story of the history of the Spanish-speaking people of Rhode Island.
Latinos today are found in urban and rural communities all over the state, contributing enormously to the cultural, social, political, and economic fabric of Rhode Island. Within the next decade, Latinos will become Rhode Island’s largest minority population, yet only a very few organizations in Rhode Island are actively collecting significant information about Latinos.
Much of the documentation that records the rich history and culture of these diverse communities statewide is in danger of being lost. Historical information is inadequately represented in the documentation of broad areas of Latino culture, including the fine arts, popular music, and dance forms, and folk and traditional arts. Similarly, information is extremely limited to Hispanic businesses and social, political, community, and religious organizations.
Responses to issues of immigration and migration, discrimination, economic opportunity, public education, health care, law enforcement, and social services by the Latino / Latina / Latinx people have been poorly represented in historical records. Even the substantial contributions of various Latino and Latina community leaders and politicians from Rhode Island at the local, state, and even national levels are seriously lacking adequate documentation.
This collection is part of Nuestras Raíces, a community oral history project started in 1991 by Marta V. Martínez, Community Oral Historian, Founder, and Executive Director of Rhode Island Latino Arts (RILA).
Rhode Island's Latinos are very diverse. The information we collect includes not just stories of our Pioneers but is now expanding to include all of the diverse and growing complexities and beauty of the Latino/Latina/Latinx communities in the state.
This website and the collections are only the beginning. We leave it in the hands of the next generations of Latinx community historians to collect, maintain and continue adding to the story.
Language and Content - Why do we use this specific language?
The Latino community in the United States has a long history of terms used to refer to the population of people who trace their roots to Latin America. Among these terms, we have chosen to use three main terms in this collection. These terms include Hispanic, Latino/Latina, and Latinx. We have attempted to use these terms in our metadata and descriptions in a way that is historically accurate so as to show the evolution of language over time within this community.
Each item contains a chosen set of metadata terms adapted from the Dublin Core for the Rhode Island Latino History Collections in order to make the items in our archive searchable. A guide to our metadata terms and definitions can be found here. Although these terms and descriptions taken from Dublin Core aim to be objective, we recognize that they required our own interpretation and therefore may seem subjective and political.
Furthermore, most items contain a description where we have attempted to show how the item is relevant to Rhode Island Latino history using language consistent with the time in which the particular item occurred.
Transparency - What is our selection process for the Rhode Island Latino History Collections? Where did we get these items?
The foundation of the Rhode Island Latino History Collection lies in the personal collection of Community Oral Historian Marta V. Martínez, who was collecting items associated with the Rhode Island Latino community even before an official collection was established. The first items Marta began collecting were newspapers that featured stories related to the Rhode Island Latino community. Originally, these newspapers only featured stories that perpetuated racist and xenophobic stereotypes. Marta knew this perspective was false and therefore decided to learn more about the realities of this community to combat this misrepresentation. After speaking with locals and hearing their stories, she began writing and publishing her own articles about the Latino community that offered a complex and diverse point of view that had previously been ignored. As more of her articles were published, a more accurate image of this community began to take shape. Sensing a shift, Marta felt it was necessary to save these newspapers, which would later serve as the beginnings of the Rhode Island Latino Community Archives.
Thus, some items stem from her experience talking to and writing about the Rhode Island Latino community. This experience eventually inspired her work on the Nuestra Raices Latino Oral History Project. Nuestra Raices has aimed to collect oral histories from the Rhode Island Latino community. Through conversations with Latinos in Rhode Island, Marta built relationships that led to many people approaching her with images, pamphlets, documents, newspapers, etc. Some items were donated to the collection while others were digitized and returned to the owner. Furthermore, Marta continues to make an effort in building this collection by hosting Scanning Days. During these events, everyone from the Rhode Island Latino community is welcome to bring any items so they can be digitized and added to the collection. They also receive a copy of the digitized version of the items and are invited to partake in an interview in order to build the oral history collection of the archive.
Looking toward the future, the Rhode Island Latino Community Archives hopes to establish a formal process for all items that are added to the collection. Until that time when the collection grows, it will be assessed using these guidelines.
Access - Who can access these items?
The online collection is available to the public. However, access to these items in the form of downloads and use beyond these Collections is at the discretion of the Rights that we have attached to some of our items. Also, some items, such as audio files and videos, are not available for download.
Users are welcome to contact Rhode Island Latino Arts in order to request access to any specific items or to access the archives in person. Please contact: collections@nuestrasraicesri.net
Support- How can I support the Rhode Island Latino Community Archives?
One way to support the collection is by helping us expand our archive. One way you can do this is by uploading a digital copy of an item you believe is related to Rhode Island Latino History to our website. This process includes answering the prompted questions and uploading the digital file of the item. You can do that here. Monetary donations to support this project are also always welcome and could be made here. Furthermore, keep an eye out for our Scanning Days and spread the word to others in your community.