Archiving Bilingual Latin@ Oral Histories

Abstract

Over the past ten years, digital archives documenting underrepresented communities have been rising. For example, oral and print historical projects about minoritized communities and ethnic cultural heritage centers have existed for decades (Daniel, 2010), yet few are fully accessible online. The increased presence of these types of archives points not only to the need to document the histories of these communities but also to the interest in making this work accessible to all. There is an urgency in documenting, archiving, and curating histories—audio, print, video, and other ephemera—because minoritized communities have consistently faced exclusion from majority historical documents. As precarious and essential as this work is, important projects like the one discussed here are often shared as an in-process version. This process allows us to shape and consider new ways of archiving, perhaps even disrupting traditional collecting and accessioning methods beyond canonical (White) standards. This article shows our interest in developing a decolonized model for archiving digital oral history collections. Indeed, much of the way we are thinking about making the collection accessible is by centering it on bilingual descriptions of each item in the collection signals a non-traditional and, thus, decolonial way of documenting a community. “Archiving Bilingual Latin@ Oral Histories” is an initiative to make an already existing digital oral history archive accessible to the community it documents. From collecting stories, accessioning, and website design and content, it seeks to work collaboratively with students and the community to present a bilingual archive representing the Latina/o/x community in Ohio.