Arte Público Press, Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage (Recovery) and US Latino Digital Humanities Center (USLDH) welcomed 14 summer interns this year from the University of Houston (UH), Rice University, Harvard Divinity School, University of St. Thomas and Houston Community College. These interns joined 6 UH Graduate Research Assistants to work on and learn a variety of tasks and skills, such as: Scanning of archival items Microfilm scanning Handling and preserving archival texts Inventory of primary documents Organizing collections Creating finding aids Curating exhibits Database research Primary document research Asset management Data management (with spreadsheets) Metadata creation Metadata translation Familiarity with Library of Congress Subject Headings E-book editing and translation Digital archives (Omeka) Digital tools (mapping, timelines, digital collections, OpenRefine) Archival theory Digital humanities theory Academic conference presentations Academic conference posters Planning an academic conference Public writing (Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage blog) Project management Marketing and social …
Record Number of Summer Students Join Arte Público Press
Arte Público Press, Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage and US Latino Digital Humanities Center welcomed 14 summer students this year from the University of Houston (UH), Rice University, Harvard Divinity School, University of St. Thomas and Houston Community College. These interns joined 6 UH Graduate Research Assistants, for a total of 20 students. These interns and fellows had the opportunity to work closely with archival texts, such as periodicals, manuscripts, photographs, albums, correspondence, books, ephemera and other documents. In doing so, they gained valuable experience with archival collections and asset management. The organization provided training in digital tools and students contributed to digital humanities data and projects. This summer they gained a wide variety of skills, such as: Scanning of archival items Microfilm scanning Handling and preserving archival texts Inventory of primary documents Organizing collections Creating finding aids Curating exhibits Database research Primary document research Asset management Data management …
Trilingual Picture Book Celebrating Mother Earth Honored as a 2024 Américas Award Commended Title
HOUSTON, TX—The Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP) has named the fourth book in Jorge Argueta’s acclaimed Madre Tierra / Mother Earth series, Tierra, Tierrita / Earth, Little Earth, a 2024 Américas Award Commended Title. CLASP founded the Américas Award in 1993 to encourage and applaud authors, illustrators and publishers who produce quality children’s and young adult books that portray Latin America, the Caribbean or Latinx cultures in the United States. Up to two annual book awards are offered along with a list of commended titles, all of which are recognized for their distinctive literary quality, cultural contextualization, potential for classroom use and exceptional integration of text, illustration and design. More than 200 books were submitted, and Tierra, Tierrita / Earth, Little Earth was noted as “remarkable” for all of these attributes. Beautifully illustrated by Felipe Ugalde Alcántara, this poetic children’s picture book depicts the interdependence of life in …
Diana Rojas Summer Events
Author Diana Rojas will share her debut novel, Litany of Saints: A Triptych, with a series of events this summer. Save a date to meet her and get an autographed copy of this compelling collection of stories that explores issues experienced by immigrants, including a divided sense of identity. “Three stories offer an intriguing look into the lives of Costa Rican characters—Ticos—as they deal with their roles in their families and society. Rojas weaves expertly between distinct stories and families, creating a network of Costa Rican experience that is equally loving and critical. She shows her readers that no homeland is perfect—not even “paradise.” An engrossing debut that sees both the good and bad sides of Costa Rica.” —Kirkus ReviewsMark your calendarThursday, May 23, 20247:00pm Lost City of Books2467 18th St NW, Washington, DC 20009Saturday, june 1, 20245:00pm Politics and Prose at Union Market1324 4th St NE, Washington, DC 20002Wednesday, …
US Latino Digital Humanities Summer Workshop
The US Latino Digital Humanities Center (USLDH) at the University of Houston announces its annual Manos a la obra digital humanities virtual summer training course. The course will take place May 28-20, 2024 via Zoom. Participants will learn about US Latino digital humanities methods and theory, archiving, metadata creation and free, easy-to-use digital platforms (Omeka, TimelineJS and StoryMapJS). The course will be taught by Dr. Gabriela Baeza Ventura, Dr. Carolina Villarroel, Dr. Lorena Gauthereau and Mikaela Selley. No prior experience is required. Anyone with an interest in US Latina/o studies and digital studies is welcome. This workshop addresses the following topics: How to identify materials for future projects (research, copyright issues, etc.) How to create metadata How to create meaningful and respectful data following ethics of care and reparative description How to nourish communities of practice How to conceptualize and develop the scope for your project And other topics No …
Predicting College Student Loan Repayment: The Texas Hinson-Hazlewood College now available on APPDigital
The University of Houston’s US Latino Digital Humanities Center (USLDH) announces the digital publication of Predicting College Student Loan Repayment: The Texas Hinson-Hazlewood College, a dissertation submitted by Salvador Gómez for the Ph.D. degree at the University of Texas at Austin in 1978. The text analyzes the evolution of financial aid to college students in Texas and especially the relationship between student indebtedness, ethnicity and academic dropout. It also critically examines notions such as “ethnicity” and “delinquency” and the various social and administrative factors that condition this phenomenon. This is an ideal text for researchers in different areas (from administration to psychology to economics) who seek to address the phenomenon of university indebtedness or the causes of dropping out of school after high school. This digital text will soon be complimented by a digital exhibit of Salvador Gómez’s scrapbook and an oral history interview with his daughter, Rosanna Moreno. This …
Fitting In Is Hard to Do: Children’s Picture Book Wins Prize
HOUSTON, TX—The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in New Jersey has named Do I Belong Here? / ¿Es este mi lugar? (Piñata Books, 2023) the co-winner of the 2024 Paterson Prize for Books for Young People. Awarded to the most outstanding book for young people published in the previous year, the book tied for the prize in the Pre-K-Grade 3 category with Ted Kooser: More than a Local Wonder by Carla Ketner. It comes with a cash award. Immigrant, educator and acclaimed Salvadoran-American author René Colato Laínez artfully explores the experiences of immigrant children in his award-winning book. An immigrant boy stands “in the middle of a whirlwind of children,” and wonders where he is supposed to go. Finally, a woman speaks to him in a language he doesn’t understand and takes him to his classroom. A boy named Carlos helps orient him, but later when he reads …
Children’s Book Celebrating Mexican Folk Art Wins Prize
HOUSTON, TX—A bilingual picture book loosely based on the life of artist Pedro Linares, Pedro and the Monster Eaters / Pedro y los devoradores de monstruos by Xequina María Berbér (ISBN 978-1-55885-991-3, hardcover, $18.95), is the winner of the 2024 Salinas de Alba Award for Latino Children’s Literature. Forthcoming May 31, 2024, this strikingly illustrated story shares with young readers the fascinating origin of one of Mexico’s most well-known folk arts: the alebrije. According to the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, just 351 of the 3,173 children’s books it received that were published in the United States in 2022 were written by Latinos; only 231 were about Latinos. Diversity statistics for 2023 are not yet available. The Salinas de Alba Award seeks to stimulate the work begun by Arte Público Press and its imprint, Piñata Books, which is dedicated to the publication of children’s and young adult literature that authentically and …
2024 USLDH-Mellon Grants-in-Aid Recipients
The US Latino Digital Humanities (USLDH) Grants-in-Aid program, funded by the Mellon Foundation, is designed to provide a stipend of up to $7,500 to scholars for research and development of digital scholarship in the form of a digital publication and/or a digital project. Congratulations to the 2024 Grants-in-Aid Recipients: Marina del Sol, PhD (Howard University), Chicanx Arts Activism among Prison Poets and Writ Writers in Texas from 1848-1979 Diana Flores Ruíz, PhD (University of Washington, Seattle), Recovering Latinx Resistance Aldo Lauria Santiago, PhD (Rutgers University, New Brunswick) and Ismael García Colón, PhD (City University of New York, College of Staten Island and Graduate Center), Documenting the Narratives of Puerto Rican Migration, 1940-1980 Sarah McNamara (Texas A&M University), Nuestra Historia: A Public Art and Public History Project in Ybor City, Florida Anna Nogar (University of New Mexico), Aurora Lucero-White Lea (1893-1963), 20th-Century Pan- Americanism, and Indo-Hispano Folklore Annemarie Perez (California State …
Chicana Author to Share Testimony During Book Reading
HOUSTON, TX—Acclaimed LGBTQ+ author Emma Pérez will read from her new book, Testimony of a Shifter, at Brazos Bookstore (2421 Bissonnet St, Houston, TX 77005) at 6:30 pm Friday, April 26, 2024. This fascinating speculative narrative delving into gender transmutation and discrimination has been lauded by Booklist as the “queer, feminist dystopian novel readers [fans of Ursula K. Le Guin and Margaret Atwood] have been searching for.” Imprisoned by the totalitarian government, Dr. Benito Espinoza practices for his weekly interrogations by recounting his story to his thirteen-year-old daughter. He tells her about turning his back on his ability to shift his gender from male to female—to Alejandra—to become a scholar in the Grand Library. Most academics are Residents who inherited their seats and believe Descendants like Ben don’t have the intellectual ability to be a person of letters. Ben conforms to the laws against transmuting, so he manages to secure …