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Last week, we shared some resources, databases, and collections Ames has that highlights Hispanic, Latinx, and Chicano/a/x communities. This week we’d like to share projects hosted by other universities, archives, and cultural heritage organizations related to Hispanic heritage, as the more we’re able to connect with resources the more open our minds become. Unidos: Inclusivity for a Stronger Nation is the 2022 Hispanic Heritage Month Theme.

The National Museum of Mexican Art’s mission is “to stimulate knowledge and appreciation of Mexican art and culture from both sides of the border through a significant permanent collection of Mexican art, rich visual and performing arts programs, high quality arts education programs and resources and professional development of Mexican artists. The Museum welcomes all people and strives to foster a world where all are included.” Located in Chicago, the museum showcases 3,600 years of creativity from across Mexican, Mexican-American, and Mexican-Indigenous creative works. Nuestras Historias showcases pieces from their permanent collection, to emphasize the dynamic and diverse stories of Mexican identity in the US.

Also in Chicago, the National Puerto Rican Museum is “devoted to the promotion, integration and advancement of Puerto Rican arts and culture, presenting exhibitions and programming created to enhance the visibility and importance of the rich Puerto Rican arts tradition.” Coming soon, the museum will host a Walter Mercado pop up exhibit. Mercado was “Latin America’s beloved spiritual advisor, best known for his astrology television shows. His daily horoscope readings and flamboyant persona captivated the attention of millions of Spanish-speaking people worldwide. Mercado’s fluid blend of beliefs and gender presented an expansive alternative to the traditional Catholic practices of many Latin American cultures.”

Chicago is also home to several Latino neighborhoods with colorful and innovative street art. The Pilsen Murals were originally started by street artists in the ’60s to oppose the Vietnam War and express pride in Mexican-American identities. Later generations of artists are leaving their marks, starting new conversations through their art. Humboldt Park is also home to fantastic murals, with a preservation program to help restore older murals, along with working with the community to create new pieces.

The Latinx Diaspora in the Americas Project is an oral history project at the University of Florida. It is dedicated to creating space for Latina/os to share their historical experiences related to identity, immigration reform, labor conditions, education, and civil rights.

The National Park Service cares for special places in the United States like parks, monuments, historical areas, lake- and seashores, rivers, and trails. Places like the Cabrillo National Monument preserves the history of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo’s voyage of exploration. It was the first contact between the coastal California Indigenous tribes, like the Kumeyaay, and men from Europe. Though the San Salvador stayed only six days in San Diego harbor, this journey and future Spanish journeys to the area would shape southern California’s complex history.

Along the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail (which extends between El Paso, Texas and Santa Fe, New Mexico in the United States) you’ll find churches, battle sites, art museums, cultural properties, and Indigenous heritage sites. The sites along the trail reflect 300 years of conflict, cooperation, and cultural exchange between a variety of empires.

Visit the NPS American Latino Heritage website to learn more about these and other sites.

The Ames Library is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month by highlighting history, people, and digital collections that include and represent Hispanic, Latinx, and Chicano/a/x communities.

Celebrated from 15 September until 15 October, Hispanic Heritage Month celebrates the contributions and importance of persons whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. The day of September 15 is significant because it is the anniversary of independence for Latin American countries Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico and Chile celebrate their independence days on September 16 and September18, respectively. 

For this first week, check out some of the databases available through Ames.

ArtStor is a repository of thousands of collections of digital images. Topics include but are not limited to foreign languages, decorative design, African/American studies, classical studies, history, Medieval studies, photography, and women’s studies. This year, ArtStor highlights 28 open collections for Hispanic Heritage Month. Those collections include maps, art, scholarly works, and oral history projects, to name a few.

Contemporary Women’s Issues is a multidisciplinary, full-text database that brings together relevant content from mainstream periodicals, “gray” literature, and the alternative press with a focus on the critical issues and events that influence women’s lives in more than 190 countries. Contemporary Women’s Issues includes English-language titles from East and West Africa, Asia, and South and Central America, the Caribbean, North America and Europe.

The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Collection contains thousands of selected titles covering Asian Studies, Women’s Studies, Black Studies, Hispanic/Latino Studies, and much more. It is a comprehensive and curated subscription developed to represent all voices – regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, physical ability and religious belief.

Independent Voices is a digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.

Informe Academico provides access to Spanish- and Portuguese-language scholarly journals and magazines. The database offers a wide range of content both from and about Latin America.

World Scholar: Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Portal covers Latin America culture and society from the 15th century to the present day. The collection consists of a Portal and Archive component. Launching with 293 portals based on Person, Topic, Event, Named Work and Country types users can delve into over 1.3M pages of archival material (Archive) and hundreds of periodicals, newspapers, magazines, reports, and data feeds (Portal).

Content Warning: Racial injustice and violence

Emmett Till’s funeral was 67 years ago Tuesday. He would have been 81 this year.

Only 14 at the time, his death* in 1955 was a flash point in the Civil Rights Movement. His mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted on an open casket, to “let the world see” what had been done to her son. From his death until hers in 2003, she was an activist for racial justice, with a special interest in education. She died shortly before her memoir, Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime that Changed America, was published.

Till, directed by Chinonye Chukwu, releases this fall (at the New York Film Festival and then widely on October 28th) and tells the story of Mamie Till-Mobley’s relentless pursuit of justice for her son. Centered on her, the film broadens the focus of depictions to-date to include her story, to hold space for some of the effects of racialized violence on Black women.

Theatrical depictions of historical events draw attention to those events and are sometimes the first time someone learns of it. Feature films are dramatizations of events and, as such, are an opportunity for learning. Read on for ways you can learn more about Emmett Till and his family’s fight for justice.

The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center (a Smithsonian Affiliate) in Chicago is a train ride away and will soon host the traveling exhibit “Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley: Let the World See.” Premiering at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis on September 17th, the exhibit will travel across the country. While at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC, it will be less than a mile from the National Museum of African American History & Culture, where Emmett Till’s casket is on display as part of the “Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom: Era of Segregation 1876-1968” exhibit. The Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Mississippi is another opportunity for interactive learning.

Cowritten by Keith Beauchamp of The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till and Michael Reilly, this new film joins the ranks of videos and audio recordings drawing attention to Till’s murder and pursuits of justice for him. American Experience: The Murder of Emmett Till includes 36 interviews with Mississippi residents, Till family members, journalists covering the trial, and Till’s classmates. The interviews were recorded and transcribed in 2003 by Firelight Media. These videos and others are accessible through Academic Video Online (AVON).

For a more private opportunity to learn about the case, browse some of the books available through Ames Library.

• Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement (2015)
• Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press (2008)
• Remembering Emmett Till (2019)
• Let the People See : The Story of Emmett Till (2018)
• The Face of Emmett Till (2006)

Disturbing and challenging content is hard to face. Movies like Till help to keep stories of injustice in our collective memory. If this movie, or any move with a “based on real events” description piques your interest, Ames librarians and the research tools and collections available through Ames are here to support your pursuit of knowledge.

*Emmett Till’s death was incredibly violent. The Ames Library will not contribute to Black trauma by describing it.

We acknowledge that Illinois Wesleyan University rests on land once cared for by native nations including the Kiikaapoi/Kickapoo, Peoria, Očhthi akwiŋ/Sioux, and Myaamia/Miami.

A land acknowledgement, such as the one above, begins with reflection (individual or institutional), is informed by research, and is a recognition of the power place has for Indigenous communities.

The 2022 IWU Annual Intellectual Theme, Power of Place, invites us to reflect on how our thoughts, values, perceptions, and actions are influenced by how we conceptualize a place and our place in the world. How do you conceptualize a place like Illinois Wesleyan while acknowledging the people and nations that were ousted as colonists pushed west?

One way you might start is by researching the Indigenous nations that once cared for this land. Indigenous Peoples: North America is one database you might use. It provides a robust, diverse, informative source that will enhance research and increase understanding of the historical experiences, cultural traditions and innovations, and political status of Indigenous Peoples in the United States and Canada. The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Collection from ProQuest Books is another. It includes thousands of selected titles covering Asian Studies, Women’s Studies, Black Studies, Hispanic/Latino Studies, and much more. One such title specific to our area is The Nature of Empires and the Empires of Nature : Indigenous Peoples and the Great Lakes Environment.

You might visit museums or archives dedicated to Indigenous peoples. The American Indian Center is located in Chicago. Their primary mission is to promote fellowship among Chicagoland Native Americans. Their art gallery is open for tours Monday-Friday. While you’re in Chicago, you might also visit the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian. It’s “one of only a handful of museums across the country that focuses exclusively on the art, history, and culture of Native American and First Nation peoples from throughout the United States and Canada. It promotes public understanding of cultural diversity through first voice perspectives.”

Research that you do on your own will only take you so far though. Listening to the stories and voices of Indigenous people is an important next step. Follow activists and Indigenous creators on social media. Watch videos of talks given by elders and leaders.

And attend events held locally, like Dr. Davidson’s presentation on 6 September – the Office of Diversity and Inclusion’s 3D series begins with “Of Place: Viewing Land Acknowledgements through a Diné Matrifocal Lens.” From 4-5:30pm (at Hansen Center Court), Dr. Davidson will discuss how her lived experiences as a Diné woman shaper her views and how place-consciousness serves as a higher education leadership skill.

For more information on why and how to craft a land acknowledgement, check out the Native Governance Center’s website.

The front doors may have been closed this summer, but that didn’t stop students in the inaugural Digital Humanities Fellows program. Over the past several weeks, twelve students with diverse backgrounds came together to learn about the digital humanities and apply a suite of new skills and tools to research projects with the guidance of faculty mentors.

The fellows developed their own research questions around data sets provided by faculty mentors, analyzed data relevant to those questions, and created digital stories to accompany their work.

Faculty mentors Michelle Gibbs (School of Theatre Arts) and Joshua Lowe (School of Art) led a team working on Zora Neale Hurston’s intellectual circles and networks. Mishwa Bhavsar (Computer Science), Leah Rosen (Greek & Roman Studies; Creating Writing minor), Julia McMahon (Political Science and English Literature), and Ellie Kurtz (History and Sociology) explored the question “how did Zora Neale Hurston’s anthropological and ethnographic research impact her play writing?” They sought to connect Hurston’s research to her plays and present it in ways inviting to all, from high schoolers encountering her work for the first time to dramaturges producing one of her works. Explore their website here.

Greg Shaw (Political Science) and Allison Serraes (English) led a team looking at health policy in Bloomington-Normal. Leah Matlin (Psychology and English – Writing), Alex Dawson (Psychology; Anthropology minor), Amanda Balaba (Accounting; Political Science and Data Science minors), and Amber Anderson (Political Science) had the broad goal of implementing digital tools to convey information that will aid organizations focused on community health in the Bloomington-Normal area. They used textual analysis to generate keywords to identify possible health initiatives for the community based on needs expressed by the community itself. Read more about their project here.

Leah Nillas (Education) led a team looking at international educational attainment measures. Kacie Moore (Sociology; Hispanic Studies minor), Zoe Hodve (Political Science; Hispanic Studies minor), and Josh Reed (Computer Science and History; Greek & Roman Studies minor) challenged their own assumptions about the relationship between international educational outcomes and national spending on education. They sorted through multiple factors and data sets seeking correlations between socio-cultural-environmental factors and educational attainment scores. See their results and infographics here.

Reflecting on the Digital Humanities Fellowship, Kacie Moore noted that she felt a lot of academic scholarship is gatekept and that digital humanities are a great tool for making that information more available to broader audiences. In speaking about the digital humanities, Online Learning Librarian Abby Mann – who led the program – said, “It’s a great way for our students to think about how they can bring the strengths of their liberal arts education to their future careers with an emphasis on effective and ethical communication in all sorts of professional settings, from academia to business to public service.” Explore other IWU digital humanities and digital scholarship projects here.

The Ames Library was very fortunate to receive seed money for this program through the American Rescue Plan: Humanities Grants for Libraries, an initiative of the American Library Association (ALA) made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The Provost’s Office, The Ames Library, The Cargill Foundation, and the Faculty Development Committee provided additional funding for the inaugural program.