EnglishEspañolEnglish OHL Director Ricia Chansky was interviewed by The Beat: The Blog of Comics Culture about teaching Edgardo Miranda-Rodríguez’s popular comic La Borinqueña at UPRM. She says, “It’s really important for students and young people to see reflections of themselves in the literature that they read in class, and it’s important that this is also available…
EnglishEspañolEnglish OHL community partner and collaborator Lorel Cubano was one of 15 people selected nationwide for the 2025 NALAC Leadership Institute cohort. Founder of the Old San Juan Heritage Foundation and the women-led collective Perlarte in La Perla, Cubano’s narrative was featured in Mi María: Surviving the Storm and she has continued to work with…
EnglishEspañolEnglish DPOE-N—in collaboration with UPR Caribe Digital—hosted its third in-person workshop, Introducción al Desarrollo y Preservación de Historias Orales, at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus on May 28 to 30, 2025. The workshop was taught by Oscar Zamora Flores (CENTRO Archivist), José Moralez Benítez (UPRM librarian), and Natalia Hernández Mejías (OHL Librarian)…
EnglishEspañolEnglish Mi María book narrator and OHL Community Programs Manager, Zaira Arvelo Alicea, will help facilitate the Voice of Witness (VOW) workshop, “Narrator Experience + Storytelling Ethics.” As the first session in a three-part VOW series on Oral History Storytelling Skills and Ethics, this online workshop explores “ethics-driven, empathy-based approach to oral history storytelling, with a focus on trauma-informed practices…
EnglishEspañolEnglish OHL Librarian, Natalia Hernandez Mejías, and former OHL intern, Sonny Weeks, presented a paper, “Protecting Oral Histories: Navigating Privacy Challenges in Digital Environments,” at the 2025 ACURIL conference, the biggest library conference in the Caribbean. In addition, Hernandez Mejías also shared a poster titled “Digital Humanities in Puerto Rico: Initiatives and Collaborations of the…
EnglishEspañolEnglish OHL Director Ricia Chansky delivered a keynote address at the International Auto/Biography Association (IABA) Conference 2025, “Story as Resistance: Signs of Life in the Great Silencing.” She also offered a workshop—”Ethics in Interviewing”—and was on a panel for the IABA Students and New Scholars Network and a panel celebrating the 40th anniversary of the journal…
EnglishEspañolEnglish On May 24, the film La Perla en que vivimos… was screened at Mayagüez’s Western Plaza Cinema as part of a film festival organized by CineMásCorto. La Perla en que vivimos… is a short documentary by award-winning filmmaker Guillermo Gómez Álvarez produced by the Oral History Lab in collaboration with Colectivo PerlArte with support…
EnglishEspañolEnglish Jaquelina Alvarez and Ricia Anne Chansky were interviewed by Foro Colegial about the announcement of their grant of over $1.8M from the Mellon Foundation and what work they are undertaking at the Oral History Lab. Español Jaquelina Álvarez y Ricia Anne Chansky fueron entrevistadas por Foro Colegial sobre el reciente anuncio de su subvención de…
EnglishEspañolEnglish The Water Protectors, a short documentary produced by the Oral History Lab, has been selected for screening in the fourth edition of Cine Pa’ las Calles. The event will take place on May 17, 2025, at Tramboliko in Mayagüez. It is an open space–some chairs will be provided, but attendees can also bring their…
EnglishEspañolEnglish The short film La Perla en que vivimos…, created by award-winning filmmaker Guillermo Gómez Álvarez in collaboration with Colectivo PerlArte, has been accepted to the CineMásCorto film festival and will be shown in Caguas, San Juan, and Mayaguez in the month May. To see the official schedule, see the CineMásCorto website. This film, produced by the Oral History Lab and…