What is Chicana por mi Raza?
Chicana por mi Raza Digital Memory Collective is a group of researchers, educators, students, archivists and technologists dedicated to preserving imperiled Chicanx and Latinx histories of the long Civil Rights Era. Started by Professor Maria Cotera and filmmaker Linda Garcia Merchant in 2009, CPMR has traveled to over one dozen states to collect hundreds of hours of oral histories with notable Chicanas, Latinas, and allies. The project has also scanned personal archives for preservation and access. Using largely volunteer and student labor, CPMR offers a model for grassroots digital history that encourages further research into understudied aspects of the American experience. The overarching objective of the project is to provide broad‐based public access to oral histories, material culture, correspondence, and rare out‐of‐print publications for use in both scholarly research and the classroom.
Collection Details
Chicana por mi Raza began collecting oral histories in 2009. Since then, the CPMR team has interviewed more than 80 women. From these interviews we've collected and processed approximately 10,000 archival items, with 3000 or so awaiting digitizing, description and uploading. Most of the oral histories consist of several hours of film footage, and some women have been interviewed more than once. Our online digital repository currently contains approximately 7,000 available digital records and over 500 interview clips.
Getting Involved
There are many ways to get involved with the CPMR Collective. For those hoping to stay-up-to-date on CPMR as well as Latinx Digital Humanities, we recommend joining our Facebook Group or our twitter page @PorChicana. For scholars and researchers hoping to use our archive materials, we intvite you to read on how on how to formally join the CPMR Collective.
Joining the Chicana por mi Raza Digital Memory Collective
Since its inception, the Chicana por mi Raza Project has relied on the collective efforts of a group of researchers and teachers who are committed to unearthing the lessons of Chicana feminist praxis. The Chicana por mi Raza Digital Memory Collective takes inspiration from the Chicana praxis it documents, re-envisioning the ARCHIVE as site of encuentro and exchange in which new “constituencies of resistance” (in Chela Sandoval’s words) are created and nurtured.
Scholars, teachers and community members who wish to use the materials we have collected, are asked to commit to the project’s goals by joining the CPMR collective, and contributing to its continued survival and growth. Users may propose research projects and ways to improve the collection and its public website. Whether this work involves developing a class to collect oral histories, incorporating CPMR materials into lesson plans and class assignments, producing a “biocuration” or a short essay for our website, adding key descriptive information to a document in our repository, or simply correcting tags and other metadata—users of the archive are reminded that they are not mining a repository, but rather joining a network structured by the exchange of knowledge and conocimiento.
To get started joining the collective please fill out this form and we'll contact you shortly.
