This panel reconfigures modes of knowledge production in relation to Anglophone studies where US Latinx-related works are often disregarded, erased, misrepresented, and misused. Not only are such works overlooked, but their producers–who often identify as non-white and/or not along heteronormative identities, and write in languages other than standard English–are not considered legitimate within the academy. Specifically, we will discuss the ways in which critical interventions can take place at pedagogical and research levels.

Isis Campos will present the Authority List, a project that highlights the authorship found in US Latinx periodicals in the United States through 1960. This presentation will describe the development of the project until its current stage of network analysis and directory. Through a variety of writers from different nationalities and backgrounds the project aims to defy general norms by establishing and documenting the Latinx presence and community that existed and exists in this nation. By analyzing these voices and giving them a platform to reach a broader audience, the Authority List looks to break down societal barriers highlighting the complexity of the writers represented in the newspapers and the community that they built.

Lorena Gauthereau will present on the projects developed out of the Alonso S. Perales Collection, which highlight Mexican American civil rights activism in the 1940-50s. She argues that a DH methodology, rooted in Chicana and Third World feminisms, acknowledges the affect embedded in US Latinx archives and accounts for the lived experience of US Latinx histories. This approach, Gauthereau contends, unveils not only the trauma of coloniality, but also the processes of community survival and joy.

Carolina Villarroel will present on US Latinx approaches to digital pedagogy and the work done by the Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Program to engage the educational community in general to create instances for inclusion. These instances emanate from US Latinx narratives and include diverse corpus of materials. The presentation will touch on specifics about the acquisition and processing of collections, and metadata creation that have an impact in their future usage in pedagogical tools. Ultimately, Recovery seeks to find ways in which these materials can be incorporated into the bigger spectrum of American Studies.

Gabriela Baeza Ventura will discuss how the use of intersectional analysis in DH scholarship allows minority communities to break through the barriers that seek to place them and their narratives on the outskirts of knowledge production. She will discuss how in the process of establishing the first center for US Latinx Digital Humanities at the University of Houston, the community of DHers who have crafted projects grounded in ethnic, socioecomonic, gender, racial and postcolonial perspectives that intend to populate the world of digital scholarship with voices that are nontraditional and not always in English. This presentation is in Spanish.

Gabriela Baeza Ventura (University of Houston)
Isis Campos (University of Houston)
Lorena Gauthereau (University of Houston)
Carolina Villarroel (University of Houston)