Nuestra Historia: The Latino Community in Richmond, Virginia

FAIN: PY-234544-16

City of Richmond Public Library (Richmond, VA 23219-1907)
Meg Hughes (Project Director: June 2015 to February 2016)
Patricia Parks (Project Director: February 2016 to February 2018)

A series of community digitization events at several cultural heritage organizations in Richmond, Virginia, that would invite members of the public to share personal photographs, artwork, and other artifacts to document the history and culture of the Latino community in the city. The curated digital copies would form the basis for an exhibition entitled Nuestra Historia: The Latino Community in Richmond in 2017 at the Valentine (Richmond’s history museum). The City of Richmond Office of Multicultural Affairs, Richmond Public Library, and the Sacred Heart Center for the Latino Community would join with the museum to host Spanish-language events throughout Richmond, including city tours, tours of the Valentine, bilingual community conversations, story-gathering events, and opportunities for community members to inform the cultural and creative design of the exhibit, Nuestra Historia.

The Richmond Public Library (RPL), an agency of the municipal government of Richmond, Virginia, proposes a dynamic partnership with the Valentine (Richmond’s history museum), the Sacred Heart Center for the Latino Community, and the City of Richmond Office of Multicultural Affairs to create a publicly sourced digital history project that will affirm the role of the local Latino community within Richmond’s past, present, and future. To better serve and represent this population, project partners will hold a series of “History Harvests” in primarily Latino neighborhoods. Latino community members will be invited to share photographs, artwork, and other artifacts for digitization that reflect both their experiences While participating community members will receive digital copies of the shared materials, retained and curated digital copies will form the basis of a 2017 exhibition at the Valentine entitled Nuestra Historia: The Latino Community in Richmond.