Surviving Stratified Disasters Collaborative Approach to Collecting and Preserving Oral Histories

Abstract

Over the last six years, Puerto Rico has been shaken by a surge of stratified disasters—multiple simultaneous catastrophes that affect the population in different but interrelated ways. Unrelenting economic depression provoked the establishment of a fiscal control board appointed under the PROMESA Act, which led to the imposition of harsh austerity measures. Furthermore, Hurricanes Irma and María caused extreme devastation in September 2017, early 2019 saw the beginning of a swarm of earthquakes which eventually numbered in the thousands (including one with a magnitude of 6.4 in the Richter scale), and 2020 brought the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez (UPRM) has not been spared, as it has been subject to extreme budget cuts that have brought the elimination of faculty positions and deterioration of infrastructure and services, with student precarity also on the rise. The project “Listening to Puerto Rico: The Promise of Oral History On-Campus and Beyond” emerges as a response to this scenario of stratified disasters. The main objective of this collaborative project, which brings together UPRM’s General Library, English Department, and Film Program, is the creation of an Oral History Lab (OHL). The OHL will be housed in the General Library and will be a space focused on the collection, preservation, and broad dissemination of oral histories from around the Puerto Rican archipelago, particularly those that touch upon the experiences of community members as they have navigated the many challenges of these difficult times. Preservation, stewardship, and visibility of the materials will be enhanced through their deposit in UPRM’s online institutional repository, Scholar@UPRM. The creation of the OHL is an example of how academic libraries faced by precarious circumstances can forge strategic multidisciplinary alliances with campus partners to design creative projects that directly address local historical events while also producing unique primary source collections for the benefit of researchers on and beyond campus.

The project “Listening to Puerto Rico: The Promise of Oral History On-Campus and Beyond” is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH, Grant Award# ZDH-284106-22). Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this presentation, do not necessarily represent those of NEH.