WWWWF:Politics Part II
More insight into an effort to preserve Hispanic history
A couple of days ago, I wrote about an effort to catalogue Hispanic oral histories (one of which including a man from Wichita Falls). I got a little time to talk to the man behind the project, Jose Angel Gutierrez.
The University of Texas-Arlington professor founded La Raza Unida political party and spearheaded the Tejano Voices project at the university.
More than anything, he wrote in an e-mail, a desire for greater insights into Hispanic leaders in Texas spurred the effort. There was a "lack of information on Mexican American public figures in Texas," he wrote.
The chief goal has been to develop a substantial body educational information for folks interested in these public figures.
Things don't seem to be going as quickly as he'd like with the project, though. He pointed out that only 77 of the 195 interviews have been digitized by the UTA library.
Still, that hasn't deterred his efforts. Already he's written a recent book, Chicanas in Charge: Texas Women in the Public Arena and several articles.
"(There's) more interest in (the) subject, new resource, worldwide publicity and inquiry, legislative interest in more funding for digitizing, compliments," he wrote.
Plus, other projects are in the works.
"I've started doing African Americans. (I) have 16 so far," he wrote.
Hope it works out.