The Latino Mural Oral History Project

Paired in teams of two, students from Dr. Mahaffy’s African American and Latino Educational Experiences course and Dr. Filippone’s Contemporary Art course met the community partners they would be interviewing at a series of workshops led by Michelle Angela Ortiz. These workshops intended to establish a level of trust and to frame themes common to the process of immigration, such as loss of family, friends, home, and adaptation to a new life and culture in Lancaster County. The students deepened these preliminary relationships with their community partners through audio and video-taped oral history interviews that took place in the home or office of the community member. Interviewing community members in their homes and offices provided the opportunity for the students to step outside of their familiar surroundings and immerse themselves in the surroundings of the people they interviewed. Prior to the oral history interviews, the students received training on how to ask questions that encouraged in-depth responses centered on personal memories.  

Following the interview stage, students transcribed the interviews and presented them to the class, along with a visual symbol that captured the narrator’s personality and story. Andre Brown, a student at Millersville who was interviewed by Jennifer Hoppe and Eric Lloyd, shared a photograph of his grandparents that he treasured as an important connection to them and to his family home in Puerto Rico. Another narrator shared a white lace pattern, typical of a pollera, the traditional dress of Panama, shown to the student interviewers in a picture that embodied the narrator’s sense of pride in their personal and cultural identity – the narrator’s mother was a seamstress.  

As part of her honors project for the course, Gabi Kime worked directly with Ortiz as a project leader. She was charged with documenting the entire community arts process, including community meetings, classroom workshops, interviews, mural theme development and design. Kime sorted through many hours of footage to create a comprehensive narrative of the process.