With internship seed money from NALCAB (National Association of Latino Community Asset Builders), St. Mary’s University’s Public History Graduate Program has launched a project to recover the history and promote historical awareness of the critically important role Latino community development initiatives have played in the economic mobility of Latin American origin ethnic groups in the United States since the 1960s.

Virtually unknown, this history begs to be recovered, documented, and disseminated. The political and cultural histories of Latino activism during these early years have received considerable scholarly attention, but the nationally important Latino Community Development Corporation (CDC) movement is less well known. This is because Latino CDCs emerged after the initial Civil Rights political activism and continued their work relatively quietly. The project’s aim is to analyze and share how diverse Latino communities faced similar challenges, and how these communities worked within similar contexts to build a shared consciousness of Latinidad and Latino self-determination.

Faculty and graduate student interns at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio are creating an archive, developing historical narratives and interpretive understandings, and exploring methods like this website for disseminating the story. Along the way, Public History faculty at St. Mary’s University hope to develop the scope of a specialty within the graduate program, including an introductory course on the History of Latino Community Development Movements.

Latino Community Development: Histories of Economic and Social Justice, Preserving our Stories and Legacy is a project of St. Mary’s University and NALCAB.

Our Project Team

Contributors

If you’d like to be interviewed, have a referral or materials you’d like to have archived, or would simply like more information on this project, please contact Gerald Poyo at gpoyo@stmarytx.edu or Lindsey Wieck at lwieck@stmarytx.edu.