by Erin Prentiss
On Sunday, May 15 from 2 to 4 p.m., at the Augusta Richmond County Public Library (823 Telfair St.), the University Libraries will conclude their Latino Americans series with the event Latino Americans: A Celebration. We invite you to join us as we enjoy a sweet ending to this series with stories from Hispanic/Latino community members, entertainment, and dessert.
At this event, we will unveil the Latinos in Augusta Oral History Project website. Erin Prentiss and Thomas Weeks have been collecting oral histories and mementos from local Latino community members, and this collection will be made available to the public through the project website and in Reese Library’s Special Collections.
To date, over 280 people have attended the Latino Americans events, from the film and lecture series on the PBS documentary, Latino Americans, to roundtable discussions of local Latino community members sharing inspirational personal stories. If you missed any of the films, you can watch them for free online in English and Spanish. You can also learn more about the topics of the series through bibliographies that were created specifically for these events.
The University Libraries would like to thank everyone at Augusta University who helped make this series a success, especially Dr. Christopher Botero, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Dr. Jana Sandarg, Dr. Giada Biasetti, Dr. Juan Walker, Ms. Karen Mobley, and Ms. Carol Giardina. A special thank you goes to project scholar, Dr. Heather Abdelnur, associate professor of history, who served as the principal moderator of the film and discussion series and presented a fascinating lecture on the history of Antonio Martínez, the Cuban founder of the town of Martinez.
