What’s happening?
More than a dozen students from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County have created a timeline that fills the gaps in the history of Southeast Baltimore’s Highlandtown neighborhood. The project details Latino politics, history, and food culture in the community from the 1980s to the 1990s.
What kind of research did they conduct for this project?
The students researched various archives and hosted panel discussions with community leaders and business owners. They have also partnered with the Baltimore Field School, which is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
“It’s not a perfect process, because we don’t really have the same volume of information that we have for immigrants that are white, like Greek and Italian people,” said Ruby Millen, a designer and project organizer. “We would have to use these strange, uncomfortable buzzwords that like we’re not really used to using in scholarly discourse now. ‘Ethnic’ and ’melting pot’ were important search terms that we ended up using with this project, and it would be kind of disheartening.”
Anything else I should know?
The students will continue to conduct research and plan to publicly launch their findings in April.
You can read more here.
