Acknowledgments
Through this project, we learned and carried out several important skills. We learned how to professionally reach out to community members for interviews and networking purposes. We also learned how to apply scholarly topics and themes to the real world and make connections to real life examples. Overall, this project allowed us to step out of the classroom and adopt a broader and more realistic point of view. Furthermore, we learned to work on several digital platforms and practice our recording, editing, and troubleshooting skills. Most importantly, this project allowed us to listen and give the Latinx community a voice which was very important to us.
While making our podcasts, many of us struggled with finding the balance between accurately representing the people we interviewed and providing our own interpretations. Though at times it could be difficult, because of this experience we can view our current history through a more critical lens while remaining understanding and empathetic. The stories we listened to in this project were not always pretty and shine a light on some of the injustices faced by the Latinx community, but that has not blinded us from all of the positives. We invite whoever listens to these podcasts to also listen to the original oral histories and make their own judgments, and perhaps become more aware of their own voice like we have.
We would like to thank Flora and Abner Gonzalez, Edgar Posada, Ray Lira, Silmarie Rodriguez, Edwiges Gonzalez, and Willy Rodriguez for being kind enough to spare us their time and tell us their stories. We especially appreciate their patience with us as we navigated this project during the COVID-19 pandemic, which required most of us to hold our interviews remotely. We are grateful we had the opportunity to work with them, as this project would not have been possible without them.
We would also like to thank the IT department and everyone at the tech lending center for being a valuable resource and showing us the ropes in the recording booth. We also thank the library staff for accepting this project and for allowing us to leave something meaningful behind at the F&M libraries.
We would like to thank the many historians and writers whose writings we drew upon throughout our podcasts, especially Mike Davis and Juan Gonzalez. Their ideas allowed us to think more analytically about the topics at hand and the world around us. Reading their works prepared us for our interviews and for interpreting them afterward.
Lastly, we would like to thank Professor Oelze for teaching this class and hosting this project. We cannot thank him enough for this unique opportunity and the support he gave us throughout the semester. The lessons we learned in this class extend beyond the world of academia, and we are grateful for all he did for us.
Anyone with comments or questions regarding this project can email Micah Oelze at [email protected].
While making our podcasts, many of us struggled with finding the balance between accurately representing the people we interviewed and providing our own interpretations. Though at times it could be difficult, because of this experience we can view our current history through a more critical lens while remaining understanding and empathetic. The stories we listened to in this project were not always pretty and shine a light on some of the injustices faced by the Latinx community, but that has not blinded us from all of the positives. We invite whoever listens to these podcasts to also listen to the original oral histories and make their own judgments, and perhaps become more aware of their own voice like we have.
We would like to thank Flora and Abner Gonzalez, Edgar Posada, Ray Lira, Silmarie Rodriguez, Edwiges Gonzalez, and Willy Rodriguez for being kind enough to spare us their time and tell us their stories. We especially appreciate their patience with us as we navigated this project during the COVID-19 pandemic, which required most of us to hold our interviews remotely. We are grateful we had the opportunity to work with them, as this project would not have been possible without them.
We would also like to thank the IT department and everyone at the tech lending center for being a valuable resource and showing us the ropes in the recording booth. We also thank the library staff for accepting this project and for allowing us to leave something meaningful behind at the F&M libraries.
We would like to thank the many historians and writers whose writings we drew upon throughout our podcasts, especially Mike Davis and Juan Gonzalez. Their ideas allowed us to think more analytically about the topics at hand and the world around us. Reading their works prepared us for our interviews and for interpreting them afterward.
Lastly, we would like to thank Professor Oelze for teaching this class and hosting this project. We cannot thank him enough for this unique opportunity and the support he gave us throughout the semester. The lessons we learned in this class extend beyond the world of academia, and we are grateful for all he did for us.
Anyone with comments or questions regarding this project can email Micah Oelze at [email protected].