IT'S DECEMBER 1, 1920, in Mexico City. After witnessing the inauguration of President Álvaro Obregón, University of Texas Regent H.J. Lutcher Stark and Chair of Latin American History Charles Wilson Hackett stumble upon an amazing find as they walk down Madero Street. Historian and head librarian … [Read more...] about Celebrating a Century
Benson Collection
Staff Pick: Ernesto Cardenal in Solentiname
Ernesto Cardenal in Solentiname, Ernesto Cardenal Papers, 1925–2016 BY DYLAN JOY The acquisition of the Ernesto Cardenal Papers in 2016 marked a renewed focus by LLILAS Benson on collecting and preserving collections and stories from Central America. Cardenal, who passed away at 95 in March … [Read more...] about Staff Pick: Ernesto Cardenal in Solentiname
Message from the Benson Collection Director
I AM SO PROUD to feature the Benson Centennial in Portal. While it is impossible to tell the complete story of this great library in a single issue, nearly every piece of this edition provides a glimpse of what has been created over the past one hundred years, from the foundational Genaro García … [Read more...] about Message from the Benson Collection Director
Selections from the LADI Repository
BY DAVID A. BLISS THE LATIN AMERICAN DIGITAL INITIATIVES (LADI) website holds archival collections from six of the Benson’s post-custodial archival partner organizations in Latin America. Beginning in 2014, Benson archivists worked with partner institutions to digitize and describe collections … [Read more...] about Selections from the LADI Repository
Inside the Agrasánchez Collection of Mexican Cinema
BY DIEGO GODOY THE YOUNG HIGINIO GRANDA stood soldierly as he faced a mansion on Colón Street in Mexico City. Blond, svelte, and possessing a peninsular accent, he had the ability to pass as a “decent” person. But he was far from it, as his over twenty stints in jail might suggest. … [Read more...] about Inside the Agrasánchez Collection of Mexican Cinema
Staff Pick: Manifesto ao povo nordestino
Margaret Keck Collection of Brazilian Labor Movement Materials BY RYAN LYNCH As staff processed the Margaret Keck Collection, I peeked into a folder of Worker’s Party (PT) election ephemera from 1982. This was the first year that the PT, the party of future president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, … [Read more...] about Staff Pick: Manifesto ao povo nordestino
Staff Pick: Student Activism in the Archives
BY ALBERT A. PALACIOS Uruguayan Political Propaganda, 1963–1984 There is a very serious plague that has been scourging through the country for years now, and that plague is imperialism. In the summer of 1969, Uruguayan trade unions flooded the streets of Montevideo to protest the visit of … [Read more...] about Staff Pick: Student Activism in the Archives
The Hijuelas Books: Digitizing Indigenous Archives in Mexico
BY MATTHEW BUTLER and JOHN ERARD THE ROADS TO MICHOACÁN: MATTHEW BUTLER IT IS SAID that the history of a Mexican pueblo is the history of its lands. What better way, then, to explore that history than through land records such as Michoacán’s hijuelas books? I first came across these … [Read more...] about The Hijuelas Books: Digitizing Indigenous Archives in Mexico
Decolonial Feminists Unite! Dorothy Schons and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
BY ALICIA GASPAR DE ALBA BACK IN 1986, when Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz first started speaking to me in my dreams, I would be talking to her on the phone—that old rotary black phone my grandparents used to have—but I could see her clearly, wearing her black and white Hieronymite habit and my black … [Read more...] about Decolonial Feminists Unite! Dorothy Schons and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
To and From the “Real” World: Concrete Art and Poetry in Latin America
BY JULIA DETCHON IN THE FALL OF 1945, gathered at the Buenos Aires homes of the psychoanalyst Enrique Pichón-Rivière and the photographer Grete Stern, a group of Argentine artists hatched an idea for a new movement based on abstract principles of painting. Under the name Arte Madí, they declared … [Read more...] about To and From the “Real” World: Concrete Art and Poetry in Latin America
