BY JOSÉ MONTELONGO Para algunos, un diario es una excursión hacia adentro, confrontación con uno mismo que se emprende en momentos de crisis y de transformación. Para otros no es un proyecto pasajero —que acompaña un rito de pasaje— sino una necesidad vital y cotidiana, una respiración. Eso fue … [Read more...] about Una vida en 327 cuadernos: el archivo literario de María Luisa Puga
Benson Collection
From the Director
This is my first opportunity to greet you from the pages of Portal as the director of LLILAS Benson. I came into this position with many years of connections to LLILAS and the Benson Collection. I started teaching at The University of Texas at Austin in 1990, when I had an appointment at … [Read more...] about From the Director
Cardenal en tiempos difíciles
POR LUIS CÁRCAMO-HUECHANTE Leer en inglés Fue un invierno de 1979. Ya cursaba mi cuarto año de educación secundaria en el liceo de la ciudad de Valdivia, sur de Chile. En una de mis clases, la profesora de castellano sorprendió al curso y llegó al aula con un tocadiscos. Lo prendió y puso en … [Read more...] about Cardenal en tiempos difíciles
Digital Keepers: The Ethics of Saving Online Data about Latin American Social Movements
ILASSA STUDENT CONFERENCE PAPER BY ITZA A. CARBAJAL On March 24, 2015, Soad Nicole Ham Bustillos, age 13, and three other young Hondurans, all high school students, were murdered in Tegucigalpa. Less than 24 hours earlier, video footage had shown them publicly protesting against recent changes … [Read more...] about Digital Keepers: The Ethics of Saving Online Data about Latin American Social Movements
Anzaldúa across Borders: A Traveling Thought Gallery
BY SUSANNA SHARPE An image is a bridge between evoked emotion and conscious knowledge; words are cables that hold up the bridge. —Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, 1987 When Chicana author, cultural theorist, and feminist Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa died in 2004, she … [Read more...] about Anzaldúa across Borders: A Traveling Thought Gallery
Establishing History: The Black Diaspora Archive and the Texas Domestic Slave Trade Project
BY RACHEL E. WINSTON The vision for the Black Diaspora Archive at The University of Texas at Austin came into focus in 2013 as a collaborative project between Black Studies, LLILAS Benson, and the University of Texas Libraries. After years of continued successful collaboration, Black Studies … [Read more...] about Establishing History: The Black Diaspora Archive and the Texas Domestic Slave Trade Project
Cardenal in Hard Times
BY LUIS E. CÁRCAMO-HUECHANTE Leer en español It was the winter of 1979. I was already in my fourth year of high school in Valdivia, in southern Chile, when my literature teacher surprised my class by bringing in a record player. As she turned it on, a singular voice came out, with an accent … [Read more...] about Cardenal in Hard Times
Reading the First Books: Colonial Mexican Documents in the Digital Age
BY HANNAH ALPERT-ABRAMS AND MARIA VICTORIA FERNANDEZ In 1595, in Mexico City, the Jesuit priest Antonio del Rincón (1555–1601) published a grammatical description of the Nahuatl language. Though other grammars of Nahuatl existed, Rincón’s Arte mexicana was the first to describe the indigenous … [Read more...] about Reading the First Books: Colonial Mexican Documents in the Digital Age
Love, Cacao, and Chocolate’s Mesoamerican Origins
By PILAR ZAZUETA No other Western holiday is more closely identified with chocolate than Valentine’s Day. The seasonal aisles in stores and supermarkets are filled with chocolate, and food companies spend vast sums of advertising dollars trying to persuade us to celebrate by consuming it in large … [Read more...] about Love, Cacao, and Chocolate’s Mesoamerican Origins
Interview with Ernesto Cardenal
In spring 2016, José Montelongo, librarian at the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, visited the home of Father Ernesto Cardenal in Managua, Nicaragua. The occasion was the recent acquisition of Father Cardenal's personal papers, an archive that now resides at the Benson. In these excerpts … [Read more...] about Interview with Ernesto Cardenal