Oral history is a sound recording of historical information, obtained through an interview that preserves a person's life history or eyewitness account of a past experience. The recordings carry the witness of the present into the future, where through creative programs and publications, they can inform, instruct, and inspire generations to come.
Oral history provides a fuller, more accurate picture of the past by augmenting the information provided by public records, statistical data, photographs, maps, letters, diaries, and other historical materials. Eyewitnesses to events contribute various viewpoints and perspectives that fill in the gaps in documented history, sometimes correcting or even contradicting the written record. Interviewers are able to ask questions left out of other records and to interview people whose stories have been untold or forgotten. At times, an interview may serve as the only source of information available about a certain place, event, or person.
Oral history helps us understand how individuals and communities experienced the forces of history.–Baylor University Institute for Oral History
http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/43912.pdf
![]() "Photographs." Amilkar Velez–López – Papers, Puerto Rican Community Archives at the Newark Public Library. OZ_SZ 4. The Justice Project |
![]() "Campaign – McCann '85." Eliú Rivera – Papers, Puerto Rican Community Archives at the Newark Public Library. OZ_SZ 1. Latino Life Stories |
Search the Latino Oral History Collection:
• Interviews of 15 community leaders from different regions of the state.• Activist Voices (2009-2010) [work in progress]
• Pioneer Puerto Rican community leader, activist, educator, Hilda Hidalgo[This collection will be made available online as funding becomes available for additional processing.]
• Historian, educator, community leader, Dr. Olga Jiménez–Wagenheim
• 10 interviews focusing on the theme of justice. The interviewees' professional backgrounds are diverse, including the legal profession and law enforcement, but also extending into prisoner advocacy, social services, labor organizing, media and electoral politics.The NJHRIC conducted targeted studies on the Cuban, Dominican, Colombian and Ecuadorian communities in New Jersey during the latter part of the 2000s, for a series of New Jersey Latino Community Profiles. As a result of this research, the Center is now in possession of four distinct collections of interviews documenting these communities. As funding becomes available these interviews will be processed and incorporated into the Latino Oral History Collection.
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LIST OF ALL INTERVIEW CANDIDATES BY NAME
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