WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.760 --> 00:00:04.680 Hi, dear listener. My name is Renaldo Leanos Junior, and 2 00:00:04.800 --> 00:00:07.880 I'm a producer with Latino USA. Part of my job 3 00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:11.280 is to speak with people from across the country. Some 4 00:00:11.360 --> 00:00:13.200 of the places I have been to with the show 5 00:00:13.440 --> 00:00:19.480 are Texas, Alaska, Mississippi, North Dakota, Iowa, just to name 6 00:00:19.520 --> 00:00:22.080 a few. This is my favorite part of the job, 7 00:00:22.320 --> 00:00:25.520 talking to people, learning about them and bringing you the 8 00:00:25.560 --> 00:00:29.160 stories firsthand. Thank you for supporting us these past three 9 00:00:29.200 --> 00:00:32.040 decades and I hope you stay with us for many 10 00:00:32.080 --> 00:00:36.200 more years to come. Happy thirtieth anniversary Latino USA. 11 00:00:36.920 --> 00:00:40.000 This is Latino USA, the radio journal of news and 12 00:00:40.159 --> 00:00:43.519 kurtur Latino USA. La Latino USA. 13 00:00:43.760 --> 00:00:47.320 I'm Maria Inojosa. We bring you stories that are underreported 14 00:00:47.640 --> 00:00:50.120 but that mattered to you, overlooked by the rest of 15 00:00:50.159 --> 00:00:52.400 the media, and while the country is struggling to deal 16 00:00:52.440 --> 00:00:55.120 with these we listen to the stories of black and Latinos. 17 00:00:55.120 --> 00:01:00.040 Studios United Latino Front, a cultural renaissance organizing at the 18 00:01:00.080 --> 00:01:04.480 forefront of the movement. I'm Maria Inojsa no Bayan. 19 00:01:07.040 --> 00:01:09.720 If you've been listening to Latino USA this year, you 20 00:01:09.880 --> 00:01:13.080 probably know that we've been working on special episodes to 21 00:01:13.200 --> 00:01:19.120 celebrate our thirtieth anniversary of being on the air. We've 22 00:01:19.120 --> 00:01:21.760 been looking back at our archives and the history of 23 00:01:21.800 --> 00:01:25.600 the show. As a producer at Latino USA, I've been 24 00:01:25.640 --> 00:01:29.000 working closely with the archivist and librarians at the University 25 00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:32.840 of Texas in Austin so we could play clips from 26 00:01:32.880 --> 00:01:37.440 our earliest episodes. That's because the Latino USA archives are 27 00:01:37.480 --> 00:01:41.520 at the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection in ut Austin. 28 00:01:42.520 --> 00:01:46.119 We've exchanged emails, chatted over the phone, been on video 29 00:01:46.200 --> 00:01:50.320 calls for hours, and Ryan Lynch, the head of Special 30 00:01:50.320 --> 00:01:54.200 Collections at the Benson, even visited the Putuo offices in 31 00:01:54.240 --> 00:01:58.920 New York this year. When Ryan was there talking about 32 00:01:58.920 --> 00:02:02.240 the work they do at the library, he mentioned something 33 00:02:02.440 --> 00:02:08.400 in passing that they were putting audio recordings in an oven. 34 00:02:09.560 --> 00:02:11.880 It was so strange that I just had to come 35 00:02:11.919 --> 00:02:13.880 to Austin to see it with my own eyes. 36 00:02:17.480 --> 00:02:22.359 Guess he's here, Hi, Hi, Katie. 37 00:02:26.320 --> 00:02:29.480 It's been three months since Ryan visited New York too. 38 00:02:29.560 --> 00:02:31.800 That's like old projectors and. 39 00:02:31.480 --> 00:02:33.720 I'm in a large room in the basement of the 40 00:02:33.760 --> 00:02:35.720 main library of the UT campus. 41 00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:38.040 This is a portable DVD player. 42 00:02:38.240 --> 00:02:41.440 I remember those h It's built with all sorts of 43 00:02:41.480 --> 00:02:46.480 equipment that's not in use. Computers, cassettes, tape players line 44 00:02:46.520 --> 00:02:49.600 the walls and shelves, and towards the back of the 45 00:02:49.680 --> 00:02:52.600 room there's a metal box with a thermometer sticking out 46 00:02:52.600 --> 00:02:52.959 on top. 47 00:02:53.520 --> 00:02:56.120 So this is our little lab oven. 48 00:02:56.840 --> 00:03:00.600 That's Katie Thornton. She works at ut Live Berries as 49 00:03:00.639 --> 00:03:04.520 a digital acid delivery coordinator. So it's not that hot. 50 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:08.200 No, it is only about one hundred and thirty degrees inside. 51 00:03:08.639 --> 00:03:12.200 That's the optimal temperature for baking tape. 52 00:03:13.600 --> 00:03:19.000 Yes, Katie is baking reels of tape. She needs to 53 00:03:19.040 --> 00:03:22.400 do this because, after being stored for so long, the 54 00:03:22.440 --> 00:03:26.520 magnetic audio tapes can absorb moisture from the air. It's 55 00:03:26.639 --> 00:03:32.280 a process called binder hydrolysis, which makes them sticky. Luckily, 56 00:03:32.440 --> 00:03:36.000 baking them fixes that. And how long do you know 57 00:03:36.120 --> 00:03:36.680 to bake it? 58 00:03:37.240 --> 00:03:38.720 Bye trying. 59 00:03:40.120 --> 00:03:43.920 So for months. Every time we ask the Benson for 60 00:03:43.960 --> 00:03:47.680 one of Latino USA's early shows, Katie would go into 61 00:03:47.720 --> 00:03:51.680 the basement, put a tape in the oven for at 62 00:03:51.800 --> 00:03:55.120 least three days, take it out and let it cool. 63 00:03:55.920 --> 00:03:59.080 Then Katie would mount it on the tape player, copy 64 00:03:59.120 --> 00:04:01.480 it to the computer and prepare the file to be 65 00:04:01.560 --> 00:04:09.240 sent to us. If it weren't for Katie, maybe those 66 00:04:09.280 --> 00:04:12.720 recordings would have been lost and we wouldn't have been 67 00:04:12.760 --> 00:04:15.200 able to look at ourselves in the mirror as a show. 68 00:04:16.360 --> 00:04:19.480 Seeing just this tiny bit of what goes on at 69 00:04:19.480 --> 00:04:23.479 the library, I realized that even if their work might 70 00:04:23.520 --> 00:04:27.839 go unseen, archivists and librarians at the Benson and other 71 00:04:27.880 --> 00:04:32.040 institutions like it hold a lot of power and responsibility 72 00:04:32.200 --> 00:04:34.800 in keeping our history and narratives alive. 73 00:04:39.839 --> 00:04:43.679 From Fudro Media and PRX, It's Latino USA, I'm Maria 74 00:04:43.720 --> 00:04:48.120 in no Josa today. The archivists a special look at 75 00:04:48.120 --> 00:04:52.360 the people and one particular place that's devoted to preserving 76 00:04:52.560 --> 00:05:04.600 Latino history. Earlier this year, Latino USA producer Victoria Estrada, 77 00:05:04.839 --> 00:05:06.520 who you just heard at the top of the show, 78 00:05:07.120 --> 00:05:14.080 traveled to Austin. She was there to visit the Nettie 79 00:05:14.240 --> 00:05:18.040 Lee Benson Latin American Collection, one of the most important 80 00:05:18.080 --> 00:05:22.400 institutions collecting the history and stories of Latin America and 81 00:05:22.640 --> 00:05:28.760 of US Latinas and Latinos. The Benson Library is located 82 00:05:28.880 --> 00:05:31.520 on the main campus of the University of Texas at 83 00:05:31.560 --> 00:05:35.039 Austin It's in a building on top of a small 84 00:05:35.160 --> 00:05:39.119 hill in the far east section of the campus, next 85 00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:44.920 to the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, and anyone can 86 00:05:44.960 --> 00:05:48.960 actually visit the library. In fact, I was there just 87 00:05:49.120 --> 00:05:53.800 last spring looking at the Latino USA Archives, which the 88 00:05:53.920 --> 00:05:57.680 library holds. This is a whole cart that's dedicated to 89 00:05:57.760 --> 00:05:58.560 Latino USA. 90 00:05:58.760 --> 00:06:01.359 Oh yes, oh okay. 91 00:06:01.800 --> 00:06:06.320 In academic circles, the Benson is known as the Library 92 00:06:06.440 --> 00:06:11.000 of the Americas. So Victoria, our producer, wanted to know 93 00:06:11.080 --> 00:06:14.039 if it could live up to that title, and she 94 00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:15.160 brings us the story. 95 00:06:15.200 --> 00:06:20.200 Now, my name is Maggie Rivas Rodriguez. 96 00:06:20.320 --> 00:06:25.280 I'm interviewing Petrita Alanis Sanchez for the Bosses Oral History Center. 97 00:06:25.640 --> 00:06:28.719 What you're hearing is a video recording of an interview 98 00:06:28.760 --> 00:06:32.640 from one of the archival collections at the Benson. In 99 00:06:32.680 --> 00:06:35.039 the middle of the screen, there's an older woman with 100 00:06:35.160 --> 00:06:38.520 short light hair and the interviewer is off screen. 101 00:06:38.920 --> 00:06:40.600 You didn't finish high school, right? 102 00:06:40.680 --> 00:06:41.120 Why was that? 103 00:06:42.160 --> 00:06:45.640 My dad had a grocery store and he had his 104 00:06:45.800 --> 00:06:50.680 other businesses, garage and none of that, and they started 105 00:06:50.720 --> 00:06:53.800 taking my brothers to the war Second World War. 106 00:06:54.400 --> 00:06:58.600 This projects was started in nineteen ninety nine to document 107 00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:01.800 and preserve the story of Latinos and Latinas of the 108 00:07:01.839 --> 00:07:05.200 World War two generation. It's hard to know how many 109 00:07:05.279 --> 00:07:08.840 Latinos served in the military during the war. There were 110 00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:12.320 as many as two hundred and fifty to seven hundred 111 00:07:12.360 --> 00:07:16.640 and fifty thousand Latino soldiers that fought, but their contributions 112 00:07:16.680 --> 00:07:19.640 and those of their families have often been overlooked. 113 00:07:20.280 --> 00:07:23.560 Do you remember if they were drafted or if they enlisted. 114 00:07:23.920 --> 00:07:27.239 No, they were drafted. All of them were drafted. 115 00:07:28.600 --> 00:07:31.320 More than fifty years after the end of World War Two, 116 00:07:32.040 --> 00:07:35.160 the archive was started to collect the stories of hundreds 117 00:07:35.200 --> 00:07:39.440 of men and women like Petrita, and later was expanded 118 00:07:39.480 --> 00:07:42.800 to also include veterans of the Korean and Vietnam Wars. 119 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:45.880 How did your family feel about your parents feel about 120 00:07:45.920 --> 00:07:47.760 them going into the military. 121 00:07:48.200 --> 00:07:51.840 There were no choice, honey, no choice. There's a war 122 00:07:51.960 --> 00:07:55.720 going on and they had to take them. They had 123 00:07:55.760 --> 00:07:59.800 no choice, so they all went to the army. 124 00:08:06.640 --> 00:08:10.120 The Nattalie Benson Latin American Collection is home to more 125 00:08:10.160 --> 00:08:17.160 than a million materials. Between books, documents, magazines, recordings, maps, posters, 126 00:08:17.200 --> 00:08:21.400 and a long etc. It holds an untold number of 127 00:08:21.440 --> 00:08:26.880 stories just like Patrita's. It's something that has always fascinated 128 00:08:26.920 --> 00:08:31.560 me about libraries. I was a literature major, so I 129 00:08:31.560 --> 00:08:36.000 would spend hours in the library stacks looking for something 130 00:08:36.160 --> 00:08:39.200 in particular, or just picking out books at random to 131 00:08:39.200 --> 00:08:42.560 see what I could find. And I was in college 132 00:08:42.600 --> 00:08:45.600 back in Mexico, where I'm from when I first heard 133 00:08:45.640 --> 00:08:49.280 about the Benson. When I was finishing my bachelor's I 134 00:08:49.400 --> 00:08:52.880 was trying to read everything that Maria Luisa Puga, the 135 00:08:52.920 --> 00:08:57.800 Mexican writer I did my thesis on, had published. Whenever 136 00:08:57.800 --> 00:09:01.080 I couldn't find a book in my university's life, I 137 00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:04.960 would look on an online catalog of libraries across the world. 138 00:09:06.520 --> 00:09:09.960 I would see that almost always there was a copy 139 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:14.640 of the book in Austin, Texas at the Benson. It 140 00:09:14.720 --> 00:09:17.720 made me jealous to think about this library that seemed 141 00:09:17.760 --> 00:09:21.960 to have everything, but it also made me happy to 142 00:09:22.120 --> 00:09:25.480 think that such a place existed anywhere in the world. 143 00:09:26.720 --> 00:09:29.640 At their best, libraries have always seemed to me like 144 00:09:29.679 --> 00:09:32.600 an ideal version of what the world can be. They're 145 00:09:32.600 --> 00:09:36.640 more organized than almost any other place, and the people 146 00:09:36.679 --> 00:09:40.679 you find there always seem to be nicer and more helpful. Also, 147 00:09:40.840 --> 00:09:45.480 they're free, but there are also places with their own histories, 148 00:09:45.920 --> 00:09:49.600 a product of their time and the people who build them, 149 00:09:49.720 --> 00:09:56.720 and that can come with some baggage. I knew that 150 00:09:56.800 --> 00:10:00.920 the Benson had an important collection about Mexico in Latin America, 151 00:10:01.880 --> 00:10:05.360 but when researching for this story, it surprised me to 152 00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:09.280 find that in its early history it focused on collecting 153 00:10:09.360 --> 00:10:13.120 materials from those countries and left out a very important 154 00:10:13.120 --> 00:10:18.880 community Latinos and Latinas like Petrita, who lived in the US. 155 00:10:19.200 --> 00:10:21.240 The fact is that we don't know what's lost. In 156 00:10:21.280 --> 00:10:24.560 some cases, people talk about the gaps in the archive 157 00:10:24.920 --> 00:10:27.120 because it wasn't documented, it was lost. 158 00:10:27.880 --> 00:10:31.760 This is Carla Alvarez. She is the Latino Studies archivist 159 00:10:31.800 --> 00:10:35.160 at the Benson. She has her hair slicked back in 160 00:10:35.200 --> 00:10:39.560 a tight pointy tail, glasses and an excitement is showing 161 00:10:39.559 --> 00:10:42.040 me some of the things in the Benson collection that 162 00:10:42.160 --> 00:10:43.520 can barely be contained. 163 00:10:43.720 --> 00:10:45.880 So these said on this book truck, I have a 164 00:10:45.920 --> 00:10:47.959 bunch of boxes. I don't know if you have seen 165 00:10:48.200 --> 00:10:50.640 arkable boxes before, Like this is how we keep the 166 00:10:50.760 --> 00:10:51.560 archable material. 167 00:10:51.840 --> 00:10:56.160 As an archivist, Cadla spends her days sorting materials, describing 168 00:10:56.200 --> 00:11:00.520 them and putting them in categories. It's meticulous work that 169 00:11:00.679 --> 00:11:03.800 can be repetitive, but Carla knows that it's connected to 170 00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:04.720 a broader purpose. 171 00:11:05.200 --> 00:11:08.000 I'm not thinking about next month or next year. The 172 00:11:08.040 --> 00:11:10.400 work that I do is part of that of extending 173 00:11:10.440 --> 00:11:12.720 the life of the item, and then I like to 174 00:11:12.720 --> 00:11:15.040 think that they're going to be here hundreds of years 175 00:11:15.120 --> 00:11:19.880 after I'm gone. Earlier, I was telling you about the 176 00:11:19.920 --> 00:11:22.960 activism that happened here at ut Too. 177 00:11:23.120 --> 00:11:26.400 Today we're on the second floor of the Benson, next 178 00:11:26.400 --> 00:11:30.400 to stacks and stacks of books, and Carla has pulled 179 00:11:30.400 --> 00:11:33.760 materials from the archives that document the fight that had 180 00:11:33.800 --> 00:11:36.680 to happen for US Latino history to be included in 181 00:11:36.720 --> 00:11:37.199 the Benson. 182 00:11:37.360 --> 00:11:40.160 And what I have here are the some folders from 183 00:11:40.160 --> 00:11:41.520 the America Bardades Archive. 184 00:11:41.960 --> 00:11:46.120 Doctor Americo Parredes was a renowned scholar, as our host 185 00:11:46.240 --> 00:11:49.400 Marienno Josa put it on the nineteen ninety nine episode 186 00:11:49.480 --> 00:11:51.280 dedicated to him after his passing. 187 00:11:52.200 --> 00:11:55.600 For more than forty years, Badas wrote about the culture 188 00:11:55.640 --> 00:12:00.000 and folklore of the lower Rio Grande Valley, about the music, folks, saying, 189 00:12:00.520 --> 00:12:03.319 and oral traditions of the people living along the Texas 190 00:12:03.320 --> 00:12:04.280 border with Mexico. 191 00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:08.800 But it is was the founding director of the Center 192 00:12:08.840 --> 00:12:14.000 for Mexican American Studies or SEAMAS. SEMAS was established in 193 00:12:14.160 --> 00:12:17.040 ut in the year nineteen seventy as a result of 194 00:12:17.120 --> 00:12:19.959 demands by the student Chicano movement to have a place 195 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:23.400 to study Chicano history. But the center had a very 196 00:12:23.480 --> 00:12:27.040 rocky start in those early years. But it has tried 197 00:12:27.080 --> 00:12:30.960 to resign several times as director, he felt that the 198 00:12:31.080 --> 00:12:34.840 administration had only created the center as a public relations 199 00:12:34.880 --> 00:12:39.600 move and he wanted real change. After his third resignation, 200 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:42.880 but it is wrote a letter publicly announcing his reasons 201 00:12:42.920 --> 00:12:43.440 for leaving. 202 00:12:44.160 --> 00:12:46.720 In what we have here, this is an actual draft 203 00:12:47.120 --> 00:12:51.280 in his handwriting. The letter is dated February first, nineteen 204 00:12:51.280 --> 00:12:55.280 seventy two. In the beginning of the message says, many 205 00:12:55.280 --> 00:12:58.800 persons have been involved in our Mexican American Studies program. 206 00:12:59.120 --> 00:13:03.280 In the letter that calls out the ut administration, saying 207 00:13:03.520 --> 00:13:06.319 it was trying to lump Mexican American studies with a 208 00:13:06.360 --> 00:13:11.000 more generic ethnic studies label. There was also no effort 209 00:13:11.080 --> 00:13:14.680 to acquire the necessary materials to support the research done 210 00:13:14.720 --> 00:13:21.080 at the center. It took two more years, but finally 211 00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:25.400 in nineteen seventy four, the Mexican American Library program was 212 00:13:25.480 --> 00:13:29.040 created at the Benson, and with it came the resources 213 00:13:29.040 --> 00:13:33.120 and instructions to start collecting materials about Latino communities in 214 00:13:33.160 --> 00:13:36.640 the US. It's the reason the Benson holds the Latino 215 00:13:36.760 --> 00:13:41.000 USA Archives, as well as countless other important collections like 216 00:13:41.080 --> 00:13:46.040 voses with Petrita's oral history, or the personal papers of philosopher, 217 00:13:46.160 --> 00:13:51.080 writer and scholar Gloria Anzaldua, who shaped contemporary lesbian and 218 00:13:51.160 --> 00:13:56.400 Chicano cultural theory for Carla. Having these materials at the 219 00:13:56.440 --> 00:13:59.040 Benson is an essential part of the archives. 220 00:13:59.800 --> 00:14:03.000 There's no effort to document a community. That history is lost, 221 00:14:03.720 --> 00:14:06.920 and that's terrible because those lives that lived here, and 222 00:14:06.960 --> 00:14:09.480 you can't really tell the history of a place, of 223 00:14:09.520 --> 00:14:11.959 a country. If you don't have that, you're not documenting 224 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:17.000 everyone who's part of that community. Because if we don't 225 00:14:17.040 --> 00:14:20.200 study and we don't have a center or a library 226 00:14:20.200 --> 00:14:23.480 dedicated to Latinos, then it's like you don't exist, and 227 00:14:23.520 --> 00:14:24.640 obviously we exist. 228 00:14:24.800 --> 00:14:25.640 We are here. 229 00:14:36.040 --> 00:14:39.080 Coming up on Latino USA. We look at some of 230 00:14:39.120 --> 00:14:42.920 the objects that connect the Benson to the distant past, 231 00:14:43.400 --> 00:14:47.640 explore its complicated history, and look at possibilities for how 232 00:14:47.680 --> 00:14:51.320 the library can move into the future, stay with. 233 00:14:51.320 --> 00:14:52.440 Us, not the US. 234 00:15:14.040 --> 00:15:18.000 Hi, Maria, this is MirOS Vargas. I love all your 235 00:15:18.200 --> 00:15:21.360 documental everything that you do in there. You have a 236 00:15:21.360 --> 00:15:24.960 fabulous boys, and you really intrigued me to listen to 237 00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:28.600 your program. I really love your show. Congratulations on your 238 00:15:28.680 --> 00:15:31.400 thirty years and aim for another thirty or forty. 239 00:15:31.720 --> 00:15:32.000 Why not? 240 00:15:40.080 --> 00:15:43.160 Hey, we're back. Before the break, we learned about the 241 00:15:43.200 --> 00:15:47.320 efforts in the nineteen seventies to start recording and preserving 242 00:15:47.720 --> 00:15:50.800 the stories and the history of Latino communities in the 243 00:15:50.880 --> 00:15:55.040 United States. That fight resulted in the creation of the 244 00:15:55.080 --> 00:15:59.280 Mexican American Library program at the Nettie Lee Benson Latin 245 00:15:59.320 --> 00:16:06.000 American Collector in Austin. But the Benson has been around 246 00:16:06.040 --> 00:16:09.320 for over one hundred years, and for most of its 247 00:16:09.440 --> 00:16:14.239 early history its focus was in collecting materials from outside 248 00:16:14.440 --> 00:16:18.200 of the United States. So we wondered, what does it 249 00:16:18.280 --> 00:16:22.960 mean that a US institution has so many pieces of 250 00:16:23.080 --> 00:16:29.120 valuable history from other countries in Latin America. Here's Victoria 251 00:16:29.280 --> 00:16:33.040 with the rest of the story. 252 00:16:34.040 --> 00:16:36.680 Towards the end of my day at the Benson, Ryan 253 00:16:36.760 --> 00:16:40.160 Lynch is giving me a tour of the building. Is 254 00:16:40.200 --> 00:16:42.320 it okay that we're talking here. It feels a little 255 00:16:42.320 --> 00:16:43.840 weird to be talking in the library. 256 00:16:43.920 --> 00:16:46.840 I saw a patron Suh, another patron earlier today, but 257 00:16:46.920 --> 00:16:49.440 this is not a quiet study room there. 258 00:16:49.720 --> 00:16:52.680 Ryan is the head of Special Collections and librarian for 259 00:16:52.760 --> 00:16:56.760 Brazilian Studies at the Benson. He has short blonde hair, 260 00:16:57.200 --> 00:17:00.760 thick framed glasses, and is wearing a colorful and down shirt. 261 00:17:01.680 --> 00:17:05.520 Ryan has an air of efficiency to him, but he's 262 00:17:05.560 --> 00:17:08.520 also quick to make jokes. He's been working on and 263 00:17:08.640 --> 00:17:10.560 off in archives for over twenty years. 264 00:17:12.520 --> 00:17:14.920 I think it plays into something that has been a 265 00:17:15.240 --> 00:17:18.920 personality trait of mine since I was a small child. 266 00:17:19.560 --> 00:17:23.560 There's something about him that seems to make him perfect. 267 00:17:23.200 --> 00:17:23.840 For this job. 268 00:17:24.320 --> 00:17:28.000 There's part of me that is very drawn to the 269 00:17:28.200 --> 00:17:31.680 processing part of archives. My mother says when I was 270 00:17:31.840 --> 00:17:35.320 like a little kid, right like a toddler, to entertain me, 271 00:17:35.520 --> 00:17:37.840 she would just give me a bunch of different kinds 272 00:17:37.840 --> 00:17:42.399 of dried beans, like kidney beans and lentils and black beans, 273 00:17:42.760 --> 00:17:44.440 and I would just sit there and sort them. 274 00:17:45.119 --> 00:17:47.960 Ryan was my main point of contact with the Benson 275 00:17:48.080 --> 00:17:50.280 during all the months we were working on the thirtieth 276 00:17:50.320 --> 00:17:53.680 anniversary pieces for Latino USA, and he was one of 277 00:17:53.760 --> 00:17:56.399 the main reasons we wanted to do this story. He 278 00:17:56.600 --> 00:18:00.399 was knowledgeable and extremely helpful. I was cure is to 279 00:18:00.480 --> 00:18:02.080 know what moved him to do this work. 280 00:18:02.720 --> 00:18:08.560 What drives me in archives is serving the people that 281 00:18:08.800 --> 00:18:14.399 created the collections and giving voice to those people and 282 00:18:14.520 --> 00:18:21.159 their family members, and allowing people in the future to 283 00:18:21.320 --> 00:18:25.760 connect with people from the past. That's what keeps me in. 284 00:18:25.880 --> 00:18:33.560 This When I asked Ryan to show me some of 285 00:18:33.600 --> 00:18:37.080 the most significant objects in the archives for him, he 286 00:18:37.359 --> 00:18:39.640 immediately remembered a particular map. 287 00:18:40.240 --> 00:18:44.159 A few years ago, we had this woman contact us 288 00:18:44.640 --> 00:18:46.399 to say that her father in law was going to 289 00:18:46.440 --> 00:18:49.160 be visiting her in April and they wanted to get 290 00:18:49.359 --> 00:18:53.240 a fac simile of this pintura of this map for 291 00:18:53.880 --> 00:18:57.160 the historical society in her father's town. 292 00:18:58.200 --> 00:19:00.880 The man wanted a copy of a sixteen century map. 293 00:19:01.520 --> 00:19:04.440 It's part of one of the Benson's most unique collections, 294 00:19:05.080 --> 00:19:09.520 what are called relationist hiogorafcas. There are letters that describe 295 00:19:09.560 --> 00:19:11.680 for the Spanish king what he could find in his 296 00:19:11.880 --> 00:19:17.320 empire after the conquest. Ryan and one of the other 297 00:19:17.480 --> 00:19:21.680 archivists pulled the map and examined it, but couldn't find 298 00:19:21.760 --> 00:19:25.479 the specific town the man was looking for Still, they 299 00:19:25.640 --> 00:19:28.280 ordered the copy for him and prepared for his visit. 300 00:19:28.720 --> 00:19:33.320 This older gentleman walks in and he walks up to 301 00:19:33.440 --> 00:19:37.119 this and he points at the glyph that's won in 302 00:19:37.359 --> 00:19:38.760 from the top left corner. 303 00:19:39.240 --> 00:19:43.440 The map is not a typical Western style map. It 304 00:19:43.600 --> 00:19:46.359 has a large pencil drawing of a church at the 305 00:19:46.440 --> 00:19:50.520 center and paths that Chris crossed the sheet. A series 306 00:19:50.600 --> 00:19:53.680 of symbols lined the edges of the paper what Ryan 307 00:19:53.840 --> 00:19:57.760 called glyphs, and each of them is the name of 308 00:19:57.840 --> 00:20:00.800 a town. The one the man points it out, has 309 00:20:00.880 --> 00:20:02.520 a big red dot in the middle. 310 00:20:02.760 --> 00:20:06.000 He points right here and he says, that's my town. 311 00:20:06.520 --> 00:20:08.600 We still use that as a symbol of my town. 312 00:20:10.200 --> 00:20:14.119 That glyph had never been identified before. That's why the 313 00:20:14.240 --> 00:20:17.920 archivist couldn't find it. But now they knew that it 314 00:20:18.119 --> 00:20:22.280 named Teco Matlan, a very small town in central Mexico 315 00:20:22.800 --> 00:20:25.040 where just over twenty four hundred people live. 316 00:20:25.920 --> 00:20:28.120 It was so emotional, and it was emotional for him. 317 00:20:28.520 --> 00:20:32.040 I mean, I was probably very close to tears. 318 00:20:32.200 --> 00:20:32.360 Right. 319 00:20:36.040 --> 00:20:39.639 We might show this and talk about the history and 320 00:20:40.520 --> 00:20:44.320 what the relacionis contain and who created them or whatever, 321 00:20:45.200 --> 00:20:48.399 but we don't often think about them as living documents 322 00:20:48.560 --> 00:20:52.960 or documents that still tell us about these places today. 323 00:20:53.720 --> 00:20:56.760 But in that moment, it was a reminder that this 324 00:20:57.160 --> 00:20:58.159 is living history. 325 00:21:01.840 --> 00:21:04.720 To me, there's a bittersweet feeling that comes with hearing 326 00:21:04.800 --> 00:21:09.040 this story. It's amazing that this piece of history has 327 00:21:09.080 --> 00:21:13.280 been preserved for almost five hundred years and that it 328 00:21:13.359 --> 00:21:16.840 can be seen here at the Benson. But it's also 329 00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:19.879 true that this man had to travel from Mexico and 330 00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:25.000 cross a border to be able to see it. How 331 00:21:25.119 --> 00:21:29.680 is it possible that documents like this connected to the 332 00:21:29.880 --> 00:21:40.920 history of Mexico are being held at the Benson. It 333 00:21:41.040 --> 00:21:45.160 turns out that the Bensons started as an archive about Mexico. 334 00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:49.320 In nineteen twenty one, Yuti Austin purchased a private collection 335 00:21:49.600 --> 00:21:53.120 of a man named Henado Garcia. He was a nineteenth 336 00:21:53.160 --> 00:21:57.600 century Mexican writer, lawyer, and director of the National Museum 337 00:21:57.800 --> 00:22:03.080 of Archaeology, History and in Mexico, and he was an 338 00:22:03.280 --> 00:22:08.840 avid collector. During his lifetime, Garcia acquired over twenty thousand 339 00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:13.520 books and more than three hundred thousand pages of manuscripts 340 00:22:13.600 --> 00:22:17.399 related to the history of Mexico, and after he died, 341 00:22:17.720 --> 00:22:21.359 his widow looked to sell his collection. She offered it 342 00:22:21.520 --> 00:22:24.840 to the Mexican government. But this was right as the 343 00:22:24.920 --> 00:22:29.040 Mexican Revolution was ending. The Mexican government was trying to 344 00:22:29.119 --> 00:22:33.239 rebuild a country after a long war, and Garcia had 345 00:22:33.280 --> 00:22:38.119 been a sympathizer of the recently overthrown dictatorship, so the 346 00:22:38.240 --> 00:22:43.520 government refused to purchase the collection for the National Archives. Instead. 347 00:22:44.080 --> 00:22:47.639 U T Austin paid one hundred thousand dollars, which is 348 00:22:47.880 --> 00:22:52.480 around one point six million dollars now for the entire collection, 349 00:22:53.359 --> 00:23:00.399 and they brought it by train to Austin. The books 350 00:23:00.400 --> 00:23:05.560 and papers weighed seventeen tons and built an entire box card. 351 00:23:08.280 --> 00:23:11.840 Charles Hackett, a historian at UT, had made the case 352 00:23:11.920 --> 00:23:14.960 to the university that it was important for the collection 353 00:23:15.160 --> 00:23:19.480 to be in Austin because Texas had once and not 354 00:23:19.600 --> 00:23:22.840 too long ago at the time, been part of Mexico 355 00:23:23.520 --> 00:23:28.919 and before that part of the Spanish Empire. Texans needed 356 00:23:29.040 --> 00:23:32.720 to be reminded of that history. Here's Ryan again. 357 00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:36.680 Texas has a strong identity, and it tells one story 358 00:23:36.680 --> 00:23:40.440 about itself, and that story often doesn't talk about its 359 00:23:40.560 --> 00:23:43.520 history before the Anglos show up. 360 00:23:44.280 --> 00:23:49.240 That intentional erasure enabled the discrimination and violence against Mexican 361 00:23:49.280 --> 00:23:53.560 Americans who in many cases were from border families who 362 00:23:53.600 --> 00:23:55.800 had been in the region for generations. 363 00:23:56.560 --> 00:24:01.560 Texas history needed to have its Mexican history reinserted into it, 364 00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:02.320 and at. 365 00:24:02.320 --> 00:24:06.240 Least now there were materials in Texas available at a 366 00:24:06.320 --> 00:24:14.960 public institution to start connecting to that essential history. The 367 00:24:15.160 --> 00:24:20.119 foundational Hinnardo Garcia collection was followed by other significant purchases 368 00:24:20.280 --> 00:24:25.560 of Mexican documents, like the collection of Joaquin garziai is Cavalcetta, 369 00:24:26.040 --> 00:24:29.520 which actually contained the map of the relations that Ryan 370 00:24:29.600 --> 00:24:34.000 showed me. Then in the nineteen forties, a historian and 371 00:24:34.160 --> 00:24:37.960 librarian named Nettie Lee Benson was hired to work in 372 00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:41.600 the archives, and you can probably guess the importance of 373 00:24:41.680 --> 00:24:45.119 doctor Benson for the collection, since it's now named after her. 374 00:24:47.800 --> 00:24:51.240 Doctor Benson's ambition was to expand the library to include 375 00:24:51.320 --> 00:24:55.399 materials from all of Latin America and to achieve that. 376 00:24:55.880 --> 00:24:58.560 She would travel all over the continent to buy directly 377 00:24:58.640 --> 00:25:02.120 from publishers so they would send their books and magazines 378 00:25:02.160 --> 00:25:06.600 to Texas. With the Benson's regional scope and the money 379 00:25:06.680 --> 00:25:10.040 of a US institution to support it, it became a 380 00:25:10.119 --> 00:25:16.320 repository for the entire continent. The Benson has been described 381 00:25:16.520 --> 00:25:20.160 as the national libraries of thirty different countries in Latin 382 00:25:20.160 --> 00:25:21.520 America put together. 383 00:25:27.640 --> 00:25:30.399 Grace. So you go open that and then hold the 384 00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:31.040 door open. 385 00:25:31.760 --> 00:25:34.359 And when I was there, Ryan showed me some of 386 00:25:34.400 --> 00:25:36.119 the unique materials in the collection. 387 00:25:37.760 --> 00:25:40.679 So right now we're looking at the rare book collection. 388 00:25:41.280 --> 00:25:45.280 The rest are archival collections, including the Latino USA collection. 389 00:25:45.960 --> 00:25:49.040 He pulled out an archival box with a few hundred 390 00:25:49.160 --> 00:25:50.719 typed and corrected pages. 391 00:25:50.840 --> 00:25:52.760 You know, we've got to cover with his name and 392 00:25:52.880 --> 00:25:58.680 the title, and then we will have these pages with things. 393 00:25:58.920 --> 00:26:02.880 It was a draft of Raduela or Hopscotch, the most 394 00:26:02.960 --> 00:26:06.000 important novel by Argentine writer Julio Cortas. 395 00:26:06.640 --> 00:26:13.760 Touching this item that Cortasa himself touched, that he wrote 396 00:26:13.840 --> 00:26:17.320 on seeing his process, seeing what orders might have changed, 397 00:26:17.480 --> 00:26:20.960 gives you a different appreciation of the writer's process. 398 00:26:22.080 --> 00:26:25.600 And the list of unique items goes on. It has 399 00:26:25.680 --> 00:26:29.240 a book signed in blood more than three hundred years 400 00:26:29.280 --> 00:26:33.439 ago by one of Mexico's most famous poets, so Juana 401 00:26:33.560 --> 00:26:38.280