National Council on Public History

paul newcomb, university of wisconsin-milwaukee

Proposal Type

Roundtable

Seeking

• Seeking Specific Expertise
• Seeking General Feedback and Interest

Related Topics

• Advocacy
• Oral History
• Social Justice

Abstract

Our project is a series of oral history interviews conducted with immigrant rights organizers and advocates in Milwaukee, Wisconsin such as Voces de la Frontera, Youth Empowered in the Struggle, Young People’s Resistance Committee, and other local organizations for immigrants, undocumented citizens, and refugees. Examples of people interviewed have been artists, students, educators (both in the university and Milwaukee Public Schools), organizers, and farmworkers. The knowledge from these people are subjugated and left to be forgotten by history, as many organizations such as these have been in the past.

Description

We have noticed media pertaining to social activism often covers major metropolitan areas such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago; however, our home city, Milwaukee, does not receive as much national media attention despite being a hotbed of social activism, including the advocacy of Voces de la Frontera.  Our goal in participating in this conference is to share our exciting work with people who are interested in immigrant rights. Besides that, our goals are to share the narratives we have collected thus far and represent diverse perspectives of the working-class, immigrants, students and teachers, farm workers, and organizers from Milwaukee, Wisconsin in a public history archive. An additional goal we have is to cement the immigrant rights organization Voces de la Frontera into public history knowledge.

In terms of feedback, we are looking for suggestions on how to improve our proposal. We would like to know if we need to refine it more to fit the theme of the conference. We feel that our project definitely would fit with the overall idea since it is focusing on the intersections of community, public history, and advocacy. We are also interested in hearing back on feedback on our working title and whether or not it is catchy.

If you have a direct offer of assistance, sensitive criticism, or wish to pass along someone’s contact information confidentially, please get in contact directly: Paul Newcomb, [email protected]

All feedback and offers of assistance should be submitted by July 1, 2019. If you have general ideas or feedback to share, please feel free to use the comments feature below.

Discussion