Campus-Based Digital Approaches to Making Visible the Hispanic Past and Latino Present of North Florida

Abstract

This article reflects on digital oral history and digital documentary editing as approaches to public history pedagogy that allow undergraduate students to engage with the past and present in ways that have implications for local communities. The authors look at these methods in the context of two projects at the University of North Florida that highlight the role that speakers of Spanish play in the history and culture of the region: Voces y Caras: Latinx Communities of North Florida and the Florida Series of the digital editing workshop coloniaLab. The authors are the faculty leaders of those projects and three student contributors. The article proposes that pedagogically focused digital public history projects such as Voces y Caras and coloniaLab’s Florida Series provide mechanisms for increasing awareness, on campus and beyond, of the area’s Hispanic roots and the contributions that Latino communities make to the region of North Florida today.