Happy New Years,
My name is Erin Hutchinson and I am a sophomore at Mount Holyoke College. I am majoring in History with a focus on the United States. The past two weeks I’ve been interning at the Archives and researching the Puerto Rican independence movement. I gained hands-on experience working with newsletters, pamphlets and monographs, in addition to reel-to-reels and other audio formats. Being exposed to these primary sources was a powerful experience, as these documents challenged the dominant historical narrative and illustrated the colonial relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico. My time at the Archives furthered my understanding of the struggles of the Puerto Rican peoples and the continuing presence of colonialism.
Below are two audio clips of Puerto Rican independentistas I digitized:
Alejandrina Torres (Lexington Prison):
Lolita Lebron (Alderson Prison):
-Erin
