^{Viva Puerto Rico Libre – Ghetto Brothers.}

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I am honored to be welcomed as part of the team for The Digitizing El Barrio Archives at the Puerto Rican Cultural Center (PPRC), as an archival intern. This archives has been a dream decades in the making for PRCC. It was made possible with generous funding by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) and the Mellon Foundation. Launched a year ago, a team of archivists, scholars and community members are working to preserve the legacy of Chicago’s Puerto Rican community.

The team is preforming the preliminary archival processing to begin digitization. The items to digitize include: posters, event fliers, bilingual community newspapers, correspondence, photographs and audio/ video tapes. In collaboration with the community, the goal of The Digitizing El Barrio Archives, is to actively collect, store, and make the community history part of the public record of Humboldt Park/West Town, Chicago, Puerto Rico, and beyond.

This unique community archive project provides insight into the development of anti-colonial community efforts and nationalist Puerto Rican politics specifically in Chicago, IL.

In honor of the lives and work of two influential leaders in the struggle for Puerto Rican independence, the collection on Juan Antonio and Consuelo Lee Corretjer were the first to be digitized. Featuring speeches, poetry books, and essays, these materials shed light on the close relationship between the Corretjers, The PRCC, and Chicago’s Puerto Rican community.

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^{Fireworks Grapics Collective materials for web. BIG files}

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Ultimately, Digitizing El Barrio aims to not only preserve important aspects of the history of Puerto Rican Chicago for future generations but, also to be an archive for the present. In the face of gentrification and centuries of colonialism, the project will use The PRCC collection and its digitization to build community, deepen roots in our Humboldt Park barrio, and fuel the creation of decolonial alternatives.

This archives intends to grow and become a pilot collection for sustainable community-led digital archives, that focus on political, organizational, and cultural history, for other community organizations beyond PRCC.

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Personally, this project inspires me out of a deep love and rootedness to the community of Humboldt Park that I have called home, for my neighbors and in memorial to a dear friend, who was a community organizer from The Island. This friend introduced me to the liberatory struggle, pride and labor, of Puerto Rican sovereignty-activism. So it is with this love for my friend, that I hope to support and resurrect the storied multitudes of figures and ensembles within the archives. I feel so fortunate and humbled to be called to build relationships and trust, to protect and care in community; with the hope that collectively we awaken more, than alone.