VCU launches digital archive of Latino Virginia stories
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The stories of 156 Latino Virginians are being preserved through a VCU oral history project — and dozens are now available online.
Why it matters: The new bilingual digital archive creates a public record of how immigrant and U.S.-born Latinos have built lives across the state, all told in their own words.
Driving the news: VCU's Latino Virginia project, led by researchers Daniel Morales and Gabriella Leon-Perez, launched its digital archive this month after three years of collecting oral histories.
- Over 60 are currently online, with audio and transcripts in the language in which each interview was conducted.
- More will be added as people give their permission to be posted publicly, per VCU.
- Many of the stories are from Richmonders, per an Axios review, ranging from VCU students and community organizers to City Hall leaders and the executive director of Sacred Heart Center.
Zoom in: The archive traces journeys like Henrico resident Evis Cadenas', who left Venezuela after her home was shot at in 2019 amid what she describes as political persecution.
- Chesterfield's Davielis Adames Brito arrived from the Dominican Republic as a teenager in 2021, knowing so little English that she sometimes hid in her school bathroom to cry until she met two other Dominicans in her class.
- By 2024, she was a VCU student, describing Richmond as a place where she finally felt she belonged.
- Mauricio Bautista Mejia, who left El Salvador during its civil war in the 1980s before initially settling in NoVa, recalled his childhood being interrupted by gunfire.
- He still misses the smell of earth after rain back home — "the aroma of chocolate" — nearly 40 years later.
What they're saying: "But everything I have, everything I want, I have it here now," Bautista Mejia says in Spanish. "The people I love are here."
What we're watching: As the project grows, VCU says the archive will expand to include podcasts, film interviews, community resources and more.