Professional and Personal Papers, 1946-2010

Extent:

4.5 Linear Feet (9 boxes)

Scope and content:

The Professional and Personal Papers Series offers supporting documentation related to Frank Espada's photographic work and teaching career, with an emphasis on the Puerto Rican Diaspora project. The papers comprise correspondence, writing drafts, notes, research files, statistics, reports, book production files, personal papers, and course materials. They are organized in these series: Chamorro Documentary Project; Civil Rights and Community Activism; HIV/AIDS Projects; Puerto Rican Diaspora Project; Personal Papers; and Teaching Materials.

The largest group of materials documents the decades-long lifespan of the NEH-funded Puerto Rican Diaspora Project. Files include preliminary research and planning, the grant application, and the administration of the grant, as well as project newsletters, reports, and extensive documentation on the many site visits in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Multiple folders relate to oral history interviews, including summaries, quotes, and a few transcripts. Another set of files documents exhibit preparation and logistics for the Diaspora exhibits, which traveled to many locations in the U.S. and Puerto Rico over a 15-year period. Other materials include documentation about social and economic conditions in Puerto Rico and the immigrant communities highlighted by Espada in the project.

The Chamorro Documentary Project materials, dating 1989-1990, include information about the different locations photographed by Espada, as well as notebooks and exhibit materials. Some negatives of exhibit panels were removed for preservation reasons to the Negatives Series.

The remainder of the Papers Series includes records from other projects relating to civil rights and community activism, both photographic and research-oriented; personal writings by Espada; biographical materials and photographs of Espada; and several boxes of teaching materials, 1990s-2000s, chiefly deriving from his position on the U.C. Berkeley faculty.

Contents

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