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US Latina and Latino Oral History Journal, Vol. 1, 2017© 2017 by the University of Texas Press published by the University of Texas Press on behalf of the Center for Mexican American Studies and the Latino Research Initiative DOI: 10.7560/OHJ101 Editor’s Note MAGGIE RIVAS-RODRIGUEZ S o there was Stanford University archivist Roberto Trujillo, tape recorder in hand, interviewing Chicano archivists in their garage in Northern California. Their experiences were key to understanding the activism of the 1960s and 1970s. But none of them had his written memoir or would leave a good record of activities or observations. This, then—a lone librarian with a microphone and a tape recorder—was the resourceful method by which Trujillo was able to create the primary source material essential to telling one slice of the US Latino story. Oral history has that power: to chronicle the experience of those who may otherwise not have been included, to fill in the gaps in our understanding of the past. In essence, that is the most fundamental purpose and use. And oral history is replete with examples of this most basic function.1 It may blunt and counter false narratives of Latino participation in our country.2 Devra Weber, a member of this journal’s editorial board, writes that oral history has been essential to write about, or to “substantially revise” the history of her work on Mexican labor strikes on US soil. “Prior studies of these strikes had been distorted by the inadequacies of available documentation and the limited perspectives of many, although not all, earlier historians,” Weber writes.3 The interview itself may be examined thoroughly to understand its deeper meaning , and it may be compared across interviews with others, to tease out unexamined topics, such as, for instance, the lives of LGBTQ individuals. Interviews reveal far more than what is evident at face value: class, gender, political differences, values. There are large questions about issues of memory: Is what is being remembered colored in any way by what the interviewee wished had happened?4 And how do individual memories relate to broader collective memories? This journal endeavors to create a conversation among researchers and, yes, community members about oral history. Weber writes, “Our concern with making history accessible is itself a recognition that people have been denied a sense of their own history, an alienation often reflected in oral narratives.” Without those people who are willing to sit with us to answer, dig deep into their memories, consider new interpretations, and rethink old conclusions, oral history would not exist. So, there are layers of meanings in each interview, the negotiation and, perhaps, transcendence of differences between the interviewer and interviewee, what oral historian Ron Grele calls historical conversations, or conversational narratives , “an attempt to move beyond the archival aspects of oral history and into the historiography of the interview.”5 Repeatedly, scholars studying the US Latina/o experience are drawn to oral history to do their important work—some with the understanding that oral history may even, in some instances, supersede written sources, as was the case for many Latina/o oral historians in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Writing in his dissertation on immigrant labor organizing in the Pacific Northwest, Mario Jimenez Sifuentez II lays out his reasons for relying heavily on oral histories: written records hardly did justice to understanding the quotidian lives of ethnic Mexicans, and in fact, Sifuentez writes, “the ‘official’ record often tells us more about what officials thought about Mexicans, rather than their actual lived experience.”6 Our hope is that this journal will begin to capture more nuances—not as an academic exercise, but rather to yield richer interviews and richer research. But why do we need a journal dedicated to the Latina/o experience? There are, after all, other excellent oral history journals, as well as other academic publications, that publish oral history research. Two answers: We need more, not fewer publishing venues for research on the Latina/o experience. And this particular journal seeks to cultivate and promote the use of oral history as a primary methodology for research on the Latina/o experience. Writing in 1973, Juan Gómez...

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