Latino Fort Worth

On September 26 and October 17, 2015, a team of researchers with the Civil Rights in Black and Brown Oral History Project at TCU - Texas Christian University interviewed dozens of Fort Worth residents at a pair of events sponsored by the City of Fort Worth Human Relations Unit.  The result is Viva Mi Historia: The Story of Fort Worth Latino Families. The purpose of the project was to collect and curate an inclusive history of Latino Fort Worth told from the perspective of the residents who lived it. Under the direction of Dr. Max Krochmal of TCU, the interviewers -- graduate students from surrounding institutions -- captured memoirs and testimonies from forty-three veterans of foreign wars, activists, retired professionals, social workers, laborers, school administrators, business owners, and educators.  Each of the interviewees shared personal stories that spanned from recollections of the Great Depression and World War II to the Civil Rights movement and Reagan revolution.  They told family tales of immigration from the first massive wave sparked by the Mexican Revolution in 1910 to the most recent stimulated by the North American Free Trade Agrement (NAFTA) in the 1990s. Segments of those interviews have been woven into six multi-media essays organized by theme: Migration, the Barrios, Schools & Churches, Activism & Public Service, Work & Entrepreneurship, and Arts & Culture. 

 

In the essay pages that follow, visitors are able to hear many different voices telling their own stories.  There are segments drawn from dozens of interviews, including the following examples: Joel Zapata, Ph.D. student at Southern Methodist University, talked with Victor Espino, an activist in the current battle for immigrant rights. Moisés Acuña-Gurrola, a recent graduate of the University of North Texas now pursuing a doctorate at TCU, conversed with Santiago Diaz, Mexican-born World War-II veteran whose family fled the turmoil in Mexico brought upon by the 1910 to 1920 revolution. Texas Christian University’s Katherine Bynum spoke with siblings Josie Rivera and John Mendoza, longtime employees of Bell Helicopter, on the challenges facing organized labor in North Texas while Osmin Hernández of Texas Christian University’s master’s program recorded a conversation with Martha Morolez de Anda, the first Latina to hold a Ph.D. from Texas Woman’s University.  These and many other full interviews that were collected will be available on the Fort Worth Public Library Digital Archives.

 

On behalf of the Civil Rights in Black and Brown Oral History Project, we hope that the content provided on this site delivers a well-rounded understanding of Fort Worth as a city enmeshed in the trends common across the American Southwest as well as a city with its own unique and multifaceted history. View images taken at the interview events in the gallery below.