Events › Special Collections Sampler Open House: National Hispanic Heritage Month

For the month of October, Special Collections will be highlighting items in our collections from Hispanic creators for National Hispanic Heritage Month. Celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month with us by checking out these amazing items!    

Join us on Tuesday, October 10 from 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm for a special Open House where staff will be available to answer questions as you explore collection items up close; no reservation required.       

Can’t make it? These items will be available for the month of October to use in our reading room (Wednesday through Friday 9:30 am to 4:30 pm). No appointment necessary.       

Items available include:

• A signed copy of Cocina Criolla, a classic Puerto Rican cookbook. Translated into English in 1975 it is considered one of the foundational English language cookbooks on Puerto Rican food.
• Photographs by Carlota Duarte of residents of Villa Victoria in the South End, a housing development born out of housing activists in the neighborhood's Puerto Rican community. 
• A “chorographic” or regional map of Mexico’s Federal District, which exemplifies the role of mapmaking in forming the bureaucratic rationality of newly independent nation-states in Central and South America.

• Three Women in the Traditional Dress of Oaxaca, Mexico by Francisco Dosamantes. Dosamantes was a printmaker and muralist who used his art as a vehicle for social change. His first political alliance was in 1928 when he joined the '¡30-30!' group which denounced elitist attitudes towards art.  A teaching artist, he traveled through rural Mexico, learning about indigenous communities and lifeways. This increased awareness inspired him to create work that shifted from politics and Fascism to Mexico's indigenous heritage.