"Voces" of the Pandemic highlights Latinx voices across the U.S. spectrum

Share this content

Published:
December 17, 2020
Al Día Preview Photo 12.18.2020

This story first appeared in Al Día. An excerpt can be viewed below. To read the full story click here.

A new project by the University of Texas at Austin’s Voces Oral History Center documents a wide array of Latinx people living through the pandemic. The effort profiled almost 100 people, and their aim was to “illustrate the ways in which the Latinx community has been affected by COVID-19.”

Throughout its history, the center has grappled with telling such stories, and was started in 1999 by journalism professor Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez. At the time, she was a frustrated researcher that couldn’t find anything on the involvement of Latinx soldiers in World War II.

Elevating Latinx voices amid the COVID-19 pandemic is yet another chapter.

“While I was writing I realized that this is one of the biggest things that has happened in my lifetime. I thought: ‘We need to not only acknowledge the times that we are living in, but we also have to find a way to document them,’” said Rivas-Rodriguez.