{"id":25296,"date":"2024-03-11T17:09:43","date_gmt":"2024-03-11T17:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/?p=25296"},"modified":"2025-03-05T23:54:56","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T23:54:56","slug":"enhanced-description-gonzales-berry-papers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/scarc\/2024\/03\/11\/enhanced-description-gonzales-berry-papers\/","title":{"rendered":"Enhanced Description for the Erlinda Gonzales-Berry Papers: highlighting Indigenous Mexican, Zapotec, Mixtec, and Triqui Communities\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A folder from the Erlinda Gonzales-Berry Papers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Erlinda Gonzales-Berry Papers<\/a> document the research and publishing of Gonzales-Berry in the fields of Latino literature and culture and immigration from Mexico to the United States. Her research files include, but are not limited to, a plethora of notes, articles, presentations, book chapters, newspaper clippings, and reports. In the container list for the collection guide, the majority of the folder titles describe the material types but not necessarily the subjects or topics covered within the materials themselves. This was an opportunity for enhanced description, which is related to and supports \u201creparative description\u201d, which is a \u201cremediation of practices or data that exclude, silence, harm, or mischaracterize marginalized people in the data created or used by archivists to identify or characterize archival resources.\u201d (SAA Dictionary<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2023, OSU Masters graduate student Sharon Salgado Mart\u00ednez, shared the need for enhanced description to highlight Indigenous Mexican, Zapotec, Mixtec, and Triqui communities, mostly from the state of Oaxaca, who migrated to Oregon, documented within the collection. She was using the papers for her research project and noted that it would have been helpful to her as a researcher if the representation of these communities within the materials was more explicitly included as part of the collection guide. She shared her research notes, specifically noting the materials she referenced.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The collection guide was updated to include a \u201cStatement on Description\u201d that included the keywords – so the collection would show as a result when searched – with a link to this blog post. We also added four Library of Congress Subject Headings: Zapotec Indians, Mixtec Indians, Triqui Indians, and Oaxaca (Mexico: State).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This blog post includes a statement from Salgado Mart\u00ednez as well as her research notes which include the folders within the collection she referenced, along with the specific materials she used in her research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below is a statement from Sharon Salgado Mart\u00ednez:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDr. Erlinda Gonzalez-Berry carefully selects the materials in this collection and includes the works of other important scholars, like Stephen Lynn, who dedicated their lives to telling the stories of Indigenous Mexicans, mostly from the state of Oaxaca, migrating to Oregon. The main ethnicities in the records are Mixtec, Zapotec, and Triqui. However, other Indigenous identities reside in the Beaver State, like Pur\u00e9pechas from Michoac\u00e1n, Mexico. Even though the materials about the lives and experiences of Indigenous Mexicans in Oregon and in the US are scarce, their importance to the US economy is fundamental. Their work in the fields, service industries, nurseries, and other businesses is essential for developing the state and the Pacific Northwest farming and agricultural sector. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The materials are collections of newspaper cuts and individual research conducted by scholars, which focus on the struggles of Indigenous Mexican farmworkers to obtain fair wages and stop exploitation in the fields, as well as the struggle to find translators since most of the Oaxacans speak their Indigenous languages and not Spanish or English.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharon Salgado Mart\u00ednez, OSU Masters Student, 2023 Graduate<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below is the list of folders within the collection referenced, along with the specific materials she used in her research. Note: for ease of access, the materials listed have been moved to the beginning of the folder. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Box-Folder 1.7 Immigration in Oregon, 1995-2009<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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