Raíces Roots Online Digital Archive
The Raíces Roots Online Digital Archive provides a searchable record of the contents of Raíces Cultural Center’s Digital Libraries as well as a place to share stories, living histories and traditions from a diversity of cultures throughout our community. Content is created by Raíces Cultural Center as well as shared by collaborators and community members who want to document and preserve cultural and historical knowledge and share their stories.
Join our Raíces Roots Online Digital Archive Facebook group for highlights, updates and discussion.
Grant funding has been provided by
The Middlesex County Board of Chosen Freeholders
Through a grant provided by the New Jersey Historical Commission,
a Division of the Department of State
New on the Raíces Digital Archive in 2018
This year there were over 500 items catalogued and added to the Raíces Digital Archive. We publicly launched 3 new Digital Archive Exhibits and 2 new collections and have begun behind the scenes work on 2 more exhibits, including an Oral History collection of herbalism, healers and healing traditions from cultures throughout the world. Check out some of the new exhibits and collections below.
Collection: Raíces Roots Music Concert Series –
Bridging Cultures Through Music
Documents the concerts of the performing arts groups that shared their talents, cultural traditions and histories with our Central NJ community.
Exhibit: Domboshava Community Project
Collaborative exhibit with Highland Park, NJ resident Sylvia Hove, telling the story and history of her cultural and ecological project in Zimbabwe.
Exhibit: Seed Relief for Puerto Rico
Following the destruction and devastation of Hurricane María in Puerto Rico, our Central NJ community rallied in support for a sustainable recovery for Puerto Rico. Learn more about one aspect of that initiative, our seed relief effort.
Exhibit: Impressions from the Raíces Cultural Center’s January 2018 Disaster Relief Support Trip
Glimpses into the experiences and impressions of the Raíces crew as we traveled throughout Puero Rico on our first Disaster Relief Support Trip in January 2018.
Raíces Welcomes Natalie Saldarriaga
We are proud to have a new member of the Raíces Roots Online Digital Archive Team. Natalie Saldarriaga came to the Raíces Digital Archive upon recommendation from our archive advisory board member Dr. Kristin O’Brassill-Kulfan, who coordinates the public history program at Rutgers University.
Throughout her internship, Natalie turned the collaborative Domboshava Project collection into a full archive exhibit. She also began work on her own personal exhibit which will launch publicly in the spring of 2019, documenting her exploration into her own cultural and family history and how her own identity has evolved throughout the process of exploring her family’s cultural history. This was the beginning of a transformation of the Raíces Digital Archive from its first phase of populating the archive with items to its intended purpose as a platform for collaborative storytelling with people from various cultures in our own community here in Central NJ and beyond.
Natalie was such an amazing intern that we have asked her to remain with the team now that she has graduated, and we are currectly applying for funding opportunities for collaborations between this young Public History professional and the Raíces Roots Online Archive.
Check out Natalie’s work on the Raíces Digital Archive “Domboshava Project” Exhibit
Read more about Natalie from our intern spotlight on the Raíces blog
What’s to Come in 2019?
Keep an eye on the Raíces Digital Archive in 2019 as we anticipate a lot of changes. Some of what you can expect includes
- A complete overhaul of the homepage to highlight our growing exhibits
- A user guide on how to use the archive as a public history resource
- New exhibits on the performance traditions presented during the Raíces Roots Music Concert Series in 2018 and an oral history project about herbalists, healers and a variety healing traditions in cultures throughout the world
- Raíces 10 year anniversary exhibit, documenting the history and progression of our diversity of programming to preserve cultural roots through the arts, history and ecology.
- Continued expansion of our collaborative Domboshava Project Exhibit with Sylvia Hove, who has come to Highland Park, NJ from Zimbabwe as we help her document the story of her organization which works to preserve culture and ecology in Zimbabwe, as she directs from the diaspora, here in Central NJ
We also hope to expand our documentation of cultural performance groups and culture bearers throughout NJ. If you have suggestions for any performers, storytellers, or culture bearers who you think should be documented in the Raíces Digital Archive, please email us at raices@raicesculturalcenter.org and let us know!
Support the Raíces Roots Online Digital Archive
The Raíces Digital Archive is supported by several project grants as well as generous donations from our community members and supporters. Your continued support helps us to strengthen our capacity to create and expand a public history resource for preserving and sharing a diversity of untold stories and cultural traditions in our community and beyond.
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