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This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the Duplication Policy section for more information.
Size | 0.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 560 items) |
Abstract | The collection contains documentary projects and corresponding fieldwork created between 1999 and 2003 by college students who completed Into the Fields internships conducted in North Carolina and South Carolina by Student Action with Farmworkers, a nonprofit organization. Oral history interviews, photographs, videos, audio recordings, and publications document the life stories and experiences of farmworkers, many of whom migrated from Mexico and Central America to the southeastern United States. Topics explored in the students' documentary projects include farmworkers' foodways, oral literature and storytelling, folklore, religious beliefs and practices, holiday traditions and celebrations, life in migrant worker camps, the labor movement, and traditional arts, crafts, music, and dance. Many items in the collection including transcriptions of oral history interviews are in Spanish. |
Creator | Student Action with Farmworkers (Organization : U.S.). |
Curatorial Unit | Southern Folklife Collection |
Language | English. |
The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.
Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.
Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded in 1992 whose mission is "to bring students and farmworkers together to learn about each other's lives, share resources and skills, improve conditions for farmworkers, and build diverse coalitions working for social change." As one means of accomplishing this mission, SAF sponsors Into the Fields, a ten-week summer internship program for university students in North and South Carolina and from farmworking families nationwide. Between one-third and one-half of the interns are from farmworking families. All interns have at least a working knowledge of Spanish and many are bilingual. Students work full-time in migrant health centers, legal services, migrant education programs, policy agencies, and community and labor organizing groups in North and South Carolina. As a means of reflecting upon their summer's experience, interns complete a documentary project, collecting oral histories and documenting folklife, art, music, and celebrations. These documentary projects include taped interviews, slides, and video recordings as well as field notes, transcripts, and final papers. From 1999-2001, a selection of the resulting analytical papers was published in an annual publication. Most of the interviews were conducted in Spanish, and much of the documentation and some of the papers are in Spanish.
Back to TopThe Student Action with Farmworkers collection includes fieldwork documentation, audio tapes, slides, videos, papers analyzing the material collected, and printed publications with articles and photographs highlighting material generated by Into the Fields internship program projects between 1999 and 2003. New projects may be added in the future.
The documentary fieldwork focuses on farmworkers and their families in North Carolina and South Carolina. These farmworkers are primarily migrants from Mexico and Central America to the southeastern United States. The folklife documented includes foodways, traditional dance, art, and music, religious beliefs and practices, poetry, storytelling, life stories and experiences, labor camp life, and involvement in the labor movement. The interviews and transcripts are largely in Spanish, with some translation. Fieldwork documentation and analysis includes the fieldworkers' impressions and reactions and are mostly in English. The published material from 2000 and 2001 has side-by-side text in English and Spanish.
It appears that some of the projects either have tapes missing or that the interviews were unrecorded. The projects differ in the amount and variety of documentation associated with them.
Back to TopArrangement: by year.
Material on the background of the Student Action with Farmworkers Into the Fields summer internship program and documentary project, the 1999-2003 student projects, published materials, and slides. The student projects are organized by project, as received. They are arranged alphabetically by the title of the project. If the subject is unclear from the title, a brief description follows in parentheses. In the case of untitled projects a few descriptive words follow "Untitled." Slides, from all projects that included them in their documentation are filed together, as received, in one folder per year.
Topics of fieldwork projects for 1999 include labor camp life, storytelling, wedding traditions, Mexican holidays and festivals, oral histories, the labor movement, pinatas, Quincenera celebrations, ranchera and romantica songs, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and foodways. One of the publications in folder 16 includes all of the final papers, many of which are in Spanish, and a selection of photographs. Slides in folder 17 correspond to projects in folders 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 and also include slides for which there is no corresponding fieldwork documentation or folder.
Folder 1 |
Overview |
Folder 2 |
Dulce Herrara (labor camp life) |
Folder 3 |
Entrevista con Vicente Rosales (storytelling) |
Folder 4 |
Folklife Photography (wedding traditions) |
Folder 5 |
La Reina del Pueblo (Mexican holidays and festivals) |
Folder 6 |
Life on Easy Street (oral history) |
Folder 7 |
Oral History: Jose Juan Zuniga and Manuel Deciga |
Folder 8 |
Organizing: Past and Present (labor movement) |
Folder 9 |
Pinatas |
Folder 10 |
Quinceanera |
Folder 11 |
Rancheras and Romanticas of Humberto Zapata Alviso |
Folder 12 |
Silvia's Tamales |
Folder 13 |
Untitled: Homelife photo documentation |
Folder 14 |
Untitled: Wedding traditions |
Folder 15 |
Virgin of Guadalupe |
Folder 16 |
Publications |
Folder 17 |
Slides |
Topics of fieldwork projects for 2000 include folk art, folk dance, folk music, folk literature, baptism and three-year-old presentation, foodways, children's folklore, and religious beliefs. The publications in folder 31 include side-by-side bilingual, edited reports from both 1999 and 2000 fieldwork projects. The slides in folder 32 correspond to projects in folders 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 and also include slides for which there is no corresponding fieldwork documentation or folder.
Folder 18 |
Overview |
Folder 19 |
The Artesania of Nicacio Reyes Reina (folk art) |
Folder 20 |
El Grupo Folklorico del Catedral del Sagrado Corazon (folk dance) |
Folder 21 |
Faith Meets Tradition |
Folder 22 |
Federico and his Guitar |
Folder 23 |
Festival Foods and Music |
Folder 24 |
Food for Thought |
Folder 25 |
The Hold Religion Has |
Folder 26 |
In Their Own Words: Children's Interpretations of Folklife |
Folder 27 |
Maria Baltazar's Crocheting |
Folder 28 |
Salvador Tovar (Mariachi) |
Folder 29 |
Untitled: Foodways |
Folder 30 |
Versos (children's folklore) |
Folder 31 |
Publications |
Folder 32 |
Slides |
Topics of fieldwork projects for 2001 include traditional butchering, Quinceanera celebrations, folk art, folk music, foodways, religion, children's folklore, oral history, baptism and three-year-old presentation, folk dance, and folk literature. The publication in folder 46 includes side-by-side bilingual, polished and edited reports on a selection of fieldwork projects. The slides in folder 47 correspond to projects in folders 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45 and also include slides for which there is no corresponding fieldwork documentation or folder.
Folder 33 |
Overview |
Folder 34 |
Carlos, matancero (butcher) |
Folder 35 |
De Nina a Mujer (Quinceanera) |
Folder 36 |
Documentary Project on Juan Flores, Belt Making |
Folder 37 |
La Banda y La Realidad (folk music) |
Folder 38 |
La Comida y La Familia Documentary (foodways) |
Folder 39 |
A Man's Promise to the Virgin Mary |
Folder 40 |
Mural |
Folder 41 |
Nancy Williamson and Famiily Home (religion) |
Folder 42 |
Narrative Story (oral history) |
Folder 43 |
Third Birthday Celebration |
Folder 44 |
Untitled: Dance |
Folder 45 |
Untitled: Poetry |
Folder 46 |
Publications |
Folder 47 |
Slides |
The thirteen documentary projects from the 2002 Into the Fields internships cover topics of folk dance, the traditional herbal teas of a curandera, folk art, woodworking, foodways, advocacy work, celebrations, religion, and folk music. In addition to the projects documenting the lives of migrant farmworkers, one of the 2002 projects features an interview with one of the interns, Maribel Salgado, a participant in Mexican folk dance traditions. All of the projects, except for "Por Ser Mojado" have slides associated with them, which are filed together in one folder. However, only a sampling of the slides taken appear to be included in the collection. A number of the projects appear to have tapes missing. Tape logs are included with the written documents if there is no accompanying audio recording. No publication was apparently made for the 2002 projects.
Folder 48 |
Overview |
Folder 49 |
Alacran's Apprentice (folk art) |
Folder 50 |
Art, Craft, and Design: Documentary Project on Jaime Gonzalez |
Folder 51 |
Bertha Rendon: Duena del Restauran Tacos Los Paisanos en Raeford, N.C. (foodways) |
Folder 52 |
Evening Mass in the Fields |
Folder 53 |
Fourth of July |
Folder 54 |
Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread (foodways) |
Folder 55 |
Home, Sweet, Home (woodworking) |
Folder 56 |
Maribel Salgado: Mexican Folkloric Dancer |
Folder 57 |
Por Ser Mojado: Una Intrevista Con Compuesto y Cantante Salomon Torres Pineda (folk music) |
Folder 58 |
Reactions of Labor Camps after the Theatre Group Performs |
Folder 59 |
Seira Reyes: An Artist's Journey |
Folder 60 |
Tea Time (herbal medicinal teas) |
Folder 61 |
Woodworker from Guanajuato |
Folder 62 |
Slides |
Folder 63 |
Overview |
Folder 64 |
The Body and the Blood |
Folder 65 |
Children's Folklore |
Folder 66 |
Compartir Musica con la Comunidad en el Nombre de Jesus Cristo |
Folder 67 |
Crazy Taco |
Folder 68 |
Here Come the Padrones |
Folder 69 |
Jollas Artesanales |
Folder 70 |
Manos Curativas |
Folder 71 |
Narcissa Santamaria Cubias |
Folder 72 |
Pinata Making |
Folder 73 |
Tropical Pica Flor |
Folder 74 |
Slides |
Taped interviews with migrant farmworkers, conducted almost exclusively in Spanish. Tape logs or transcripts are associated with many of these recordings, some of which are written completely or partially in English.
Video tapes of migrant farmworkers' folklife customs and rituals.
Videotape VT-20317/1 |
Juan Rogelia Mora's Third Birthday Party, filmed by Sylvia Zapata, 2001VHS |
Videotape VT-20317/2 |
The Banda Family, Tamale Cooking, filmed by Lundon B. Sims and Enedelia Rios, 2001VHS |
Videotape VT-20317/3 |
Juan Carlos Mora Prado, butcher, filmed by Karla Rosenberg, 2001VHS |
Website and blog site of Student Action with Farmworkers. The website includes information about the organization and student organizing initiatives, information for alumni, and educational resources.
Digital Item DI-20317/1 |
Website (saf-unite.org)Harvested using Archive-It, beginning in October 2013. |