Professor Marla Ramírez
and two undergraduate students, Lezly Vejar and Zevdah Drizin, presented on their original research at the 2023 Oral History Association Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland this October. The presentation, titled “Latinxs in Wisconsin: Using Oral History in the Classroom to Document Latinx Immigration and Placemaking,” highlighted oral histories conducted in Professor Ramírez’s undergraduate courses at UW-Madison. The classes partnered with the Wisconsin Latinx History Collective, an initiative to document the history and contributions of Latinxs in Wisconsin. All oral histories collected by the students were donated to the Wisconsin Historical Society to help expand the Latinx primary collections.
Of their experience at OHA 2023, student Lezly Vejar said, “Attending the OHA conference and presenting gave me the opportunity to take a class assignment and bring it above and beyond what I began with on campus. We turned a class project into something we could show to others and connect with on another level entirely. It was inspiring to see everyone talk about their research and to see their passion in real time. It was a wonderful experience!”
Professor Ramírez was also honored at the conference with an award for her article, “Gendered Banishment: Rewriting Mexican Repatriation through a Transgenerational Oral History Methodology.”