Background

The idea to design an assignment specifically for HIST 3160 came after a successful community-engaged learning activity that Dr. Pérez-Villa created with Mrs. Hafner when she first taught this course in Spring 2022. The pilot activity, originally conceived as extra credit, was based on the book All That She Carried by Tiya Miles, which students had read in that class. 

Discussions about this book not only centered on students' frustrations at the lack of written sources available about enslaved Black women in the United States and the methodological challenges faced by historians who commit to reconstruct their history. They also focused on the multiple opportunities that the book generates to promote cross-racial understanding and support in communities of color around themes like family legacy, history writing, and intergenerational love. 

With this in mind, Dr. Pérez-Villa and Mrs. Hafner created a role-playing/storytelling activity to celebrate Women's History Month with the Latinx immigrant youth who attend after-school programs at El Concilio, a non-profit organization in Kalamazoo. The activity was a success as it stimulated meaningful conversations about the history of women of color in the United States as well as the youth's own stories of separation and legacy in the context of immigration and assimilation. This motivated them to collaborate again and expand their vision for a digital storytelling project called Retazos, which is underway.

In Spring 2023, Dr. Pérez-Villa assigned Tiya Miles's book again in HIST 3160 and gave us, a group of 24 students, the option to join groups that would work on different areas of a redesigned assignment that turned into this digital history project thanks to the Humanities Center's mini grant. This gave us the freedom to choose how we wanted to contribute to a big project based on our skills, interests, and time availability. Our work was both collective and individual and we're proud to share a project that highlights both the importance of preserving women's stories and nurturing community partnerships to promote the study of history.