This initiative documents how, over the last 50 years, Chicana historians have transformed the way we do and understand history, as well as who is included in U.S. history. Through oral histories, data collection, exhibitions, and public programs, this project honors these contributions. It is also an intervention. Interrogating the academy’s organizational culture that systematically excludes Chicanas is at the core of this initiative.

Chicanas Changing History Symposium

Thursday February 20th, 2025 and Friday February 21st, 2025

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Chicanas Changing History: The First 100 Symposium at the University of Michigan is a two-day event that will explore how Chicana historians have transformed the way we do and understand history, as well as who is included in US history. The symposium will highlight the challenges Chicana historians have faced and continue to confront in the academy while we celebrate their outstanding accomplishments and contributions to the field of history, with a particular focus on alumni and faculty from U-M.

At this convening, we will celebrate the official launch of the digital archive of “The First 100: Chicanas Changing History,” which is maintained at the University of Michigan Library in Ann Arbor. The digital oral history archive is complemented by the project’s material artifacts, which are housed at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

Participants will include: Dean Rosario Ceballo, Lorena Chambers, Dave Choberka, Raevin Jimenez, Natalia Molina, Edras Rodriguez-Torres, George Sanchez, Félix Zamora Gómez, and more.

All symposium events are free and open to all. 

Don’t miss this historic event! Mark your calendar and stay tuned for more details!

Explore Oral Histories

This archival and collecting initiative documents the field of Chicana history through in-depth oral history interviews with the women who have lived it and shaped it. These oral histories create an intellectual space for groundbreaking historians to articulate their scholarly journeys in their own words. These interviews demonstrate how Chicana historians diversified historical themes, analyses, methodologies, and sources, shifting historical focus to gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, identity, and space.

Partners

The First 100: Chicanas Changing History project is funded generously by the Anti-Racist Digital Research Initiative (ARDRI) with the University of Michigan (U-M) Library, the U-M Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG), the Inclusive History Project (IHP) at U-M, the Smithsonian’s Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Latino, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, and Chambers Lopez Strategies.

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“We still have so many areas that need work, we still have so many biographies that have not been written… We have so many areas that have yet to be written.”

– Dr. Cynthia Orozco, Professor of History and Humanities