Bridgeport Puerto Rican Oral History Project
Amanda Rivera is a third year graduate student in the Department of American Studies at Yale University and third-generation Boricua originally from New Jersey. For her dissertation, she's doing an analysis of Puerto Rican community formation in Bridgeport and New Haven, emphasizing education-related initiatives, from the 1970s through present day.
As part of that research, she's collaborating with the Bridgeport History Center to create an oral history archive of local Bridgeport Puerto Ricans to share their experiences - how they got to Bridgeport, how long they've been in Bridgeport, what forms of activism/causes they became involved in, etc. Currently, her plan is to spend June and July working with the History Center conducting the oral history interviews, though she anticipates this being an ongoing collection for the duration of her research (now through next summer).
Would you be interested in participating? Amanda would need an hour to an hour and a half of your time, and she's willing to meet you anywhere - at the History Center itself in the downtown, your office or respective home, etc. - really anywhere where you could minimize external sound. She could also conduct the interview over Zoom if that's a preferable option. If you'd like to discuss this further, Amanda can be reached over email or over the phone (732-429-8695).
Learn More
