Three Questions is an initiative to share the value that our faculty, students, and external patrons derive from using the Portal to Texas History at UNT Libraries.
1. How important is the Portal in your teaching, learning or research?
The Portal to Texas History has been an indispensable tool for my research on textbook reform and archival preservation in Texas and New Mexico. My book project examines four scholars in Texas and four scholars in New Mexico during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For the Texas portion of my study, I have used the Portal to collect primary sources on the educational reform efforts of historian Carlos E. Castañeda, writer and historical preservationist Adina de Zavala, lawyer and legislator José T. Canales, and writer and educator Elena Zamora O’Shea. The Portal contains over 1,000 documents (including newspaper stories, letters, pamphlets and government documents) that pertain to my current book project. Among the advantages of conducting research on the Portal are the ease of use of the search engine, the convenience of accessing digital copies of sources from various archival depositories, and the ability to easily save digital copies of documents.
I have also used documents found on the Portal in my courses on Mexican American history, South Texas, and public history. The Portal makes it easy to find primary sources (e.g., newspapers, letters, photographs) that I can use in my lectures or for class discussions. When I demonstrate to students how simple it is to search on the Portal and the wide variety of primary sources available, they instantly see the usefulness of this great research tool.
2. How has the Portal changed the way you approach your research, teaching or learning?
The Portal has changed some of my research strategies for accessing digital sources. Before I began using the Portal, I usually consulted several online databases available through my university’s library to conduct online searches. This process was often time-consuming because the various databases have different search functions and often the same search cannot be completed across these databases. Now, I often use the Portal before using other online databases because the Portal has a diverse set of documents from numerous archival depositories. Once I’ve examined the sources available through the Portal, I turn to the other online databases to fill in any gaps.
I often turn to the Portal when I cannot find a newspaper in the databases available through my university library. The variety of sources available on the Portal continuously surprises me. Whenever I need an image for a lecture that I am preparing, I turn to the Portal because its collection of newspapers and photographs are quite useful in my teaching.
3. What do you want others to know about your research, teaching or learning?
My current research focuses on the educational reform and archival preservation efforts of four Mexican American scholars and activists in Texas and four in New Mexico. As I was researching my last book, Remembering Conquest, I came across documents on the four individuals from Texas and one individual from New Mexico that form part of my study. I was surprised to learn that efforts to reform textbooks had begun in the late nineteenth century (for New Mexico) and early twentieth century (for Texas). The eight scholars and activists in my study sought to change the negative depictions of Mexican Americans found in public school textbooks at the time. They also sought to preserve primary sources pertaining to Mexican American history so that future historians would have these sources available for their research. In some ways, the archiving of sources on Mexican American history on the Portal is a continuation of these early preservation efforts.
Biography: I was born in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, but grew up in South Texas since I entered second grade. My childhood was spent in a bilingual and bicultural environment where my family often crossed the international border to visit family and friends. I obtained my bachelor’s degree at MIT, and worked as an electrical engineer in the Houston for five years before deciding to pursue a doctorate in history at UCLA. My first book, River of Hope, examines the transformations experienced by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century residents of the South Texas border region where I grew up. I have also published articles and edited anthologies on Latinos in the Midwest, the U.S.-Mexico border, Latinos, and U.S. West. I have taught at universities in California, Iowa, New York, and Texas. I love being back in Texas and teaching in San Antonio.
