The goal of this project is to illuminate the Mexican history of Los Angeles, and to make clear the consistent, enduring presence of Latinxs in the United States, to the public through interactive and creative digital experiences. For this project, Professor López, has been awarded an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) “Scholars and Society” fellowship to partner with the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL), in order to present Mexican American source material from the LAPL and UCLA collections to the public. This will include photographs, maps, and, where appropriate, historical documents about the place.
This project is an opportunity to extend traditional, academic scholarship towards an engaged humanities that invites app users to see the world and their place in it differently. With the support of the LAPL and UCLA, Professor López aims to continue to update the product with new source information and to be a platform that can expand infinitely, deepening the Los Angeles coverage and eventually building out to other cities.