This article explores the practice of integrating digital testimonios—multimedia storytelling—into higher education courses, as well as university and community-based archives. I argue that digital testimonios, as a methodology practiced through the use of everyday phone-editing technology, provides Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) students, particularly non- film majors, with the opportunity to develop storytelling voices, thereby contributing their experiences to the cultural wealth and knowledge production of our society. This study highlights the powerful possibilities of digital testimonio projects—oral history, civic engagement, and archival work—where students themselves become change agents in the invaluable development of public history.
Digital Testimonios and Reimagining Public History: University Courses, Micro-documentaries, and Community Archives
LANI CUPCHOY is a public historian-artivist-photographer-filmmaker whose research focuses on Chicanx-Latinx studies, ethnic and gender studies, U.S. transnational/global history, Indigenous knowledge, critical food studies, oral history, digital storytelling, and critical civic engagement. Lani teaches public history courses and has produced and participated in a range of creative works, including op-eds, art installations-exhibitions, and community archiving. She is also an award-winning filmmaker of Truth Seekers, Urban Seeds, Food Medicine, and Aloha Soul Food, documentaries that illuminate the power of community engagement and social justice. Lani currently serves as assistant professor of Chicana(o) Latina(o) Studies at California State University, Los Angeles.
Lani Cupchoy; Digital Testimonios and Reimagining Public History: University Courses, Micro-documentaries, and Community Archives. California History 1 February 2024; 101 (1): 52–65. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2024.101.1.52
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