Kenneth Spencer Research Library

As I work to develop the Spencer’s new Latina/o Collections*, I wanted to take a moment and look back at the interesting materials that are already sitting within our library stacks and viewable in our Reading Room today! All the materials presented allow us to briefly see how Latina/os have gathered and built community within different places across Kansas.

Take a look at some of those materials below.

Aztlán de Leavenworth, volume 1

First published May 5, 1970, Aztlán de Leavenworth was a bilingual Chicano prisoner newspaper edited and published at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas. It features poet and activist raúlrsalinas’ famous poem “A Trip Through the Mind Jail.” Other members of the publication team included Albert Mares, Ruben Estrella, Alfredo Arellanes, Ricardo Mena, and Beto Palomino. Inspired by Aztec history and iconography, the newspaper is named after Aztlán, the ancestral home of the Aztecs, and features images of Tizoc and designs inspired by Aztec art.

Left: The front cover of Aztlán de Leavenworth, 1970. Right: The page of Aztlán de Leavenworth featuring “A Trip Through the Mind Jail,” 1970. Call Number: RH H79, volume 1. Click images to enlarge.

KACMAA Special Report, 1981

This 1981 special report was created by Kansas’ Advisory Committee in Mexican American Affairs (KACMAA). As explained in the report’s introduction, it “optimistically highlights important accomplishments and measurable in Hispanic’s social, economic, and political life” but also “clarifies the work that remains to be done.” While the KACMAA originally concentrated on projects to promote people of Mexican heritage, the organization evolved to include all Hispanics and Latinos across the state and is now known as the Kansas Hispanic and Latino American Affairs Commission.

Music groups in Emporia

Taken some time in 1932, these photographic prints from the Oral History Project Regarding the Hispanic Community of Emporia, Kansas (Call Number: RH PH 182) allow us to see some of Emporia’s early musical groups. The first photo shows members of the Mexican band Orquesta de Leora posing with their instruments, while the second features the women who made up the Coro de Santa Catalina, or St. Catherine’s Choir. St. Catherine’s Catholic Church still exists to this day and continues to offer Catholic services to Spanish speakers in Emporia.

Left: Photograph of Orquesta de Leora, 1932. Right: Photograph of St. Catherine’s Choir, 1932. Oral History Project Regarding the Hispanic Community of Emporia, Kansas. Call Number: RH PH 182, Box 1, Folders 11 and 19. Click images to enlarge.

MEChA & HALO Pamphlets

Records of a Latina/o focused group at the University of Kansas have existed since the 1970s. However, before it was LASU (Latin American Student Union), KU’s Latino student group went by many names. It first went by the name AMAS (Association of Mexican American Students), and then it was MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán). The group took the name HALO (Hispanic American Leadership Organization) when it was re-established in the 1980s, and it finally became LASU to further expand its inclusion of all students of Latin American heritage or background.  

Rebekah Ramos
Curator of Latina/o Collections

Sources

“A Trip Through the Mind Jail: A Textual History of raúlrsalinas’ Magnum Opus” by Santiago Vidales Martínez in Textual Cultures 14.1 (2021): 208–229. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14434/tc.v14i1.32858

Kansas Hispanic & Latino American Affairs Commission website, “Our Mission and Our Origins from KACMAA to KHLAAC.”

KU Latin American Student Union website, “LASU History.”

*While many terms exist to identify people in the United States of Latin American origin and/or ancestry (i.e. Hispanic, Chicano, Latino, Latina/o, Latinx, Latine) at Spencer Research Library we chose to use “Latina/o” for the collection’s title. As the collection grows and evolves, the term used might change.

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

September 15th through October 15th is National Hispanic Heritage Month! To help celebrate, this week’s post offers a peak into the history of the Latin American Student Union.

The KU student organization has been known as LASU since 2017, and the group describes itself as “a non exclusive social space for Latinx students at KU to find community.” According to a 2008 KU news release, LASU was “formed in 1971 as the Association of Mexican American Students.” The group “changed its name in 1974 to Movimiento Estuadiantil Chicano de Aztlan. In 1986, it became known as HALO [Hispanic American Leadership Organization] to better reflect the diversity of Hispanic representation. The group’s mission [was] to meet the academic, social and cultural needs of the Hispanic student population at KU.”

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services