Oral history interview with Julia Lara
Object Details
- General
- Associated documentation for this interview is available in the Anacostia Community Museum Archives.
- Title created by ACMA staff using text written on sound cassette, contents of audio recording, textual transcript, and/or associated archival documentation.
- Interviewer
- Corporan, Héctor, 1945-
- Names
- Council of Chief State School Officers
- Lara, Julia, 1951-
- Collection Creator
- Smithsonian Institution. Anacostia Community Museum
- Place
- Dominican Republic
- Saint Thomas (United States Virgin Islands : Island)
- New York (N.Y.)
- Washington (D.C.)
- United States
- Topic
- Women
- Dominican Americans
- Dominican American women
- Latin Americans
- Emigration and immigration
- Education
- Education, Bilingual
- Identity
- Civil rights movements
- Manners and customs
- Human skin color
- Group identity
- Racism
- Race
- Interviews
- Interviewer
- Corporan, Héctor, 1945-
- Culture
- Dominicans (Dominican Republic)
- See more items in
- Black Mosaic: Community, Race, and Ethnicity among Black Immigrants in Washington, D. C. Exhibition Records
- Black Mosaic: Community, Race, and Ethnicity among Black Immigrants in Washington, D. C. Exhibition Records / Series 3: Oral History Interviews
- Sponsor
- Funding for partial processing of the collection was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
- Extent
- 2 Digital files
- 1 Sound cassette
- Date
- 1993 March 9
- Archival Repository
- Anacostia Community Museum Archives
- Type
- Archival materials
- Digital files
- Sound cassettes
- Citation
- Black Mosaic: Community, Race, and Ethnicity among Black Immigrants in Washington, D. C. exhibition records, Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
- Collection Rights
- Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
- Note
- The total playing time of interview recording is approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes.
- Scope and Contents
- Julia Lara spoke about her parents, brother, and extended family; her elementary school experience and living in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; immigrating from Santo Domingo to St. Thomas to New York City; learning English in St. Thomas; attending Catholic elementary school and high school in New York City, community college in NYC, Middlebury College in Vermont, and Columbia University; race in Dominican Republic and the United States; how she identified herself; the impact of the civil rights movement on her; her decision to change her educational focus from political science to education; moving to Adams Morgan community in Washington, DC; her work with the Council of Chief State School Officers; bilingual education; and the merging of Bell Multicultural High School and Cardozo High School. Lara explained why skin pigmentation is an issue within the family unit in Dominican Republic; however, she was not treated differently even though she was the darkest skinned child in the family. She also explained the woman's role in the household, the difficulty getting visas out of Dominican Republic, how life adjustments in New York City differed from adjusting to life in St. Thomas, Latinos of African descent have been placed in a situation where they have to become African American denying where they come from and who they are, racism within the Latino community in Washington, DC, and the relationship between race, culture, and nationality. Julia Lara was interviewed by Hector Corporan. Interview is in English. Digital audio files include white noise and static; interviewee can be heard clearly for the most part. There are several minutes of sound distortion where voices are difficult to understand and some original audio might be missing.
- Collection Restrictions
- Use of the materials requires an appointment. Please contact the archivist to make an appointment: ACMarchives@si.edu.
- Record ID
- ebl-1712088000981-1712088003365-1
- Metadata Usage
- CC0