Equity Advocacy

Mexican American Civil Rights Portal

Mexican American Civil Rights Digital Portal

The UTSA Libraries will develop plans for a multi-phased project to build a digital portal that will aggregate metadata and digital representations of primary source materials documenting the history of Mexican American civil rights dispersed across institutions in the San Antonio area.

The portal will support multidisciplinary research, K-12 and post-secondary education and will provide interested members of the public with access to materials documenting the significant contributions of Mexican Americans in advancing equity and fair treatment for all people.

Goals include:

  • Make Mexican-American histories and stories more prominent nationwide
  • Broadly communicate the significance of San Antonio and South Texas as an epicenter of civil rights history
  • Spark creativity and diversity in curricular innovation through ready access to Mexican American primary source research materials

Establishing a GIS Platform for the Libraries and ITC 

The UTSA Libraries and the UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures will create a web-based, self-guided walking or driving tour, featuring locations in San Antonio that are significant sites of the Mexican American civil rights struggle.

The application will utilize geographic information system (GIS) technology to provide map-based navigation guiding users to each tour stop.

Photos and documents from the UTSA Libraries’ Special Collections will be used as part of the project in order to highlight the sites, the events and people who made this history.