Nuestras Historias (Issue 1, Vol 1)

questions which was a great way to foster a
community among Latines on campus.
The Literary Magazine
Roughly running from 1985 until 2004,
the Literary Magazine was directly connected
with La Carta, and instead focused on
publishing creative writings by students
including poetry, drawings, photographs, short
stories, and more!
Other Marginal/Circulating Publications:
The Scrapbook​- in 2010 and 2013 Latine
students put together pictures from the entire
year and from La Casa into a scrapbook.
La Carta Nuestra​- was a digital
publication and was named in reference to La
Carta Informativa and Nuestra Carta. This was
possibly the first digital Latine publication on
campus. According to their twitter, this
publication was an “independent, student-run
publication dedicated to social justice, solidarity
among POC & the issues that impact people of
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intersecting social identities.” Although short
lived (2015-2016), this publication once again
reiterated the different needs and importance of
writing and students of color.
Censorship and Criticism
Like already mentioned, censorship was
(and still is) a big reason why such publications
have started, and unfortunately, why they
ended. Like in the case of Nuestra Verdad, the
need and the demand to publish content without
the fear of backlash in order to showcase the
wrongdoing of the University (and society) is
very prevalent in these past publications we
have discussed, and in the content that they
published. Maria does mention in our interview
that many of the things these students published
were very much political, and sought to inform
and engage students. For example, during the
Protest of 1992, the students were able to print
and republish their list of demands through
these publications in order for everyone to see
what was happening. Such freedom to freely
critique the University and demand for
inclusivity and restructure could not have been
(safely) possible or even ignored by other PWI
publications.
Despite such publications from La Casa
creating essential safe spaces, in the end, La
Casa is part of the University and becomes part
of the problem. Like mentioned before, many of
the previous publications were funded by La
Casa, however, as a cultural house, La Casa
receives a lot of their fundings from the
University, and such funding always fluctuates.
While the cultural houses are underfunded to
begin with, La Casa must also answer to those
positions of power above them, and must adhere
to these demands.
Such issues is why, a former staff worker
at La Casa, founded La Carta Nuestra after
coming across archives of La Carta Informativa.
There was a sense of importance and need to be
able to freely criticise and voice opinions
81 La Carta Nuestra. Twitter, 2015, https://twitter.com/LaCartaNuestra.
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