D.C. Latino History Projects
During the summer of 2015, a team of local high school and college students examined the history of Washington D.C.’s Latino community and the role housing costs have played and continue to play in where the community has settled. Led by Hola Cultura staff and University of Maryland Professors Ana Patricia Rodriguez and Ronald Luna, these young investigators recorded oral histories with longtime residents and mapped D.C.’s Latino community.
Their work culminated in a special presentation at the GALA Hispanic Theatre in July 2015. Below you will find links to the articles, interviews, maps, and photos originally published in September 2015.
Oral Histories: Juana, a wife & mother from El Salvador
Special Issue, Day Four | Número Especial, Día Cuatro
Special Issue, Day Three | Número Especial, Día Tres
Special Issue, Day Two | Número Especial, Día Dos
Aumento en el presupuesto al programa de vivienda de bajo costo
Video Minutes: Hablando de Vivienda de Bajo Costo / Talking Affordable Housing
Special Issue: Team Hola Cultura!
¿Próximas RENOVACIONES? La ley de vivienda de bajo costo
Special Issue, Day One | Número Especial, Día Uno
Una amenaza para la vivienda de bajo costo
RENOVATIONS NEEDED? Rent control could get a makeover this year
Los Mapas y la Historia
The District Ramps Up Efforts to Preserve Affordable Housing
La Salud y El Barrio: How our homes & neighborhoods dictate our overall well-being
D.C.’s Latino Community Spaces | Espacios Culturales
Home Sweet Hogar: Additional Resources for finding Affordable Housing
Foto Retratos | Neighborhood Portraits
Expiring Subsidies: Thousands of low-income apartments could be lost
Making the Maps
Understanding DC Latino history through oral histories and online mapping
The long hard fight over 2724 11th Street NW
Hola Cultura invitation: Join us Friday night at GALA Hispanic Theatre!
DC Latino History: Signs of change along Mount Pleasant Street
July 16! D.C. Latino history + affordable housing
Over the summer of 2016, our team of student reporters, researchers and cartographers spent six weeks investigating Washington D.C.’s changing Latino settlement patterns.
We interviewed longtime residents, examined U.S. Census data and built spreadsheets and online maps illustrating how the District’s Latino residents have been moving out the the city’s traditionally Latino neighborhoods and spreading out around the city and greater Washington region.
Mapping my story
Brightwood: Mapping a neighborhood’s changes
Special Issue: District stories
Special Issue: Where we live now
Special Issue: Meet our team
Special Issue: Latinos of the DMV
DMV Latino neighborhoods by nationality
What we did with our summer
How much do “cultural spaces” matter?
Over the summer of 2017, we continued investigating where Washington, D.C.’s Latino residents live.
In interviews with experts, tenants’ advocates and local residents, our intern Rebecca Toro and volunteer Katherine Jolly reported and mapped, respectively, the District’s changing neighborhoods. Toro also investigated the role D.C.’s rent control laws have played in helping some low-income Latinos remain living in Washington, even as market rate rents in the city have skyrocketed over the last few decades.
Here are the stories we reported during that summer.
La vivienda de bajo costo | A rent control update
Stronger tenant protections proposed
How rent control has shielded some from D.C.’s rocketing housing costs
Mapping D.C.’s changing neighborhoods
D.C.’s housing costs are unsustainable for many
HOY: Nuestras últimas investigaciones Our latest work @Mt. Pleasant Library
Over the summer of 2018, Hola Cultura’s talented team of high school and college interns investigated the Latino history of Washington, D.C.’s Adams Morgan neighborhood.
We interviewed local residents, talked to community leaders and experts, and dug up old photographs and census data to examine what the neighborhood was like in the 1980s, a pivotal decade of Latino community growth in Adams Morgan and throughout the Washington region.
Adams Morgan is often still called D.C.’s most Latino ‘barrio’ though increasingly that ‘latinidad’ is being erased. Read about what Adams Morgan was like and how the neighborhood has changed as housing costs have gone through the roof, so to speak, ushering in new residents and neighborhood culture.
The legacy of the Unity Mural
The immigrant experience – then & now
Help us save the Unity Mural!
D.C. Latino History Timeline
D.C. Latino History Special Issue-Week 2
D.C. Latino History Special Issue
D.C. Latino History Issue-Week 4
D.C. Latino History Issue-Week 3
