Maple Scholar to catalog interviews with Latin American Anabaptists

Every year, the Maple Scholars Summer Research Program offers student researchers the opportunity to work with Goshen College faculty on research projects across various disciplines. This year, the Maple Scholars cohort includes a student who will be working on a project with the Institute for the Study of Global Anabaptism (ISGA).

Montce Martinez, a senior history major from Goshen, Ind., will work alongside ISGA Director Elizabeth Miller to process a collection of more than 200 oral history interviews conducted by Costa Rican historian Jaime Prieto. The vast majority of these interviews were recorded on cassette tapes in the 1990s and early 2000s, when Prieto was engaged in primary source research for the Latin American volume of the Global Mennonite History project; they represent dozens of Anabaptist denominations throughout Latin America.

“Prieto is an incredibly skilled historian,” recounted Miller. “These interviews happened during a particularly crucial period, when many of the early church leaders and founders in Latin America had reached their elder years. Today many of the interviewees whose stories are collected in these interviews are no longer with us, making them all the more precious.”

As cassettes are prone to deterioration over time, the interviews were digitized in 2021 with support from the ISGA—an important step in preserving these primary sources. The recordings have yet to be used by researchers, however, because very little metadata has been gathered on the interview contents and characteristics.

As a Maple Scholar this summer, Martinez will be listening to each interview before cataloging and indexing them in a database that will make these recordings more easily accessible to researchers and scholars. “I am thrilled for the chance to work with Montce this summer,” said Miller. “She brings both historical and Spanish language expertise that will greatly benefit this project.”

Martinez expressed that she is especially interested to learn a new skill in her field. “I have never worked with oral history before,” said Martinez. “I want to try new routes to tackle historical projects and hopefully with the Prieto Interview Database, I will learn more about oral history and the importance of this type of primary source gathering.”