El Archivo: The Puerto Rican Experience in the Midwest

Opened: December 2014

Serving as the inaugural exhibition for PRAA’s El Archivo Project, El Archivo: The Puerto Rican Experience in the Midwest introduced the importance of archives as living repositories of cultural memory. The exhibition presented PRAA’s vision to build a digital archive preserving photographs, oral histories, and documents that narrate the migration and contributions of Puerto Ricans in the Midwest.

Beyond defining what an archive is, the exhibition made the concept tangible. Visitors encountered family photographs, early community newsletters, and excerpts of oral histories that mapped migration routes from island towns to Chicago neighborhoods. Casework and didactics explained the criteria for long-term preservation and the ethics of community-based collecting—access, consent, and care. An invitation to participate encouraged visitors to contribute images and stories, signaling that the archive would grow through shared stewardship.

By situating personal memory alongside public history, El Archivo reframed who gets to author the historical record. Chicago’s Puerto Rican community saw itself reflected not as a footnote, but as a maker of history. The exhibition’s curatorial approach—context, collaboration, and invitation—became a template for later projects that deepened PRAA’s archival mission.

This project launched PRAA’s archival trajectory, which expanded through Ángel “The Journeyman” Morales (2016) and Faces of Puerto Rican Migration (2019), and continues toward Carlos Flores: A ChicagoRican Story (2026).