Carol Correa now works at Trinity College as the director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs. Correa created the Puerto Rican Heritage Trail when she was getting her masters in 2009. She attended Trinity College as an undergraduate, single mother, who recently immigrated from Puerto Rico. When she attended Trinity College, she lived near Frog Hollow, and became part of the community. She saw that there was a Puerto Rican community there, and found herself a part of it, and wanted to uplift and share the important stories of the community and their impact on Hartford and Frog Hollow. The culmination of this idea, was her creation of the Puerto Rican Heritage Trail, which she created as she was getting her masters degree. The archive is now housed at Trinity College's Trinfo Café on Broad Street, and attached to this page.

Carol Correa

Trinity College Liberal Arts Action Lab

2009

Carol Correa

website, audio

English

Archive

Puerto Rico, Archive, Walking Tour, Trinity College, Frog Hollow

Trinity College Liberal Arts Action Lab Frog Hollow Storytelling Team

Carol Correa

Trinity College Liberal Arts Action Lab

(Interviewer) Kristina: [00:00:17] I'm just going to introduce again and then we can continue. So we are at the Liberal Arts Action Lab in downtown Hartford on October 20th, 2021. And we have here Carol Correa from Trinity. She works at Trinity College as the director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, and then also in the DEI (Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion) office and the Multicultural Affairs Committee. She’s been a longtime Frog Hollow resident and now lives in Manchester, but has deep roots in the Frog Hollow neighborhood and in community work. And she created and developed a project called the Puerto Rican Heritage Trail, which we're going to ask questions about and learn more about. So just can you tell us about how the project, the idea of the project developed and kind of like the inspiration?



Carol [00:01:17] Thanks, Kristina. So, when I first started at Trinity College as an undergrad, I wanted to…the reason why I wanted to go to school was because I wanted to work for the Wadsworth atheneum, one of the oldest, if the oldest art museums in the nation because I never saw myself represented there or my community there. So, it was a safe haven for me and I wanted it to be a safe haven for other folks. So that representation was one of the reasons why I decided to go back to school.



Carol [00:01:56] Then when I got my undergrad, I decided, Oh, you know what? I want to be a teacher. So I went out to teach. I did a lot of community work, and then as I started doing my master's in American studies, I did a concentration in museums and communities again because I said, I want to go back to work in the museum because I want representation there. Having worked with multicultural affairs for over 12 years, it was important for me to go back to that. So, during my graduate studies, that's where this came to birth. It was my senior project which should have actually been a senior thesis because it is a huge if you have not seen it. And it's been picked up by La Plaza Virtual. I don't know if you've seen it online, but it was housed in Trinfo Cafe, so I got a lot of help from Carlos. Oh my god, Carlos was such a great resource to make sure that it got online and that all the recordings were up there. I mean, I spent days and days at Trinfo, just learning. He taught me how to do all this and then spending the time uploading all of the recordings that I had from the field work that I had done, which was extensive. And then I was able to work with a class with Professor Gamblin. At the time, Harford it was called. It's still, I think it's still…someone still teaches it, something Hartford or other. So that class, they helped me get all of the texts. So they went out and we identified the spaces and then we sent them out into the community. I trained them, introduced them community members, and they were comfortable going out into spaces and getting historical information from folks. And then they got credit for it. It's a class. And then we uploaded all of that, and that's how it was pretty much born. It was a labor of love. It was more extensive than it was originally supposed to be because of course, it was a project, but because it was a labor of love, I wanted it to be done and I wanted it to be done right. So it really didn't matter to me whether I got credit or not. It was something that, um…so when I went on vacation, you know how you when you go to the hotel and in lobbies, there's these little pamphlets that show you like what's around. So, we didn’t have none of that for the Puerto Rican community in Hartford or for any like we had the African-American slave history trail, the Amistad trail, but we didn't have that. And because Puerto Ricans in Hartford, we were. We are. Just here and we're not going anywhere, and we helped make Hartford and the Greater Hartford community what it is. I felt that you know what why not have a pamphlet of a Puerto Rican trail? So if you come to visit the city, you can say in the lobby you can look, it's like, Oh, you know what? I'm going to go to the old statehouse and this is a quick walk. Frog Hollow is a quick walk from the Old State House, and I could get some good food and I could like really be within the community, which is what most people want to see and be like. You want to be a tourist, but you want to be like a real tourist, right?



Carol [00:05:47] So something like that I figured would help folks that were not within my community be part of my community, feel welcome within the community. And then for people that were within the community, feel represented and also feel that it was OK for them to pick up a pamphlet from something else and participate in that. So I ideally saw it as like the Wadsworth one and then the Amistad trail and then the Puerto Rican history trip. So a pamphlet was created, but never was able to get it, you know, published and all of that with the tourists, with the Connecticut tourist stuff, but not because the state or anybody didn’t wat to, it’s just because I didn't push it anymore. I just stopped. Like I said, it was a labor of love, so it became emotionally taxing. Um, because I started to feel that I, as you guys are doing right now, I get a lot of folks come and expect me to give a lot of answers to things that I feel that sometimes I'm just not the one to be representative of it. And that I'm not the only one to be representative of it, which is why you have the trail, which is why I gave you resources. You could go directly to them. I'm not the type of person that likes all of that. I love this type of thing, right? Teaching in a classroom. But when it comes to political stuff and utilizing it for that type of stuff, I'm not down with that. You could do what you need to use it for, because that's why it's out there. But I don't want to participate in that.



Interviewer (Camilo): Which year was born for the Puerto Rican Heritage Trail?



Carol [00:07:34]. The Puerto Rican Heritage Trail was born..um I got my master's in 09, so ’09 (2009), maybe somewhere in [00:07:45] there, and it lived in the Trinfo platform for a long time. And I did not want to look at it just like any like it was a thesis. It was like, Oh my God. Like, stop asking me questions like, I don't know. And if I do it like, I don't want to tell you [00:08:01]



Interviewer (Josh): How did you go about capturing stories and then presenting them, I'm guessing in the bilingual sense,



Carol [00:08:07] Very difficult. Still, now it's not completely translated. The Spanish class helped me do that. So there are some that are translated and some that are not. So that's when I stopped. I mean, eventually we will go back and do that. So how I did it was I utilize students and yeah, I got credit for it. So you was trying to learn how to speak Spanish, to learn how to communicate in Spanish. So I said, Hey, professor, can we as your students to translate this for credit? And she said, Yeah, absolutely. And those that volunteered got extra credit for translating some of the stuff. And then the audio. I believe most of the audio is in English and it hasn't been translated. Um yeah. And then there's some that if there weren't Spanish, I might have made some comments, but they didn't translate it completely. So translation was definitely, um, it was at the top of my list. But then it fell very quickly, like English dominated. It felt very, very quickly as to what needed to be done.



Interviewer (Josh) [00:09:24] Is there a reason then, why you saw that English dominated, as you were saying, like the project, were the interviewer speaking in English or how come English became the predominant language?



Carol [00:09:36] Um, I haven't really necessarily thought about it. I can only assume now thinking about it that it became dominant because that was the language in which I was doing most of my research and reading in. And when I did interview folks, the questions were in in English, so they responded in English unless it was, you know, someone that that was. Bilingual and preferred Spanish, but I don't recall, I think we did a lot of Spanglish. There might be a lot of Spanglish within, especially with the fire chief and the mayor.



Carol [00:10:22] Um, I think with glycemia Perez Silva, um, she might have a lot of Spanish that has not been translated. If not, maybe her whole interview might be in Spanish because I think she would always prefer to speak in Spanish. Um, so I guess that's the that's the answer.



Interviewer (Kristina) [00:10:48] Um, I would have a few, or more like one question more about your field work and like kind of like what that looked like in the research process in general and when you or any of your students went to interview participants the type of stories you were looking to gather?



Carol [00:11:07] So Kristina, um, basically what you did is what I did. You know somebody, you know, somebody that you know, somebody that trust you and they hook you up with an interview. Like I said, I wouldn't have done this if it hadn't been Kristina that asked me. I've had many students. Many professors asked me to come. And I always say, no. So, Kristina, you have a lot of pull, of course, and that makes a difference, right? Because I trust Kristina and I know, OK, I'm not going to go into this classroom and I'm going to be used and this is going to be used and their students are not going to do so. I love the project. She was very, very thorough on what the project is, what you guys are looking for. And I said, OK, you know what? I can help here. So if I feel that way, that's where I'll go. So knowing someone and if you would have preferred someone, say someone else in this category say, you know, Cristina said that you do this and this, I was like, OK, you know what? All right. So when you know someone, which is basically how I got my stuff done so Glycemia Perez Silva was a mentor of mine and I told her I'm doing this project. And she said, Wonderful, this is great. We need this. You're going to be collecting the histories of Hartford Puerto Ricans, and this is just going to be great archive. And she knew almost everybody in Hartford and still knows almost everybody in Hartford. From way before I came, she would be recruited. Her stuff is online, so you could. Her information is online. So you could take a look, I don't want to waste too much time talking about that, but she connected me to the to Maria Francis Sanchez, a mayor, the deputy mayor of Hartford, back in ninety something to Eddie Perez to the



Carol [00:12:59] Hartford Fire Marshall to like everybody who knows everybody, teachers, professors, like all of that, she connected me to them because what I was collecting was memory their memories right of spaces within Hartford that made a difference because I didn't want to be the one choosing the spaces, although I know what I wanted, but I wanted the Hartford community and not just, you know, politically, but teachers, you parents. So I went to the schools and I asked parents what spaces. I asked kids what spaces were important to them because I had access to the school system at that time. So that's pretty much how that happened. Did I answer that question.



Interviewer (Josh) [00:13:46] Mm hmm. Were there spaces that surprised you since you said you have the history and you had yours in mind? And I'm sure when you talk to people, a lot of them were affirmative. But were any of them shocking? Different?



Carol [00:13:57] Oh my god, yes. So because of the generation that I came in, I came in in the 80s. So it was like maybe the second or third wave of Puerto Ricans coming in to the city of Hartford by that time. So there was already movement within the neighborhoods that I didn't know about. I thought Puerto Ricans were always all over there near Parkville because I when I came in, I lived right off Cisan Avenue. A lot of Puerto Rican now on Park Street. All of that. I didn't know that Puerto Ricans lived in the North end of Hartford and that we started living in the North end of Hartford, and that the Puerto Rican parade started in the North end of Hartford. And that really, really, really surprised me because the way that the city was sold or the way city is settled or the way city is viewed is like, that's the North. And then that's like the Caribbean side, that's the black side of town. No, that's actually all of our side of town. There was Jewish people out there, there was German people out there just like it just switched and change. But that very much surprised me. Then there was a very, very robust Puerto Rican community in the north and before we were displaced and moved out into the Frog Hollow Area. I got a little animated because I was excited for that and for you all to know that.



Interviewer (Emeline) [00:15:17] I was wondering if you have any memory or memories that stand out to you from the process of collecting like any certain bits and pieces of stories or certain feelings, you felt.



Carol [00:15:32] Lozada park. Julio Lozada. That was that took me…it took me almost three weeks to complete, if not longer. And I remember how it seems like it was just so long, it was so much research that I did to find out the…to get the full picture of what happened to him and to the community. And I was blessed to be able to interview his his sister.



Carol [00:16:14] The family hadn't done interviews. They don't they really didn't want to talk about it anymore because it was a very big political explosion within the city of Hartford that changed the way the fire department operated. And we had to hire people that spoke Spanish so that tragedies like this didn't happen anymore. So but it took its toll on the family because the family was put in the forefront of political action and all of that. So they at one point they just said, you know, we're not going to do that, but I was blessed and I'm tell you how when I was talking about networking and knowing people, I was blessed because Tara Osorio was a student at Trinity College that I mentored and he was her uncle and she was able to get me the interview with her aunt. Yep. So, yeah, it was very emotional for them and for me and, you know, afterwards they have asked me to write a book about it, but I just can't right now. I will, probably before I die. Because Julio deserves a children's book about himself.



Interviewer (Josh) [00:17:40] And when you bring up Trinity in your experience with Trinity growing up in the area and locating that into our project with understanding Frog Hollow and have space is very contentious. Would you feel comfortable maybe sharing some of your thoughts on the relationship if there were on that exists between Trinity in the neighborhood or at least how you see things?



Carol [00:18:00] Oh my goodness. I got this remember, this is being recorded. [laughs] So, I'm going to give you two perspectives. The perspective of a 23 year old Carol community member, two kids welfare mother accepted into Trinity College from Capital Community College transferred in perspective. I had no fucking idea where Trinity College was or what it was or whatever. I just know that my counselor said, you're good, you're so good that we want you to apply to this college. I live right on Summit, right on Park Terrace, right in front of full park. Mm. So that tells you the relationship Trinity has with the community.



Interviewer [00:18:53] OK. Yeah.



Carol [00:18:55] So I want, or had at that time it might not be the same now. I walked almost every day from my house to class. I was the oldest student IDP student. Sometimes I would bring my kids to class, or sometimes ya’ll would be like, Who the hell is this person?



Carol [00:19:14] But afterwards, you know, we warmed up and then they saw me as someone that lived in the community and those and they would want to, like professors and other classmates and students would come over and come out and like, show them a little bit of Hartford and being part of the community, so. But, you know, I was pretty much I felt that not everyone was getting that because Trinity is still so. So, we've done much better. We've over the years, we've gotten better. And I as the director of multicultural affairs now, but over the years, for about maybe seventeen years, I've been conducting the Hartford Tours for promoting respect, inclusive diversity and education. Pride leaders and welcome weekend and I also do the Hartford Tours or used to do the Hartford Tours for orientation students. I used to run like maybe six tours for all freshmen coming in so that they would get to know the area. So we tried. Trinity tries class issues and you know, all of that other shit comes into it. But for the most part, I think that the community and trinity, we coexist and we coexist fairly nicely considering other spaces in which I've been, um, we're not the best, but we're not the worst. I think we could be better,



Carol [00:20:50] but also the community has to be open as well. And because of the past relationship Trinity has had with the community, the community is skeptical or can be skeptical. Trinity pretty much has bought brought up the whole entire blocks around. Frog Hollow. And then you have, you know, the fraternities and sororities buying up the houses up and down Allen. Um, and how connected are they to the community because they are private homes? So are they more connected to Trinity or are they connected to the community? Like what things are in place or what things can be put in place so that those spaces can be seen as as both? Like, I could see that as a bridge, you know what I'm saying? But we don't have like a planning person for that, so you'd have to organically happen. Um, but I do. I do feel very sad. I'm not gonna lie when I, you know, when it's party time and I walk up and when I drive up and sometimes and I see, you know, students having fun, which I want students to have fun, but it's like y'all leaving ya’ll messes and ya’ll red cups. Like, y'all leaving your…and it's like, that’s not cool, like you don't see that. I mean, you see garbage sometimes, but we've done clean ups this year. So Trinfo And um and the community service office and all my we're working on getting more students involved in not only clean ups but in getting to the gardens and doing some gardening. In this way, we can make more connections with the community. But being intentional and what I always say is that, you know, one thing that I've heard other professors or other folks say, Trinity is a good laboratory for you to learn everything that you need to learn. Fuck that. Trinity is not your laboratory. I'm sorry, it is not. You're going to give and you're going to get if you don't give, what you get is not going to be good. And I say that whole whole heartedly because Hartford, you know, when I migrated, I came in as a 14 year old with the baby and I got a master's degree from Trinity College. And it's from community it’s the Hartford community that put me through everybody just being so proud of having a Latina at Trinity. You know, they help. They babysat, I did everything. So and that helped me create this trail, which is why it was emotional.



Interviewer (Emeline) [00:23:49] How did your understanding of Frog Hollow and yourself as a Puerto Rican frog hollow changed throughout the process? Of making the trail.



Carol [00:24:04] It was it I think it didn't change, it just made me realize that I had more of a dual existence. I was part of the community, but I was also someone who because I wasn't necessarily living in Hartford, I was working in Hartford at the time, so I was kind of an outsider still peeking in. But still part of the community, if that makes sense. So sometimes I saw myself as that person that was making decisions for a community based on information that I was receiving from the community. And sometimes I felt like the community and imparting the information. Yeah, yeah. It was a hard living for that. Well, that's why I think I would like to see that again.



Carol [00:25:11] Yeah, it's like a lot of code switching as well. Yeah. Um, a lot of code switching, a lot of code switching.



Interviewer (Camilo) [00:25:24] You talk a lot about representation, right, like how the Puerto Rican right there. It was a project of representation. So what would you say is the representation that you managed to create with that public archive?



Carol [00:25:43] I managed to capture a time in history with the voices of the people that were living it, either at the time or knew of the time. Mm-Hmm. As a historian, because I am a historian. That was the most important thing to me was to capture that moment in time because I knew that Park Street and I knew that the Puerto Rican community was going to be dispersed and we weren't going to be as we were at that time, and we were not. So I was able to capture that. I was able to capture the movement. Now, I haven't captured the disbursement. That's up to the next generation. So meaning y’all? So that's what I think I was able to accomplish. And then in the meantime, you know, teaching and learning.



Interviewer (Camilo) [00:26:46] Yeah, that's that's that's super interesting. So you were trying to create like this time capsule, um, for the future generations.



Carol [00:26:55] Mm hmm. Particularly for my kids, for my for my biological kids. Like, really, that's really what it was for.



Interviewer (Camilo) [00:27:05] So I have two questions. One is what were the forces that were like changing the community in this specific moment? And then I'll go to my second question.



Carol [00:27:16] More immigrants coming in from other places, from Spanish speaking places seeking support within the Spanish speaking, Spanish speaking community, which was a the Frog Hollow community and south end. And over here in Park Parkville area too is a lot of Brazilian Portuguese over there too. Um, rent affordable rent. So as Puerto Ricans get more stable jobs, maybe a little bit more money or get Section eight? Very, very important. When when Walgreens, Walmart, the Walmart that we absolutely love to go to, that used to be a project housing project. So all those folks, they got section eight certificates and they moved out anywhere they wanted within Connecticut, Manchester, Rockville, Puerto Rican community, Puerto Rican, black community mostly got those certificates and moved out and started integrating these mostly white areas if they were able to find housing so that immigrants that were coming in Salvadorans, Haitians, Mexicans, more Mexicans and now more representative of what Park Street is now. Or at least that's how I see it. I saw.



Interviewers [00:28:49] Don't no, I just didn't know about the second, yeah.



Interviewer (Camilo): [00:28:54] Um, so we I think the idea we have is to incorporate the Puerto Rican heritage trail in the Frog Hollow walking tour script that we were building. And so, I have some technical questions. But if you would sell us like in a blurb what the Puerto Rican heritage trail is, what would be that like? What would be your blurb? Like, what can you find there? What is how is it dissected? How can you navigate it?



Carol [00:29:32] Um, I think there's actually a really nice blurb on - Did you look at La Plaza? It's on there already the trail and they say the Puerto Rican heritage trail encompasses…I think it's encompasses something or another. I don't know if I could. It would take me a minute to give you a blurb,



Interviewer (Camilo) [00:29:56] OK, but, what would be your description like to a general like…



Carol [00:30:01] Um, the Puerto Rican Heritage Trail…Is a glimpse into the Puerto Rican community past and present that will help you understand the city of Hartford - the space within the city of Hartford. I think that would be it.



Interviewer (Camilo) [00:30:24] That makes sense. That there would be in the year 2000 2009 in the period of 2009 to 2000?



Carol [00:30:36] 12 (2012), maybe. Somewhere in there.



Interviewer (Josh): When it comes to looking at these community spaces and you talk about how central location is important. Another aspect of that that I think of is that religion. I was wondering if you came into any instances of specific churches. I know there's large ones. I know there's also the very prominent small one room one house churches, maybe to if you interacted at all with that scene or how that plays a factor.



Carol [00:31:09] Yes. Plays a large factor. The Catholic and really pretty much mostly Catholic. And then maybe a sprinkle of Pentecostal. Um, and then Santeria, what we would call Santeria. And there are other Jehovah witnesses and other religions. But the dominant one is Catholic, and the Puerto Rican community really built itself up with the help and the resources of the Catholic Church. Whether or not Puerto Ricans were completely fully Catholic, it really didn't matter so much. Although although historically Puerto Ricans are Catholic and most tend to be Catholic, but the church was open to everyone, no matter what. So the church, Sacred Heart and the North End right now, which is being sold by the archdiocese because of the gentrification that's happening over there, the baseball field and all that. So, all of that is being sold off. So that church definitely and still does have a lot of fond memories for for the Puerto Rican community. And then when we move down towards Frog Hollow, if you if you just walk down Park Street from, say, Broad Street to Main Street, you encounter three Catholic churches. They might not be operational now, but they were and they were booming. They're all consolidated now within one. And then there's another one down on Our Lady of Sorrows. And then also within a maybe two or three block radius, you have two Botanicas as well. Botanicas are where some really pretty good products. So, um yeah. And then there's the Muslim mosque on um Hungerford. So religion played, it plays a lot within the community and the role in which where the community is going to move.



Interviewer (Josh): [00:33:36] So off of that, Did you ever see…I know Santeria is probably the biggest diaspora religion that we see in Hartford. Did you ever see that intersecting with Catholicism or how did that like those two identities…I know a lot of people will say they're both because they very much can be. How do you did you see that play out you that locally?



Carol [00:33:58] Yes. Full disclosure, I am a yeah, so I am a Santeria follower. I am not completely crowned, but have my elegance. And yes, I've seen it. And yes, it crosses, and some folks hide it more than others. It's much more open and accepted now. Um, so but the community, the Santeria community used to be very small and it's we had one botanica, botanica jungle on Park Street that we all went to for at least 15 years. And so now there's two on Park Street and one up in Parkville, so they're more and more practitioners. And yeah, we go to we go to mass. We go to mass and we go to church services. I mean, it's there's no real like line wherever we accept and you're accepted to come to ours, you know? So, yeah.



Interviewer (Josh) [00:35:05] Did you? Because I know a lot of it because there is that tide of the land. Did you ever see that? Were there specific areas where there was a lot of practice being held? Or was it more of necessity and convenient to wear? Practice would be observed?



Carol [00:35:19] It's wherever the priests live in basically. So Halford right now. Um, there might be a smaller community, but it's much more in New Britain at the moment. Like a lot of folks, go to an event for the services, they come to Hartford, for the products. They go to New Britain or they go to Rockville. Rockville’s pretty white y’all. Vernon and Rockville. Y’all like that shit over there.



Interviewer (Emeline) [00:36:12] What are some important places in Frog Hollow for you, like important places and moments for people to remember?



Carol [00:36:23] Oh my God. My favorite place. My favorite favorite favorite place on Park Street since the moment I came to Hartford and was able to to get there was the Hartford Public Library on Bhava Street, right across from the Makgatho, which is now beautiful. Right on Borad Street. Please visit it. Please go volunteer or read to a child. It's so very important. Yes. So the library opened so many doors and so many, and it's always just so welcoming. And I was a single mother with a baby and I would go almost every every other day to the library to utilize the resources. And so, yeah, most most favorite place in the world libraries and the most favorite place in the world. But that definitely has a place. Ma helped me get the education I'm getting to become curious and continue like feel like I could be part of something bigger.



Interviewer (Emeline) [00:37:40] Do you feel like a lot of other frog colloquy members react in the same way that you did to the library?



Carol [00:37:47] Yes. Oh, that's why we have such a beautiful one now, right on, right? Oh honey, that's taken us almost 20 years to get, but we wasn’t gonna stop. You know, the community definitely knows how important it is to have that space where community could come to dream, right? Yeah.



Interviewer (Camilo) [00:38:13] What is your experience with having created this public archive kind of like a popular public archive?



Carol [00:38:22] What is my experience?



Interviewer (Camilo) [00:38:23] Yeah like the afterwards experience like? What have you learned from that process?



Carol [00:38:34] I'm proud of it. I'm very proud of it. When people see it or mention it to me it, it makes me proud. It also. Imposter syndrome. Mm hmm. Right. It just feels that way sometimes. Mm hmm. Um. I want my fucking kids to read it. It was for them. They have not read it like they haven't. They say, Hey, mom, you know, it's great. It's great, you know, but I don't think none of them have actually sat down to see, like, I'll tell them, someone contact me months ago to tell me, Hey, you know what? It's on this platform. You need to get it copyrighted and I haven’t gotten it copyrighted y’all, like it’s out there. And when I saw the platform, I was just like, Holy shit, like, this is actually good. And somebody actually thinks it's good. Um, so that's my experience. So I hope that one over there, my granddaughter finds some use of it.



Interviewer (Camilo) [00:39:57] What are the most memorable uses that you have heard the archive has had?



Carol [00:40:04] Student research and being like condensing all of the information so they don't have to feel like this so often…I I find it hilarious. I love it. I wish it. When I was doing it, I could have found that archive like that, which I did within the Hartford Public Library for history synergies wasn't as organized. I got to go find it. But yes, I would say.



Interviewer (Kristina) [00:40:46] What are your hopes for the archive like if you could have, like, opened it up again? Work on it. Develop it some more. What are the changes that you would make and kind of like? How do you see it developing in the future if, like somebody was to work on it?



Carol [00:41:03] I would get everything translated. That would be the first thing I would work on. I would not try to add any content or try to edit anything on nothing because it will. I will take me down a rabbit hole so far that I wouldn't be able to translate. So, get it all translated or find someone to help me translate it, because if I start reading it, I'm going to try to get on that right now.



Carol [00:41:30] I would like the audio to be enhanced so that can be heard a little bit better. I'm not sure if that could be possible. I don't even know where the original tapes are. I was so disgusted at one point that I just was just tired. I just put everything in a box and I have no idea where it is. So maybe enhancing some of those recordings, going back to those folks and asking them how they feel now. Um. On video though. So because now we're much more visual. So making it so that you could click on it and you could see like one of your interviewing. Um, and an app. So that when I come or I land into Bradley International Airport, it is like, Hey, welcome to Hartford, if you would like. These are the trails that are available and a list of all of the trails. And I'd be like, Oh, this is cool, I'm going over to Trinity College. Maybe now a parent’s weekend. Maybe I just want to hang out in Hartford with my kids. Oh, look at this. A nice restaurant over here. Maybe I'll take my kid to this restaurant like that type of shit. Or seeing Joe or any other UConn or any other parent for them.



Interviewer (Camilo) [00:42:49] So I know our version is linked to an institute at UCONN, right?



Carol [00:42:59] I know. OK, there's there are a lot of I have not like it. It say for entonces fue, like yo no se?



Interviewer (Camilo) [00:43:08] okay because I was surprised about this of



Carol [00:43:11] La Plaza visual, la plaza visual



Interviewer [00:43:13] Have you done this one? Then you would say that one’s the original.



Carol [00:43:17] No, the original is the one that comes on Carlos's platform.



Interviewer [00:43:23] And so Carlos has access to?



Carol [00:43:26] I hope so. I know he told me that something had happened and he was looking for something to say. But at that point I



Interviewer [00:43:32] So the main digital archive is at Trinfo?



Carol [00:43:36] I believe. I believe so. And if he doesn’t, he knows or Professor Professora Aponte knows where it's at because they all worked on it as well.



Carol [00:43:49] But La plaza virtual or something or other Latinos? Y’all need to take a look at that. I was impressed with what they they enhanced it like. They have actually virtual maps where you can. Yeah, yeah. So this is why they were saying that's my friend was like, You need to get this copyrighted because they they credited me. They credited me but like, you don't know where your stuff is and people could just be taking your stuff. So I was like, you know, as long as they're using it for the purpose and I don't care there like this is beautiful. So take a look at it when you get a chance. And I'll just do this. Search and Google search Hartford Puerto Rican Heritage Trail in it. And that's probably the first one that comes up, Carlo’s is not the first one that comes up.



Interviewer [00:44:32] Yeah, because the one I saw is was on the institute of UConn’s page. I need to open this kind of PDA with images and brief descriptions, but it's not interactive that the one your image in



Carol 00:44:45] Importante, that interactive. OK, I get it. Yeah, OK. Take out maps.



Interviewer (Kristina) [00:44:53] You should like research again and look up your own project, just like see all the stuff that's out there because I bet there's like so much more content like people are probably. Used it for, you know, something good,



Carol [00:45:07] they probably have, but I’m not gonna research it.



Interview (josh) [00:45:25] I know, Kristina gave like a very good description of the project when what we're doing in with them, like groups you have and all of that. Is there something you think we should be exploring elsewhere? Is there something you think we're leaving out or what would you maybe in part on? We as a group should go, look at this. If anything,.



Carol [00:45:46] I think you guys have it pretty much covered. If there's anything that you think you might be or that I can't help with, definitely reach out. One thing that I would recommend is that you go as a group to the new Salmiya Cafe on Main Street. That's grassroots, and the folks there could really give you some…what's happening in that area now.



Interviewer [00:46:31] In that area or in the business?



Carol [00:46:34] and of course the business, but the neighborhood, because they they their neighborhood, their community based, I believe.



Interviewer [00:46:42] So one of our lines of route is a community of spaces. So, you would definitely recommend that we should have something to go to. And I've been hearing about Salmiya all of these past two weeks, everybody saying you have to go. It just doesn't mean I haven't been there, but okay.



Carol [00:47:00] it just opened. It just opened. And if you can, you should speak to Luis Coto. He's not in Hartford anymore. He's in Boston. But if you could get a hold of Gordo, he would be someone to to really talk to about like community and. He was a council member for Hartford for a very long time. He's the one mentor of mine. Hook me up, Community College, put me up for charter, a cultural center so grassroots community. And I know that he has to have some hand in Salmiya. That's why I'm saying, especially in the north, because he's from the north, that if you need any help connecting, if you have time, I'm not sure if we have time for that. You guys have time for that.



Interviewer [00:48:00] Maybe we'll see. But if we we can connect him, yeah, we'll ask you to



Carol [00:48:05] share it with you. Yeah, thank you.



Interviewers [00:48:08] Thank you very much.



Carol [00:48:12] Thank you. Thank you.

Appreciate you.



Inteviewer [00:48:14] One last question. Take a picture of maybe outside many of all of us. What about the collective?



Speaker 1 [00:48:22] Why not?



Speaker 4 [00:48:26] Let's go outside.



Speaker 1 [00:48:29] And then I want people whose phone is this yours, Christina? Oh, no, it's I think some news. Oh yeah. Oh, thank you. Thank you.



Speaker 2 [00:48:48] How are you doing? I'm Annabelle. Well, come take a picture with us



Speaker 1 [00:48:56] and make me look prettier. Thanks. Somebody said, do you want to get a photograph? I mean, I can take one word, sure.

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