In South Texas, the Rio Grande Valley is not a valley at all but a delta floodplain whose identity hinges on its melding of two countries: the United States and Mexico. Many Valley residents split their time between both sides of the Rio Grande River, crossing back and forth for work, school, doctor's appointments, or cuando tienen ganas para unos taquitos. This session is about the importance of archiving home movies from the region. Díaz uses clips sourced from the RGV home movie collection at the Texas Archive of the Moving Image to lead up to her own personal Super 8mm archival project, The Pete Diaz Jr. Collection (her paternal grandfather). Pete Diaz Jr. was an entrepreneur and visionary from Rio Grande City, TX who had a passion for photography. He documented and archived his life through photography and home movies--perhaps he knew that the archiving of daily life, events both big and small, would be important for the future representation of his community. Díaz will present a case study detailing her process of acquiring, cleaning, scanning, color and audio remastering, and archiving this collection and the importance of preserving these personal histories for generations to come.
