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Library

Gloria Martinez

June 11, 2021

|

Hudson, NY

Song

Recorded by

Beverly Bhaangi

This interview is available in-person only. Please get in touch if you would like to listen.
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Summary:

This interview with Gloria Martinez, based in Hudson, New York was conducted remotely on Zoom on June 11, 2021. At the age of 9, Gloria moved with her mother and five siblings to Hudson from Los Angeles, California. Extended family already based in Hudson helped them settle initially. She discusses the different facets of adjustment to life in Hudson including culture shock, homesickness, racism and linguistic discrimination. She contrasts the experience and expectations of assimilation into the USA for Hispanic-Latinx communities in Los Angeles versus New York. She describes the evocative power of food, attitudes toward culturally sanctioned gender roles and shares memories of teenage life in Hudson. Gloria co-founded the Columbia County Sanctuary Movement known for its successful campaign to accord sanctuary city status to Hudson. She reflects on how her experiences in a mixed-status family shaped her engagement with activism and advocacy. This interview may be of interest to those who want to understand the pressures placed on all members of a family - from the youngest to the eldest by migration, racism, threats of and actual deportation; the impact of migration on first-generation children of immigrants; the role of language in exclusion; the effects of gentrification on housing and outward migration of residents; definitions of American identity; Latino restaurants in Hudson, Latino Food; Race relations and power; Trumpism and the effects of his presidency; Immigrant-led activism and advocacy; the levels of vulnerability and psycho-social impact of navigating immigration law, immigration lawyers, and ICE officers.

Themes:
No items found.
Interviewer Bio:
Beverly Bhaangi

Beverly Bhaangi conducted this interview while attending the Oral History Summer School. She is a third-generation South Asian resident of the Kingdom of Bahrain without citizenship. Beverly did her undergraduate education in Anthropology, Political Science and Race, Gender and Post-Colonial Studies at Bennington College, Vermont and The New School in New York. Her interests centre around transnational histories, early 20th century patterns of movement and migration in the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean, littoral cities, citizenship, the development of national borders and boundaries, the invention of the passport, and the psycho-social impact of perennial migration and class mobility among diaspora communities.

Additional Info:
Interview language(s):
English
,
Audio quality:
Medium

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Permissions: 

This interview is hereby made available for research purposes only. For additional uses (radio and other media, music, internet), please click here to inquire about permissions.

Part of this interview may be played in a radio broadcast or podcast.

Oral history is an iterative process. In keeping with oral history values of anti-fixity, interviewees will have an opportunity to add, annotate and reflect upon their lives and interviews in perpetuity. Talking back to the archive is a form of “shared authority.”

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