Overview

Title: Sabor de Highlantown collection
Call Number: Coll356
Creator: Sarah Fouts
Dates: 6/7/2024
Size: 2.57 GB
Language: English, Spanish, Cantonese
Abstract: The Sabor de Highlandtown collection contains digital and analog materials that document Baltimore's Highlandtown neighborhood and its contemporary immigration history through a focus on street food vendors and restauranteurs. This archive contains photographs, oral histories, transcriptions, menus, historical newspapers, zines, and cultural ephemera from events and meetings.
Citation: Sabor de Highlandtown collection, Maryland Traditions Archive, Collection 356, Special Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (Baltimore, MD).

Administrative/Biographical Note

Noelle Kennedy MasukawaImage of El Puerto Jarocho Restaurant", located in the Highlandtown Neighborhood, Baltimore, Maryland.
A walk down Highlandtown's Eastern and Highland Avenues reveals an array of immigrant-owned food businesses. The "Sabor de Highlandtown" project uncovers the stories behind these establishments, shedding light on how neighborhoods evolve over time. This collaboration between UMBC American Studies students, the Southeast Community Development Corporation, and Highlandtown restauranteurs explores a part of this history by featuring the narratives that shape the neighborhood. "Sabor de Highlandtown" examines contemporary immigration history in the area, moving beyond its rich European heritage. It highlights the stories of Dominican, Salvadorean, Hondoran, Chinese, Yemeni, Mexican, and Peruvian communities, creating a storytelling and archiving project. While European histories dominate scholarly and archival records, there is limited information on more recent histories from the 1980s onward, which incluude a significant influx of Latin American immigrants. The project originated in Professor Sarah Fouts's Public Humanities course in the fall of 2021 and has since expanded across four courses in American Studies and Public Humanities at UMBC. It is a collaboration with the Southeast Community Development Corporation's team, including Amanda Smit-Peters, Andy Dahl, and Johanna Barrantes. Oral histories have been collected by Sarah Fouts, Jes Godinez, Jackson Turner, Andy Dahl, Inaki Zarate, and Kristin Kelly, with transcriptions and photographs complementing historical materials from newspapers to construct a comprehensive history. "Sabor de Highlandtown" was launched at the Creative Alliance on May 9. 2022. One story from the project, featuring Jose Vargas, was included in the American Folklife Center's "Homegrown Foodways Series" in November 2023. The short documentary film, "El Camino del Pan a Baltimore," was showcased at the Maryland Film Festival in 2024. The film was co-produced by Fernando Lopez, Sarah Fouts, and Andy Dahl, and edited by Nutria Productions. The project's website is linked through UMBC's Baltimore Traces, with funding provided by UMBC Public Humanities and Maryland Traditions. Featured Restaurants: Pedro Silva of Tex-Mex, Jose Vargas of Vargas Bakery, Juan Nunez and Franchesca Nunez of Franchesca's Empanadas, Carlos Nufio and Carla Licona of Los Primos Food taco trailer, and Hiralda de la Cruz Puerto Jarocho, Su Zhang, Oriental Wok, Jassi Singh, Filipo's, Carlos Cruz, Carlos O'Charlies, Ascar Mozeb, Queen of Sheeba, Maria Alvarado, Diner Latino. Produced by: Johanna Barrantes, Amanda Smit-Peters, Andy Dahl, Sarah Fouts, Kristin Kelly, Jes Godinez, David Fitzgerald, Jake Mooney, Larissa Kuonen, Martha Berkheimer, Kyle Casamento, Andrea Quispe, Inaki Zarate, Marco Di Pietro, Karla Press-Porter, Taylor Phelps, Gigi Fredrickson, Hailey Davio Suppoerted by: UMBC Public Humanities, UMBC American Studies, Maryland Traditions, UMBC CIRCA, the Southeast CDC, AMST403/682 Food Ethnography in America courses.


Scope & Content

Arrangement

This collection is unprocessed.


Provenance Information

Provenance and Acquisition Information

Accession MSS2024-06.

Processing Note

Digital materials were transferred to Special Collections in June 2024 by Dr. Sarah Fouts.

Descriptive Rules Used

Describing Archives: a Content Standard (DACS)

Archives Processing Manual: Description (2015): The processing manual used in Special Collections for all descriptive platforms, including PastPerfect.


Access & Use

Finding Aids

Finding aid not available.

Access Conditions

Collection is open for research. Please contact Special Collection's staff for access to digital materials.

Conditions Governing Reproductions and Use

Reproductions allowed for research purposes. Copyright maintained by the creator.


Subject Headings

Creators

Sarah Fouts

Subjects

Baltimore (Md.) Carlos O'Charlies Creative Alliance Diner Latino Filippo's Pizzaria Foodways Foodways historians Franchesca's Empanadas Highlandtown (Baltimore, Md.) Immigration Latin American cooking Los Primos Food hn Food truck Maryland Film Festival Menus Minority business enterprises Newspapers--History--20th century Newspapers--History--21st century Nutria Productions Oral history Oriental Wok Photgraphs Puerto Jarocho Queen of Sheeba Restauranteurs Restaurants Southeast Community Development Corporation Street-food vendors (Persons) Tex-Mex Transcriptions University of Maryland, Baltimore County Vargas Bakery

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