Music Professor David Garcia Launches Podcast to Explore Latin U.S. History Through Music
David Garcia, the Robin March Haynes Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is launching a new podcast titled 'Border Crossings: Latin U.S. History We Weren't Taught.' As a Burress fellow in the Institute for the Arts and Humanities' Faculty Fellowship program, Garcia's project aims to disseminate historical material beyond academic circles. The podcast will delve into the long 19th-century history of Latinos in the United States, focusing on how music reflects and shapes cultural contexts, identities, and societal issues like racism and discrimination. Garcia, whose parents immigrated from Ecuador, was motivated by the political climate surrounding immigration in 2015-2016 to highlight the historical presence of people from Latin America in the U.S. since before 1783, extending beyond the Southwest to cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York. His research, which has been ongoing for about 11 years, primarily involves archival work, examining sources s...
