Greetings from SITES,

As a result of our nearly 20 years of working side by side with state humanities councils, we stand amazed at the rich public humanities programs that you produce and support throughout your states. Your reach into remote and sometimes disenfranchised communities of people is very important.  And, we know from our MoMS projects that wonderful humanities programs are often sparked by exhibitions. 

SITES has just finished producing a set of 6 colorful bi-lingual posters about the Mexican migrant labor story. Our distribution partners – the state migrant education center directors – have not accounted for quite as many sets as we projected. The next best recipient group from our perspective was the state humanities councils, since they serve such a vital role in terms of providing public programs.  So, we are sending to each of your councils a set of these exhibition posters and hope that you will be able to put them to good use.  You can keep them or pass them on to another organization that works directly with the Mexican community in your state.

Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Story, 1942 – 1964 was developed with Smithsonian Latino Center funding as a result of overwhelmingly positive feedback to the traveling exhibition of the same name. At each museum location on the current tour, local communities are discovering family connections and opportunities to explore both this little-known chapter in American history and to discuss implications in today’s world. We hope that your council will be able to take advantage of the posters and the related online resources to share with visitors. Here’s a link to the project page, for a quick preview: www.sites.si.edu/bracero.

So, please accept this gift from us to you as a token of appreciation for the many years we have worked together.  If you think of a creative way to put the posters to good use and to collect stories from individuals who may have been bracer workers, we would love to know about it.  The posters should be arriving within a week or so.

With warm regards,

Carol

Carol G. Harsh

Director, Museum on Main Street

Smithsonian Institution, SITES

202-633-5333

202-465-5267 (cell)

202-633-5344 (fax)