Preserving Portuguese Immigrant History: A Symposium on Community Archiving

Come join us in UMass Lowell's Coburn Hall on Portugal Day, June 10, 2026 to celebrate the work of community archivists in North America and learn more about the documentation and preservation practices that are utilized in community-centered archives! It is free, open to the public, and breakfast and lunch will be served.

This event will feature roundtable discussions between other community archivists from around the continent, presentations on existing community archives such as UMass Lowell’s own Portuguese American Digital Archive (PADA) and Southeast Asian Digital Archive (SEADA), and collaborative conversations about the importance and impact of archives within the communities they serve. The Center for Lowell History will showcase physical items from the Portuguese American Digital Archive, and lunch will be provided for all attendees.

Archivists, members of the Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAM) field, and interested students or community members are all invited to attend this one-day archival symposium—organized in a collaboration between the Saab Center for Portuguese Studies and the Center of Lowell History at the University of Massachusetts Lowell—about the practice and impact of community archiving, explored through the lens of North American Portuguese community archives.

Community archives are made by and for a specific community, and center around the care and preservation of records related to the common interests, memories and traditions, and social, cultural, and historical heritage of that group of people—no matter how personal or small those collections may be.

We hope to celebrate the achievements and influence of today’s community archivists and the preservation work being done within the North American Portuguese communities, and discuss how we can better cater our preservation practices to the very cultures and memories we hope to preserve for the foreseeable future.

For questions or more information please email: Nicole_Catarino@uml.edu.

Presented by the Saab Center for Portuguese Studies and UMass Lowell Library.