Welcome to Amplifying Identities, the podcast. My name is Dr. Priscilla Martinez, and I’m a faculty member in the Department of History at the University of Texas at San Antonio. I work on the U.S.–Mexico borderlands, and I’m trained as an oral, public, and digital historian.

This semester—Fall 2025—I had the privilege of teaching one of my favorite courses, HIS 5823: Theories, Methods, and Uses of Oral History.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to drag you through every theory or methodological debate we covered in this graduate history course. Instead, here on Amplifying Identities, I want to share with you some of the stories my students and I uncovered throughout our class together.

In this fourth season, we collaborated with Baylor University’s Institute for Oral History, tapping into their expansive oral history collections to tell an incredible range of stories. From narratives rooted in our local communities to recollections gathered across the world, this has been one of our most exciting seasons yet. And my graduate students co-producers and I are genuinely thrilled about what we’ve put together for you.

Before we plunge into the season, I wanted to spend a little time talking with one of our partners, Steven Sielaff, the Senior Collections Manager at Baylor University’s Institute for Oral History (BUIOH).

BUIOH is a fantastic program and remain one of the leaders in oral history today. They’re home to the national Oral History Association, the Texas Oral History Association, and one of the largest oral history collections in the United States. I could gush about them all day long.

My hope, though, is that in this conversation with Steven, we’ll get into what oral history actually is, why it matters to historical inquiry, and why oral stories continue to be such powerful tools for understanding the past.

So without further ado, here’s my interview with my dear friend, Steven Sielaff. And of course—Sic ’em, Bears.

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This limited podcast series produced by Dr. Priscilla Martinez and her students for her HIS 5823: Theories, Methods, and Uses of Oral History class at UT San Antonio during the Fall 2025 semester.

Follow us on Instagram, BlueSky, and Facebook at @ampidpod, for added content. For more information about our episodes and our research process, visit us at https://amplifyingidentitiespodcast.com

You can contact us by email at [email protected]

Priscilla M. Martínez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

You can find her on Instagram @dr.priscilla.m.martinez; on BlueSky at @drprismmartinez.bsky.social ; or at her website www.priscillamariemartinez.com.

Thank you to Baylor's Institute for Oral History for partnering with us this season. For more information on BUIOH, please visit them at https://library.web.baylor.edu/oralhistory Thank you to CEDISH at UT San Antonio for your support during this season. For more information on CEDISH, please visit https://cedish.utsa.edu/

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Copyright Amplifying Identities Podcast 2025, All Rights Reserved

Welcome to Amplifying Identities, the podcast. My name is Dr. Priscilla Martinez, and I’m a faculty member in the Department of History at the University of Texas at San Antonio. I’m a specialist in U.S.–Mexico borderlands history, and I’m trained as an oral, public, and digital historian.

This semester—Fall 2025—I had the privilege of teaching one of my favorite courses, HIS 5823: Theories, Methods, and Uses of Oral History.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to drag you through every theory or methodological debate we covered in this graduate history course. Instead, here on Amplifying Identities, I want to share with you some of the stories my students and I uncovered throughout our class together.

In this fourth season, we collaborated with Baylor University’s Institute for Oral History, tapping into their expansive oral history collections to tell an incredible range of stories. From narratives rooted in our local communities to recollections gathered across the world, this has been one of our most exciting seasons yet. And my graduate students co-producers and I are genuinely thrilled about what we’ve put together for you.

But, before we dive into our season, we wanted to touch bases with one of our partners that we worked with this semester I'm talking about Vanessa Elias the digital projects information specialist here at UT San Antonio and in our conversation we talk a little bit about the importance of digital humanities work what that even is and the work that she and her colleagues at the Community Engaged Digital Scholarship Hub or CEDISH is working on here at UTSA. Here's a preview at what we discussed....

__________

This limited podcast series produced by Dr. Priscilla Martinez and her students for her HIS 5823: Theories, Methods, and Uses of Oral History class at UT San Antonio during the Fall 2025 semester.

Follow us on Instagram, BlueSky, and Facebook at @ampidpod, for added content. For more information about our episodes and our research process, visit us at https://amplifyingidentitiespodcast.com

You can contact us by email at [email protected]

Priscilla M. Martínez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

You can find her on Instagram @dr.priscilla.m.martinez; on BlueSky at @drprismmartinez.bsky.social ; or at her website www.priscillamariemartinez.com.

Thank you to Baylor's Institute for Oral History for partnering with us this season. For more information on BUIOH, please visit them at https://library.web.baylor.edu/oralhistory Thank you to CEDISH at UT San Antonio for your support during this season. For more information on CEDISH, please visit https://cedish.utsa.edu/

_________

Copyright Amplifying Identities Podcast 2025, All Rights Reserved

Welcome to Amplifying Identities, the podcast. My name is Dr. Priscilla Martinez, and I’m a faculty member in the Department of History at the University of Texas at San Antonio. I’m a specialist in U.S.–Mexico borderlands history, and I’m trained as an oral, public, and digital historian.

This semester—Fall 2025—I had the privilege of teaching one of my favorite courses, HIS 5823: Theories, Methods, and Uses of Oral History.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to drag you through every theory or methodological debate we covered in this graduate history course. Instead, here on Amplifying Identities, I want to share with you some of the stories my students and I uncovered throughout our class together.

In this fourth season, we collaborated with Baylor University’s Institute for Oral History, tapping into their expansive oral history collections to tell an incredible range of stories. From narratives rooted in our local communities to recollections gathered across the world, this has been one of our most exciting seasons yet. And my graduate students co-producers and I are genuinely thrilled about what we’ve put together for you.

But, before we dive into our season, we wanted to touch bases with one of our partners that we worked with this semester, Steven Sielaff, the Senior Collections Manager at Baylor University's Institute for Oral History. Here's a preview at what we discussed...

__________

This limited podcast series produced by Dr. Priscilla Martinez and her students for her HIS 5823: Theories, Methods, and Uses of Oral History class at UT San Antonio during the Fall 2025 semester.

Follow us on Instagram, BlueSky, and Facebook at @ampidpod, for added content. For more information about our episodes and our research process, visit us at https://amplifyingidentitiespodcast.com

You can contact us by email at [email protected]

Priscilla M. Martínez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

You can find her on Instagram @dr.priscilla.m.martinez; on BlueSky at @drprismmartinez.bsky.social ; or at her website www.priscillamariemartinez.com.

Thank you to Baylor's Institute for Oral History for partnering with us this season. For more information on BUIOH, please visit them at https://library.web.baylor.edu/oralhistory Thank you to CEDISH at UT San Antonio for your support during this season. For more information on CEDISH, please visit https://cedish.utsa.edu/

Welcome to Amplifying Identities, the podcast. My name is Dr. Priscilla Martinez, and I’m a faculty member in the Department of History at the University of Texas at San Antonio. I’m a specialist in U.S.–Mexico borderlands history, and I’m trained as an oral, public, and digital historian.

This semester—Fall 2025—I had the privilege of teaching one of my favorite courses, HIS 5823: Theories, Methods, and Uses of Oral History.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to drag you through every theory or methodological debate we covered in this graduate history course. Instead, here on Amplifying Identities, I want to share with you some of the stories my students and I uncovered throughout our class together.

In this fourth season, we collaborated with Baylor University’s Institute for Oral History, tapping into their expansive oral history collections to tell an incredible range of stories. From narratives rooted in our local communities to recollections gathered across the world, this has been one of our most exciting seasons yet. And my graduate students co-producers and I are genuinely thrilled about what we’ve put together for you.

But, before we dive into our season, we wanted to touch bases with one of our partners that we worked with this semester I'm talking about Vanessa Elias the digital projects information specialist here at UT San Antonio and in our conversation we talk a little bit about the importance of digital humanities work what that even is and the work that she and her colleagues at the Community Engaged Digital Scholarship Hub or CEDISH is working on here at UTSA. Here's a preview at what we discussed....

__________

This limited podcast series produced by Dr. Priscilla Martinez and her students for her HIS 5823: Theories, Methods, and Uses of Oral History class at UT San Antonio during the Fall 2025 semester.

Follow us on Instagram, BlueSky, and Facebook at @ampidpod, for added content. For more information about our episodes and our research process, visit us at https://amplifyingidentitiespodcast.com

You can contact us by email at [email protected]

Priscilla M. Martínez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

You can find her on Instagram @dr.priscilla.m.martinez; on BlueSky at @drprismmartinez.bsky.social ; or at her website www.priscillamariemartinez.com.

Thank you to Baylor's Institute for Oral History for partnering with us this season. For more information on BUIOH, please visit them at https://library.web.baylor.edu/oralhistory Thank you to CEDISH at UT San Antonio for your support during this season. For more information on CEDISH, please visit https://cedish.utsa.edu/

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Copyright Amplifying Identities Podcast 2025, All Rights Reserved

Welcome to the Amplifying identities, the podcast, my name is Dr. Priscilla Martinez and I am a postdoctoral fellow and faculty member in the Department of History at the University of Texas at San Antonio. And I’m a specialist in the US-Mexico borderlands as well as a trained oral, public, and digital historian.

And, this semester, Spring 2024, I have the privilege of teaching one of my dream courses titled, “Digital History: Storytelling and Podcasting.” Don’t worry I won’t bore you with all the digital theories and historical methods covered by the course. Instead, in this podcast Amplifying Identities, I’d like to share with you some of the stories my students and I uncovered and constructed during our class.

In this, our first season, we focused on local San Antonio history in the late-nineteenth and throughout the twentieth centuries as we worked with several local archives including the Archdiocese of San Antonio, Texas A&M San Antonio, the San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum, and our very own Special Collections at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

This limited podcast series produced by Dr. Priscilla Martinez and her students for her HIS 3583: Digital History class in Spring 2024. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter at @AmpIdPod, for added content. For more information about our episodes or our research process, visit us at www.amplifyingidentitespodcast.com. You can contact us by email at [email protected].

Priscilla M. Martínez is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at San Antonio. You can find her on Twitter @PrisMMartinez or at her website www.priscillamariemartinez.com.

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Copyright Amplifying Identities Podcast 2024, All Rights Reserved