This post in the Homegrown Plus series features Nick Gaitan, musician, music historian, band leader, and proud exponent of Houston’s vibrant Chicano music scene. Like others in the series, the blog links to a concert video of Nick’s band in performance in the Coolidge Auditorium in Fall 2025, a video interview recorded with him prior to the concert and links to Latino/a educational resources held in the AFC. The group is composed of Nicholas Valdez (vocals, accordion), Charlie San Miguel (drums), Luis Gonzalez (bajo sexto, guitar), Nick Gaitan (vocals, stand up bass). The band’s self-described “Tejas [Texas] Roots Music” sound is a cover term for a repertoire that encompasses conjunto, cumbia, Louisiana swamp pop, country, and rhythm and blues. These stellar musicians slip seamlessly from one musical style to another during the course of performance and bring the sound of Texas and the wider Gulf Coast region to the Washington, DC, audience. In the interview, Nick Gaitan reflects on his documentation work for Sonidos de Houston, a Community Collections Grant project and his upbringing in the multi-cultural, polyphonic environment of his native Houston and its long-lasting influences on his personal and professional development.
A June 16th Library symposium entitled Rewriting America: Reconsidering the Federal Writers' Project 80 Years Later will bring attention to the enduring legacy and importance of the archival materials and mansucripts produced by a small army of unemployed writers, historians, librarians, teachers, and others for the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) of the 1930s. The symposium will illustrate how this Library collection continues to inform and inspire public outreach and interdisciplinary scholarship in fields ranging from public and oral history to journalism to ethnic studies and folklore. Dr. Alessandro Portelli will deliver the keynote address, which will be livestreamed. Learn more about the in-person symposium and how to attend, as well as how to attend the livestreamed keynote address, in this blog post.
“In the case of American Negroes, their labor founded the nation and was prime cause of the industrial revolution and the capitalist system of the modern world: their slavery, revolt, escape, protest and emancipation is a central thread of our history: and without their music and laughter American art and literature would never have attained …
As African American History Month concludes in 2020, the AFC is proud to announce the culmination of the Civil Rights History Project (CRHP) with the online release of the last batch of the 145 video interviews recorded with veteran activists for the collection. All the interviews are available on the Civil Rights History Project page, at …
