On March 20, students of the advanced language course SPA 307 Ways of Reading and Writing in Spanish visited the library to examine a vibrant selection of posters and pamphlets created by protesters who took to the streets of Santiago de Chile, Bogotá, Colombia, and San Juan, Puerto Rico in recent years.

As Instructors Mariana Bono and Catalina Méndez Vallejo explained on the website of the Department of Spanish & Portuguese, the purpose of the experience was “to deepen their understanding of discourses and technologies of resistance and dissent in Latin America…The words, signs, stencils, leaflets, drawings, and posters that are now part of the Latin American Ephemera Collection tell the story of a pivotal moment in the recent history of Latin America, and afford unique access to the multiple voices and the many layers of meaning that powered the massive estallidos sociales, or social and political uprisings, of the early 2020s.”

Included in this post is a small sample of the dozens of pieces displayed during the visit. The digital reproductions are part of Princeton’s Digital Archive of Latin American and Caribbean Ephemera, a steadily growing subset of the Latin American Ephemera Collection containing thousands of digitized ephemeral items created across the region in recent decades.

Two-sided picket sign. Puerto Rico. Latin American Ephemera Collection. View full description and image.