Hostos Library | Archives

The Hostos Center for the Arts & Culture Collection includes 101 promotional cards featuring original artwork that documents musical performances, gallery exhibitions and art installations that have taken place at Hostos Community College. The cards illustrate the incredible variety of artists and performers who have come together at this dynamic South Bronx venue. The Hostos Center strives to create forums in which the cultural heritages of its audiences – especially Latinos and African-Americans – are affirmed and nurtured.

The Magda Vasillov Photographic Collection includes many of the earliest images documenting Hostos Community College/CUNY. They depict the activities during the first three years of the college from 1970-1973. The college was founded in 1968 and the first day of classes was September 14, 1970. As a founding member of the college, Prof. Vasillov began as the college photographer and graphic designer and later became a professor in the Humanities Department and Chair of the Hostos Art Committee. Through her professional lens, Prof. Vasillov successfully portrayed a community battling poverty, crime, and depression with its right to education. The arrangement and description of the collection was funded by a grant from the New York State Archives Documentary Heritage Program, 2008-09.

Ventana al pasado is a bilingual web-based research collection that links the Latino-related records located in ten New York State archival repositories. Ventana brings together collections documenting the New York’s Latino/Hispanic community, and makes them accessible to researchers all over the world. Coordinated by the New York State Archives and Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños.

Ventana al pasado unites 94 collections and over 3,100 digital images that document the social, political, and cultural lives of New York’s Hispanic and Latino communities through the records of Hispanic/Latino community leaders and organizations, union members, politicians, artists, and others. Governmental records shed light on its role in issues such as affirmative action, immigration, and bilingual education. Included in the resource are photographs, letters, flyers, and other archival records that document the diverse experiences of Latino/Hispanic populations in New York State.

Together these materials tell the story of communities previously underrepresented in the historical record and trace their experiences in New York. This digital collection contains approximately 300 images from five separate archival collections held by Hostos Community College.

Note: As of October 2021 this collection is searchable via the above link. However, you must put in specific search terms like "bilingual education" or another topic to view results.