Hostos Library | Archives

This collection contains the papers amassed by Gerald Meyer, a history professor at Hostos Community College for over 30 years. The collection traces Meyer’s involvement in political and social activities as well as his leadership roles at Hostos. It also contains his instructional materials and documentation of his professional and scholarly work. The most significant part of the collection is Series IV, which is dedicated to movements to obtain additional facilities and ultimately to save Hostos from closure during the mid 1970s. Hostos’ unique position as a bilingual college serving a population that is over 65% Latino caused this struggle to become emblematic of a more generalized fight for Latino rights and bilingual education in The Bronx and beyond. The collection contains academic writings, flyers, clippings, student publications, correspondence, memos, instructional materials, scholarly publications, personal papers, and other materials related to Meyer’s activities and Hostos Community College.

The Magda Vasillov photographs and negatives include some of the earliest images documenting Hostos Community College. Included are negatives which depict the activities during the first two years of the college’s history, 1970-1973. Also included is Vasillov’s, Faces of Hostos photograph exhibit, which was displayed at the Bronx Museum in 1980.

The Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art (MoCHA) was born from the rise of multiculturalism in 1985, as an alternative museum in SoHo that showcased the art of under-represented Hispanic and Latino artists. MoCHA operated under the umbrella of Friends of Puerto Rico, Inc. (FOPR), a non-profit organization founded and incorporated in 1956. From 1974 to 1984, FOPR administered the Cayman Gallery, which in its lifetime was the only non-commercial Hispanic arts center in the mainstream of American Art. Despite its short existence, MoCHA helped launch the career of numerous artists who became successful in the 1990s. After it closed in 1990, its archival records were taken to Hostos Community College, City University of New York, in an effort to preserve them. These invaluable records document the history of the institution and the early careers of many of the artists it exhibited. Materials include exhibition and artist files, recorded symposia of public programs organized by the museum, and exhibition catalogs.