In Spring 2023, Dr. Meghan Conley and students from her Participatory Action Research class collaborated with Centro Hispano de East Tennessee and Community Storytelling Fellows to document the diverse experiences of Latinx immigrants in Knoxville, using community participatory research methods. Community leaders and students were trained to conduct oral history interviews in English and Spanish with Latinx immigrants and children of immigrants about their lives and experiences – including experiences in countries of origin, in migration, and in Knoxville. These interviews will be reproduced in a book that features art and photography created by community members. Centro Hispano will use these stories in outreach to promote awareness of the diversity of immigrant experiences, as told through their own voices, and to increase visibility of Latinx community members in Knoxville. This project was funded through the Community-University Research Collaboration Initiative (CURCI).

Much of Dr. Conley’s focuses on the political, economic, and the ideological systems that sustain structural inequalities for Latinx immigrants, and how immigrants resist these structures of power.