"Invisible Immigrants: Spaniards in the U.S. (1868-1945)" will be on display at the Tampa Bay History Center from March 1 to August 3.
The exhibit contains over 300 photographs, objects, documents and audiovisual materials collected from Spanish families all over the world.
Through these artifacts, museum-goers can follow the "journey of thousands of Spanish workers and farmers who left their homeland in search of better opportunities in the U.S.," many of whom made their home in the Tampa Bay region because of the cigar-making industry.
The exhibit was curated by New York University professor James D. Fernández and journalist and filmmaker Luis Argeo, who both have grandparents featured in the exhibit.
The curators drew from an archive of over 15,000 records that includes family albums and personal memorabilia, shedding light on the otherwise "often-overlooked history of Spanish emigration" at the turn of the 20th century.
The exhibition toured in Spain for five years, and will be on display in the U.S. for the first time at the Tampa Bay History Center.
The narrative, which has been converted into a bilingual version for Tampa's audience, is framed through six chapters: Goodbye, Now Get to Work!, Living la Vida, They Got Organized, Solidarity and Strife, and Made in the USA.
Saturday's opening reception will include remarks from Mayor Jane Castor; José Vivero, Honorary Consul of Spain in Tampa; and Fernando Prieto, Secretary General, Fundación Consejo España – EE. UU., which helped bring the exhibit to Tampa.
Fernández and Argeo have each worked for around two decades, collecting artifacts and oral histories from Spanish families all over the world.
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Many of the families they were able to get in touch with were by word-of-mouth, facilitated by a Facebook group that has grown to over 17,000 followers.
When they find a family who's willing to share their archive, Fernández said, that's when they hop on a plane.
"We gather the money together necessary to make a trip to California or Hawaii or Pennsylvania or West Virginia," he said. "We go there with our cameras and scanners and sleep on people's couches while we digitize their family albums and record their family histories.
The process is deeply personal, said Argeo.
"They always receive us with a cup of coffee and a lot of memories," he said, "And it's not very difficult to spend hours scanning and talking and and searching for these memories."
And these memories are precious, Argeo added — if not preserved, they can disappear.
"They become invisible or disintegrate little by little," Argeo said.
Opportunity for Immersive Experience
People can participate in a more immersive experience that begins Friday, Feb. 28 and lasts through Sunday, March 2.
During the Invisible Immigrants Immersion Weekend, participants will get to explore Ybor City through food, drink and tours of cultural sites, including the J.C. Newman Cigar Factory and the Centro Asturiano.
Ybor City was established in 1885 and became known as the cigar capital of the world. Cubans, Spaniards and Italians worked alongside each other in old cigar factories.
More info on how to RSVP for the weekend events can be found at the Tampa Bay History Center website.
The immersive experience is organized independently by Tampa’s Spanish community organizations and is not affiliated with the History Center.
Anthony Carreño is on the Board of Directors of Centro Español de Tampa, which is sponsoring the weekend events. He's also a West Tampa native.
"I grew up surrounded by the Spanish community in west Tampa," he said.
It wasn't until Carreño lived in various cities — San Francisco, Baltimore, Minneapolis — when he realized how rich the Spanish culture was in Tampa.
"I became aware that the Tampa story, turns out, was a fairly big chapter in an otherwise small story," he said. "When I see the title 'Invisible Immigrants,' I immediately think of how small our numbers were on a national level, compared to other groups of immigrants from European countries like Italians and Germans and Irish."
Carreño said he hopes that Tampa will be the "first stop on a national tour of 'Invisible Immigrants.'"
Fernández said the exhibit does not make direct connections to our current political situation, but he does see parallels, "not only with today, but with migrants throughout human history."
"The people whose lives we document and celebrate in the exhibition are people who took great risks in order to create better futures for their for their children," said Fernández.
"There were people who were searching for decency and dignity, fleeing from a place that was not very welcoming and had a lot of corruption and a lot of discrimination and a lot of inequities...migration is a human phenomenon that has always existed and always will exist."
