The bulk of the online digital collection consists of unique episodes of Vecinos/Neighbors, a local public access television program that ran from 1992-1995 and featured cultural events, politics, and community events and initiatives representing Latinx and Puerto Rican life in Holyoke and the Pioneer Valley.  The footage was created and edited entirely by volunteers.  A small amount of additional material includes raw footage and concert/festival footage created in Holyoke.  Some of this footage is undated. Original, manuscript descriptions with timecodes accompany some of the 177 VHS and U-Matic tapes that were digitized. The digital collection consists of 199 recordings based on the digitization of these 177 magnetic tapes.

A portion of the collection has been digitized and is available on our YouTube Channel.

Creators of the collection: Carlos Vega (1950-2012) was a Holyoke-based community activist and organizer and, during the production of these recordings, executive director of Nueva Esperanza, a South Holyoke community development corporation that he co-founded.  Sylvia Galván was active in many community roles in the Pioneer Valley.  She and her husband, Gary O’Connor, co-produced many episodes of Vecinos/Neighbors with Carlos Vega.  Numerous other community members were involved in producing this footage and in hosting episodes of Vecinos/Neighbors, including Orlando Isaza, Gladys Lebrón, Magdalena Gómez, Juan Rivera, and Edgar Biard.  La Familia Hispana is a long-running Latinx music festival in Holyoke founded by Diosdado Lopez.