Category Archives: Uncategorized

Researching Historical Databases

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I am interested in researching and learning more about Puerto Ricans in New York and their influence on American popular culture. I want to learn more about their migration from their beautiful island in the Caribbean to major cities in the “mainland”, particularity New York. While searching the national archives I found a Puerto Rican records guide publication, listing records found the in the national archives in New York City.

When searching the National Archives I found a PDF file of a Puerto Rican Records Guide.

puerto-rican-records-guide(2)

While searching the Proquest Historical Newspaper database I found the following article:

Puerto Rican Newpaper article Chicago Defender 1962

As I searched flickr I found a link to this picture of young Puerto Rican men in the South Bronx doing hip hop in 1982.

Hip Hop Culture 1983

Photography as a Weapon

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In the article “Photography as a Weapon”, reveals valid points made in reference to the altering of digital photographic images. The ability to edit digital pictures, and publish them, can mislead people into believing it’s true, even when told it was faked. Most humans are visual people, storing and processing images on the side of our brains. With new technological advances in Photoshop and other enhancement applications and software, one cannot always trust what they are seeing on the internet. As seen in the photos leaked out by the Iranian government, a picture of four war missiles blasting off caused panic world wide. Other countries, like ours, reported it on our newspapers, causing confusion as to what this country was really up to.

Altering pictures is not a new phenomenon, and in the past it has been done in order to spread propaganda and fear. I agree that you have to weary with the authentically of web sites and it’s contents. As with fashion magazines, you cannot always believe it to be true.. until it is.

Becoming Digital

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I am truly amazed to how far technology has come in regards to digitizing photographs and archiving them. An average computer can hold thousands of images, depending on the size of hard drive. Photographs taken and stored at a higher resolution, such as .tiff files, will show the most accurate details and best used for future alterations, as opposed to jpeg or gif images. These technological advances has allowed people access to images they may have never been able to see in person, though the quality is often degraded and never like looking at the original. Images stored at higher resolutions requires more space, time and in some cases money, but for a mom as myself, being able to take an everyday photo of my children, and upload it immediately to a site where other family and friends can view it in seconds, is priceless.

Earlier this year my son’s great-grandmother passed away at the age of 84. While helping to clean out her personal belongings, I found some memoirs and old letters written to her by her parents during the 1930s and 1940s. What intrigued me was discovering and reading a piece where she stated the house she grew up in was built in 1810 and was standing until very recently, when it was sold and taken away piece by piece and rebuilt at another location in Virginia. I am amazed, that her family was allowed to own lots of land, work their own land, and own property during a time when most African Americans were enslaved and considered to be property of their owners. I would like to know, Why were some African American communities in the south allowed to remain free and own property during slavery?

Learning HTML

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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>

<h1>Learning HTML</h1>

<p>For this week’s assignment we had to learn how to use html language. All of the sentences below are random sentences to test out html</p>

<h2>Don’t Worry, Be Happy</h2>
<img src=”smiley.gif” alt=”Smiley face” width=”32″ height=”32″ />

<a href=”http://www.gmu.edu” target=”_blank”>Come and visit www.gmu.edu!</a>

<p>When I go to the grocery store I usually bring a list with me.  The first three items on my list for this week is:
1. milk
2. bread
3. orange juice </p>

<p>My oldest kid started went back to school this week. This year she needed a zippered three ring binder, #2 pencils, and a calculator. </p>

</body>
</html>

 

Learning HTML

For this week’s assignment we had to learn how to use html language. All of the sentences below are random sentences to test out html

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

Smiley face Come and visit www.gmu.edu!

When I go to the grocery store I usually bring a list with me. The first three items on my list for this week is: 1. milk 2. bread 3. orange juice

My oldest kid started went back to school this week. This year she needed a zippered three ring binder, #2 pencils, and a calculator.

Promise and Perils of Digital History

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In reading the article, Promise and Perils of Digital History, I realize I can relate to the apprehensive and skeptism of the “dawn” of the digital age over 10 years ago. I grew up in the 90s, and my parents got our first computer in 1996.  With the internet being new ‘thing’, and the introduction of AOL, I was excited as many teenagers were at the time. As I got older and went into high school I remember my parents and teachers telling us how easy we had it now and how they were afraid the newer generations will be lost traditional ways of learning and researching.   In today’s digital age for historians I am excited at the amount of data available to us about all subjects, but am aware that all contents on the internet is not always the correct information. I like the idea of being able to now store an unlimited amount of data on computers and different networks, but am also aware of how easy it can be to “lose” or “crash”  lose it all at once. I am also interested in seeing, if years from now, will the accuracy of history, good and bad, be accurate according to how the events folded, not by the accounts of the winners.

I am interested in researching and learning more about:

1. The history of the Weems-Bott museum and it’s alleged hauntings.

2. The history of Puerto Rican’s migration to New York City and their influences on American popular culture.

3. Free African American communities in Virginia before the civil war.

Hello world!

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Hello world!  My name is Monique Terc and I am a senior at GMU majoring in Global Affairs with a concentration in Communication and Technology, and minoring in Latin American Studies. After graduating I plan on enrolling in a graduate program in History. My ultimate goal is to become a local historian and use new technology in my research and discoveries.

I am a proud mother of two wonderful children and when I am not running around after them at home, I am attending soccer games, daycare lunch-ins, gardening, reading, visiting historical sites, or visiting with family and friends.  I grew up in New York City and served in the US Navy for 8 years as an IT and worked in the government afterwards as a contractor in the IT and Intelligence fields. I have been living the Northern VA area since 2005 and have thus made VA my home.