Waterbury (CT) Area Immigrant Oral History Collection, University of Connecticut Urban and Community Studies Program

The collection contains primarily oral history interviews of immigrants living in Waterbury and nearby towns. A small number document the immigrant experience in other parts of Connecticut. Most of the collection consists of interviews with more recent [post 1965] immigrants but there are a few with immigrants or children of immigrants who came in an earlier era. There are a few pre-1965 Cold War era immigrant stories. Different Latin American countries and Puerto Rico are particularly well represented, there are more interviews of people from Albania or from ethnic Albanians from Macedonia than anywhere else in Europe although there are some other European-based immigrants including those from former Yugoslavian areas such as Bosnia or Croatia, also Portugal, Scotland, Germany, England, France, Russia. Other interviewees are from Asia and various islands of the English-speaking Caribbean. There are a couple of Cape Verdean interviews and one Egyptian interview. Interviews conducted in Spring 2005 are from the Hartford, CT, area (Walnut-Orange-Walsh neighborhood). The transcripts are available as searchable PDF (portable document format) documents and require Adobe Acrobat Reader (7 or higher) to view.