This grantee profile is part of our EMS assessment report, “Our Stories, Our Commonwealth.” Read the executive summary or the full report for more information about Expand Massachusetts Stories. You can also visit our web page highlighting key information from our assessment.
Since 1997, Manos Unidas, a multicultural cooperative, has been organizing Latino immigrant communities in the Berkshires. Grounded in the principles of liberation pedagogy, Manos members have worked collectively for decades to uplift voices that have been marginalized and to build a strong and resilient network of mutual aid in and around Pittsfield. The cooperative has also given rise to a wide variety of projects and enterprises: the first bilingual radio show in the Berkshires; a cross cultural action network; the first bilingual zine in the Berkshires. And storytelling has been an essential tool in the Manos toolkit throughout.
Manos Unidas’ director, Anaelisa Jacobsen, is a second-generation Venezuelan-Panamanian-American who grew up in a household that prioritized civic engagement. “My parents really passed on the activist torch to me, to uplift everyone around me. That’s been on fire in me essentially ever since I was born,” she says. In 2022, Anaelisa bumped into Jean Minuchin, a performance artist and director of the World and Eye Arts Center, at an art opening. The two got to talking about their shared interest in the intersection between social justice work and the arts. Soon, Jean was collaborating with Manos to help integrate theater and puppetry into a community storytelling project. Anaelisa says, “The values that we espouse — of uplifting voices and of always going to the under layers of what our people are feeling [and] expressing what needs to be expressed — are something that Jeannie and I absolutely resonate with at the same level. And so it’s just [been] a beautiful, natural alliance.”
The pair — in collaboration with oral historian Judith Monachina and other Manos members and partners — began imagining Manos Unidas’ next storytelling project. In 2024, they received an EMS Advancing Equity grant to support Raíces de Cuentos, an oral history project to collect stories of flight, relocation, and resilience from across Pittsfield’s multi-generational Latino immigrant communities and to produce a culminating exhibition.
“We are here. We are very here. This project helps make that visible.”
When they applied for EMS funding, they didn’t imagine that they’d be implementing the project against the backdrop of an unprecedentedly aggressive mass deportation effort across the country. With new threats being directed toward the Latino community, the project team had to be especially attentive to the balance between, in Jean’s words, “safety and the need to express oneself, in a time of danger.” Despite the risks, the project team forged ahead, seeking to leverage the story collection process as an opportunity for self-discovery and collective-care that met the moment. Anaelisa says, “This is an act of creative response to excruciating times. That is one of the things that was important [in] choos[ing] to move forward [with] this project, in these times. It was an act of faith, a leap into the unknown. And I feel like [it] became an emblem of hope for our community — specifically for our Latino community.”
“I feel like [it] became an emblem of hope for our community — specifically for our Latino community.” – Anaelisa Jacobsen
For both the narrators and the interviewers, the result was an intimate and deeply powerful storytelling experience. Anaelisa describes her own experience as an interviewer saying, “I can say [that] sitting in that space with this family was heart-rending. You could tell that there was a metamorphosis happening…. There were so many layers of trauma and violence and unrest. And what was really fascinating to see was that it felt like in the very telling, they were getting something off of their bodies that had laid there for many years.” Jean backs this up, from her vantage point as someone who listened to the interview recordings: “There’s such an act of trust between the interviewer and the narrator. Even listening a step removed, those stories were so powerful and very moving. It does feel like you’re being honored with something.” She adds, “It’s almost like [the narrators] don’t quite know what part of their story they’re going to [tell]. And then through the process, it’s like something is revealed. And that’s a gift of self-discovery.”
Beyond the personal impact for the narrators of telling their stories, both women also see tremendous value in the documentation of these stories — for both the Pittsfield communities that these narrators are a part of and for the broader narrative of Massachusetts. Jean says, “This particular population is a population that’s silenced right now. Their stories are not being heard. So there’s the importance of hearing the stories of people who, for one reason or another, society has decided to silence.” Anaelisa adds, “We are here. We are very here. This project helps make that visible. These voices are here, and they’re silenced by the structures of society…. These are people who have been silenced, but that doesn’t make their voices any less important. In fact, I think it makes these voices more important. There’s an accumulation of story and vision that needs to be shared. When I look at Massachusetts, I feel so proud that we have become a state that is welcoming to this diversity of people…. And yet there’s so much more work to do, and there are so many more stories to hear.”
