According to a news release, the University of West Florida Historic Trust received the competitive “Latino Americans: 500 Years of History” grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association.

The $3,000 grant will enable the Historic Trust to host programs about Latino history and culture at the Voices of Pensacola Multicultural Center presented by Gulf Power.

The series of events at the multicultural center will include public film screenings, discussion groups, oral history initiatives, local history exhibitions, multimedia projects and performances. “Latino Americans: 500 Years of History” is part of an NEH initiative, “The Common Good: The Humanities in the Public Square.”

On Saturday, Aug. 8 at 1 p.m., Barbara Clark, registered professional archaeologist of the Florida Public Archaeology Network, will give a presentation on “Spanish Florida and Foreigners in Their Own Land” following a screening of the PBS “Latino Americans” episode “Foreigners in their Own Land: 1565-1880.”

As part of the grant, the Historic Trust received the six-part, NEH-supported documentary series “Latino Americans,” created for PBS. The award-winning series chronicles the history of Latinos in the United States from the 16th century to present day.

Grant-funded programming includes a series of book discussions entitled “Latin Americans in Print.” Books to be discussed are “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros on Thursday, Aug. 27, “Love in the Time of Cholera” by Gabriel García Márquez on Thursday, Sept. 24 and “The Book of Unknown Americans” by Christina Henriquez on Thursday, Oct. 22. All discussions will be held at 6 p.m.

The grant also supports Nuestra Historia, a month-long program coinciding with Hispanic American Heritage Month from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

This funding enables the Historic Trust to capture the stories of Latino Americans in the community through oral history interviews. The interviews, recorded at Voices of Pensacola, can be scheduled by appointment beginning Tuesday, Sept. 15. Participants may also have their family photographs scanned for inclusion in the UWF Historic Trust archives.