Told in English and Spanish, explore the hidden history connecting textile production in Greenville, South Carolina, to Medellín, Colombia
Colombian pioneers arrived in Upstate South Carolina bringing their highly valued skills as weavers and loom mechanics as well as their labor traditions developed in "The Textile Capital of South America" Medellín, Colombia. In this bilingual book by Sofia Kearns, Threads of Connection / Hilos de conexión traces the transnational, transregional, and transcultural encounter that brought Colombian textile workers to Greenville, South Carolina, beginning in the late 1960s.
Just as the industry that had once made Greenville famous as the "Textile Capital of the World" entered a long period of decline, Colombian migration connected two internationally important textile centers. Kearns follows their migration, adaptation, work, family life, and coping strategies even as she considers the impact this influx of Colombian workers had on their native-born coworkers. She then traces both the losses and opportunities produced by globalization and the decline of the textile industry.
At the heart of the book are twenty oral history interviews conducted by Kearns and her research team based in Upstate South Carolina. The voices of the interviewees became the point of departure for her research and allow individual stories to illuminate a larger history that remains largely absent from official records. Her long engagement with Greenville's Colombian community gives the narrative an unusual immediacy and intimacy.
Written in both English and Spanish, Threads of Connection / Hilos de conexión allows the people whose stories it tells—and readers in both South Carolina and Colombia—to engage with a shared history in their primary language.
Sofía Kearns is professor emerita of Spanish and Latin American culture and literature at Furman University. She was the principal investigator for the oral history project, "Oral Histories of Colombian Textile Workers in Greenville, South Carolina," housed at Furman University.
