On September 17, 2026, Bianca Martin gave a lecture at the Pryor Center on her oral history research in the Romanian American community of Hot Springs, Arkansas. Hot Springs is the site of the largest Romanian immigrant community in the state of Arkansas, emerging in the late 1980s and early 1990s as many Romanians left the country following the collapse of communist rule there in 1989. The community is largely centered around two churches, the Betania Romanian Apostolic Church and the Hot Springs Seventh-Day Adventist Church, and in the last four decades has played a significant but under-studied role in the economic and cultural life of Hot Springs. Martin’s research is the first to seek to document this history and the oral history interviews she conducted offer a fascinating insight into the community’s cultural, economic, and spiritual life.
Bianca Martin conducted this research as an inaugural Pryor Center Research Fellow in 2026. Her talk also served as the inaugural event of the Pryor Center’s Fellowship Lecture Series, designed to highlight the research our fellows conduct and the vital contributions they offer to the Pryor Center’s oral history collections.
#1: Still frame from Pryor Center lecture by Bianca Martin on September 17, 2026; Fayetteville, Arkansas
© Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, University of Arkansas
#2: Still frame from Pryor Center lecture by Bianca Martin on September 17, 2026; Fayetteville, Arkansas
© Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, University of Arkansas
