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Reclaiming Our Experience as Diverse Communities. Florante Peter Ibanez, Joint MLIS / MA Program in Information Studies and Asian American Studies – UCLA June 24, 2007 – APALA Panel for ALA 2007 Asian American Materials: Preserving Our Histories and Moving Into the Future.
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Reclaiming Our Experienceas Diverse Communities Florante Peter Ibanez, Joint MLIS / MA Program in Information Studies and Asian American Studies – UCLA June 24, 2007 – APALA Panel for ALA 2007 Asian American Materials: Preserving Our Histories and Moving Into the Future
“Serve the People” The People United! Will Never be Defeated!
Asian American Studies Center UCLA "The Center will hopefully enrich the experience of the entire university by contributing to an understanding of the long neglected history, rich cultural heritage, and present position of Asian Americans in our society." -- from the Center Steering Committee Mission Statement, 1969
Home grown organizations are created – To Serve the People 1969 GIDRA Newspaper 1970 Visual Communications 1971 Amerasia Bookstore & Gallery in Little Tokyo 1980 Center for Asian American Media (formerly NAATA) 1982 Filipino American National Historical Society 1985 Filipino American Library Archival Institutions overlook Communities of Color
VC Archives are being entered into a database and films moved to the Academy
Sorting the 80 Boxes of Philippine Anti-Martial Law documents, publications and photos from various U.S. organizations in the De la Cruz family garage.
What’s the Difference? • Museum / Gallery – Art, Artifacts for Public Exhibits • Archive – Primary materials like Documents & Manuscripts & Ephemera usually accessed by appointment for research • Library – Books & Publications & Multimedia materials (may circulate or not) • All of the above may be public, academic, private or community based collections
Examples of Information Organizations • Japanese American National Museum (JANM) • Museum • Research Library • Archives • DENSHO Project – Online Interactive Archive • San Francisco Public Library with Filipino American Center (internal special collection) • Online Archive of California (OAC) – Finding Aids include some from JANM and other ethnic institutions • Filipino American Library – Community Collection of Rare Books & Archives • UCSB California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives (online collection)
JANM in Los Angeles Little Tokyo http://janm.org
Archival Ethics • An archive must ensure appropriate and permanent care for records of historical value, in order to make them available for use both now and in the future. • Where is the Best Place to care for your records, documents, publications or ephemera? • Who has proper storage facilities, skilled processing staff and space for your collection? • Looking for places that care……
Opened in December 2003 Located near Olvera Street and Union Station in Los Angeles
National Pinoy Archives of the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS) – Seattle, WA
High Tech On-Line Archives serve as Community Memory Space on the World Wide Web – http://densho.org http://goforbroke.org
Looking Forward from the Past Building a Filipino American Museum & Research Library: Obstacles to Development and Creating a Memory Space V-FAM by Florante Peter Ibanez Enrolled in the UCLA Joint MLIS and MA Program in Information Studies and Asian American Studies Presented at the 2005 Association of Asian American Studies Conference April 23, 2005 - Los Angeles, CA
UC Irvine’s Southeast Asian American Archives (online & in the Library)
Royal “Uncle Roy” MoralesHero/Teacher/Activist/Social Worker Born May 28, 1932 Los Angeles, CA Gone to God January 23, 2001 At home in Gardena, CA
The Morales Garage as Storage • The holdings appear to consist of: • 6 office size metal file cabinets with 4 drawers (not all filled to capacity) • 4 large Xerox boxes of photographs & negatives • Mixed in are family materials that need to be separated out with family assistance • There are probably a few more boxes that were not accessible at the time of this first inspection
Collection Materials • Personal notes and course readers from teaching for 15 years – The Pilipino American Experience – at UCLA • Correspondence with other community activists of the 1970s-90’s • Notes used to create his book – MAKIBAKA: Pilipino American Struggle – published 1974 • Photographs of numerous and various Filipino and Asian American Southern California community events • Program Booklets (i.e.. conferences, community events, Filipino Christian Church, Far West Conventions, etc.) • Hand made Philippine Kite and Paroles
Why is this collection significant? • This collection will serve as a primary resource for early development of the Los Angeles community and early Filipino American studies. • The Photographs alone are a treasure that span the Asian American and Filipino American 1970s-80s Social Justice Movements. • His collection of program booklets also identity other community organizations & individuals to research. • Even as a Gift, The Uncle Roy Morales collection is a Treasure that can inspire others to document, preserve and donate to build our collective memory from our own community perspective.
Founder of the Filipino American LibraryHelen Agcaoili Summers Brown1937 UCLA Alumni BA & Masters in Education – Possibly the first Filipina American UCLA Graduate(son, George Brown standing)
A short clip from: “got book?Auntie Helen’s Gift of books”
Online Archive of California http://www.oac.cdlib.org/
Conclusions • Libraries & Archives & Museums are repositories that should house the collective memory of all Americans • We need to identify what and who are important to document and preserve • We need to network more among ourselves as communities of color and educate others on our significance in history • We have to do it for ourselves – nobody else will do it for us…… • We must move our collections into the mainstream • We are starting to train and place librarians & archivists & curators but we need to encourage our youth that more professionals are needed
The NEW Crop of Information Professionals Filipino American UCLA Information Studies 2006 cohort joins host, UCLA Librarian Eloisa Borah & Jonathan Lorenzo, Administrator of the Filipino American Library for Pizza at UCLA.