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CSUDH News

The primary source of news and information about California State University, Dominguez Hills, its students, faculty, and staff.

Archives

University Archivist Named Mellon Cultural Heritage Fellow

May 10, 2022 By Lilly McKibbin

Amalia Medina CastañedaAmalia Medina Castañeda, university archivist at the California State University, Dominguez Hills Gerth Archives and Special Collections, has been selected as one of 15 Rare Book School-Mellon Cultural Heritage Fellows for 2022-2024. The Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship for Diversity, Inclusion & Cultural Heritage is a six-year program that aims to advance multicultural collections through innovative and inclusive curatorial practice and leadership.

Castañeda, who is passionate about the recruitment and retention of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) in special collections librarianship, had applied to the fellowship because she was drawn to its inclusive mission.

“Unfortunately, the cultural heritage, museum, and archives field is not racially and culturally diverse, and has only made mild progress over the past 25 years-fewer than 10 percent of curators, archivists, or special collections librarians are BIPOC,” Castañeda said.

“I knew that this fellowship would afford me access to an intellectual community of BIPOC archival scholars whose interests lie at the intersection of librarianship, community, and archives.” ­

As a prospective fellow, Castañeda is looking forward to learning from a community that is committed to making an impact on real people, rather than just the archival collections themselves. She is especially attracted to the outreach and community symposia components of the fellowship, and is working with CSUDH campus affinity centers to host an LGBTQ History Month event in Fall 2022.

Castañeda also plans to provide hands-on “Introduction to the Archives” workshops for CSUDH students, where they will have the opportunity to engage with the Gerth Archives’ LGBTQ history collections.

“We are only truly fulfilling our mission when we continuously create opportunities for our students to discover and interact with the materials at the Gerth Archives,” she said.

In addition to her role at CSUDH, Castañeda also serves as board chair at the Museum of Social Justice, an institution that chronicles the history of Los Angeles’s marginalized communities through exhibitions, public programs, and educational initiatives. ­­She says that ultimately, her archival and public history work is rooted in people and ensuring communities of color see themselves in the cultural record.

“Serving a grassroots museum like the Museum of Social Justice and at one of the California State University campuses with the highest percentage of Black and Latinx students has shaped my understanding of how archivists and cultural heritage practitioners can reach the people they intend to serve,” Castañeda said.

“As a Cultural Heritage fellow, I look forward to working with colleagues to lead both large and small-scale events that are authentically community-centered.”

Gerth Archives Wins New Grants

March 28, 2022 By Kandis Newman

Gerth Archives Wins New Grants
Covers of various LGBTQ publications in the Gerth Archives, which will be catalogued thanks to a new grant from the California State Library.

The CSUDH Gerth Archives and Special Collections has been awarded two grants to assist in cataloguing several of its notable collections.

The archives received a $100,000 grant from the California State Library to support CSUDH’s LGBTQ History Access Project. The funds will enable the archives to hire an archivist to catalog, arrange, and describe several collections related to the Southern California LGBTQ community. They will also allow the Gerth Archives to stage a speaker’s series related to the collections.

“The Archives is very pleased that we were able to get the grant because there are a limited number of prominent LGBTQ archives in the state,” says Greg Williams, director of the Gerth Archives. “It’s nice that we were recognized among them.”

The collections at CSUDH include a large number of historic LGBTQ publications, newsletters, as well as personal papers of activists. “We’re also hoping to be able to transcribe some oral histories that we have been collecting related to lesbians and their jobs,” adds Williams. “To that end, we’re also including many of our tradeswomen collections in this process. It’s exciting for us to finally get some of these collections processed and organized.”

In announcing the grant, State Librarian Greg Lucas said, “There are many stories that explain who California is and who we’re becoming. The contributions of the LGBTQ+ community and the evolution in California’s attitudes toward them are important stories to share. This grant will help do that.”

The Gerth Archives also received a $40,000 grant from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation to begin the cataloguing of the L.A. Free Press collection that the archives received in 2021. The collection had belonged to Art Kunkin, the publisher and editor of the Free Press from its inception in 1964 until 1972. When Kunkin passed away in 2019 at the age of 91, his daughter chose the Gerth Archives due to their dedication to archiving alternative voices from the local community.

“The L.A. Free Press was really one of the first newspapers for the community during the 1960s,” says Williams. “It was the first publication to start presenting points of view that the L.A. Times wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. They not only had their own political slant, but they also supported the Black community, the Chicano community, and the LGBTQ community in a variety of ways.

“We’re very excited that the prestigious Haynes Foundation continues to support our archive. This is the third Haynes Foundation grant we’ve won in five years. They’re focused in on the history of Los Angeles, and the L.A. Free Press Collection certainly represents an important part of that history.”

CSUDH Launches New Filipino American Digital Archive

March 1, 2022 By Lilly McKibbin

Historical black and white photo
The 1949 installation of officers of Legionarios Del Trabajo, one of the oldest and most distinguished Filipino-American organizations in the nation.

On Saturday, March 5, leaders of the Filipino community and local dignitaries will join California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) faculty and representatives of the university’s Gerth Archives and Special Collections to celebrate the launch of the CSUDH Filipino American Digital Archive (FADA). The event, which will take place from 1 to 2 p.m. in the Archives on the fifth floor of the CSUDH University Library, will double as a chance for members of the local Filipino American community to bring in their own materials to add to the archive.

“With Greater Los Angeles home to the third-largest population of Americans with Filipino ancestry in the United States, this new archive will be an important addition to the Gerth Archives’ growing list of special collections that document, preserve, and make accessible the histories of the many cultures and people in the South Bay region of Greater Los Angeles,” says Gerth Archives Director Greg Williams.

CSUDH Assistant Professor of Asian-Pacific Studies Mary Talusan Lacanlale says the community was the impetus behind establishing the new digital archive. “Several years ago, members of Filipino American organizations in Carson approached Greg Williams and I about creating an archive to document the important work of Filipino Americans in our area,” she recalls.

Lacanlale, Williams, and the staff at the Gerth Archives agreed and got to work setting up a database with initial contributions by local Filipino leaders.

Among the first contributors to the archives were Florante Ibanez, author of Filipinos in Carson and the South Bay, and Linda Nietes-Little, founder of the Philippine Expressions Bookshop in San Pedro and an icon of the Filipino American community–both of whom will be featured speakers at the launch event. Ibanez donated boxes of his photos, newsletters, and other collected items, and Nietes-Little is donating memorabilia along with a collectible copy of Carlos Bulosan’s America is in the Heart.

To help grow the archive, organizers of the March 5 event are inviting community members to bring their own photos, videos, meeting notes of organizations, and any other material they would like to submit to be preserved for safekeeping in the archives.

“The Gerth Archives is pleased to coordinate another community history project,” says Williams. “FADA has already allowed the Archives to include local Filipinos in the archives. We will continue to gather source material for this important history that is local, national, and international in scope.”

In addition to Lacanlale, Williams, Nietes-Little, and Ibanez, the launch event will feature an array of guest speakers, including Mayor of Carson Lula Davis-Holmes, Congresswoman Nanette Barragan, Consulate General of the Philippines Edgar B. Badajos, Carson City Councilmembers Arleen Bocatija Rojas and Jim Dear, Representative of Assemblymember Mike Gipson’s office Moises Jun Aglipay, author Roselyn Ibanez, and Donna Nicol, chair of CSUDH Africana Studies.

The Filipino Cultural School Rondalla Ensemble will provide a musical performance of traditional Filipino music.

CSUDH is at 1000 E. Victoria St., Carson, Calif. For directions and a map of campus, visit csudh.edu/visit-us. Parking in campus lots is $9 and can be payable through yellow kiosks in each lot. Lot 7 from the east and Lot 6 from the west are the lots closest to the library.

The Gerth Archives is recognized for its extensive list of individual special collections documenting the people and cultures that make up the South Bay region of Los Angeles.

The CSUDH Filipino American Digital Archive launch will take place on Saturday, March 5, at 1 p.m., at the Gerth Archives and Special Collections office, located on the fifth floor of the University Library. Register for the event here.

Campus events will require attendees to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken no more than 48 hours prior to the event date as a condition of entry. This important measure will further increase our ability to safely gather.

Please contact the Gerth Archives and Special Collections for additional event information at (310) 243-3895 or archives@csudh.edu.

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