By Olivia Carmen Otero, FOCAS Intern, Fall 2024 / University of Arizona
The Dunbar School, a modest, two-room structure built in 1918, served as a school for African American Children in Tucson, Arizona. The school underwent several expansions to accommodate its growing student body and faculty until it was desegregated in 1951. Regarded as one of the first segregated schools in Arizona, Dunbar joins the many schools across the United States that share the Dunbar name and are named after celebrated poet Paul Laurence Dunbar of the late 19th century. Dunbar in Tucson is so much more than a story of school segregation, but a story of excellence and pride that is now a cultural center on the pathway of cultivating a community archive that showcases Black history in Tucson, as well as highlighting the stories and the voices of the students, teachers, and principals that walked these halls and sat in these rooms.
Conversations surrounding the future of Dunbar and establishing a Community Archive come with discussing past encounters with academic and cultural institutions centered around the discourse of ownership of material collections that display Black History found within repositories. While working with Dunbar, these conversations proved to be an example of how crucial Community Archives are for communities. I believe a movement exists to showcase ‘Hidden Histories’ within collections across multiple institutions. Still, a more significant issue surrounds what happens with these stories and what remains hidden when these histories are ‘rediscovered.’ Without community intervention, there continues to be no sense of community or collective memory that their hidden stories carry. Community archives intercept that traditional archive formula of ‘othering’ underrepresented communities that has been a legacy that is all too familiar within academia.
Dunbar Archive Room
However, the difference between Dunbar’s Community Archive and the finding Dunbar within other archives is that one shares a story, albeit brief in some instances, but Dunbar highlights the lived experiences behind the lives of Dunbar students. This space serves as a radical public space where everyday human experiences are highlighted, the trajectory of excellence that has followed not only the students of Dunbar but proving that Dunbar maintains to be a physical focal point in the Black community of Tucson, Arizona that is dedicated to being a welcoming space that celebrates Black excellence.
As a Graduate Student studying Archival Theory and Critical Archival Theory, being able to be in a tangible space where these theories become a reality has shaped how I, an emerging LIS (library and Information science) Professional, can seek multiple disciplines to challenge existing theories, but also space to engage with interdisciplinary approaches while working with Dunbar’s Community Archive. as there are no rules for a community archive. The existing laws are based on past exclusionary or extractive nature that preservation often creates.
West-facing wall of Dunbar
I have been blessed to be able to work with local historian and former Dunbar Student Ms. Barbara Lewis. It has been an honor to walk the halls of Dunbar with her, as the physical space generates her memory of being at Dunbar and shares the story of Dunbar as a building, giving a voice to the halls and the rooms. Being in the trenches of Dunbar does not come without its challenges, and working within a historic building, there are nuances of discussing the infrastructure to provide a space for material objects, but also generating conversations about sustainability, challenging the ideologies around ‘legitimate’ archives, but how cultivating an archive is truly a collaborative work that flows with the community through difficult conversations surrounding gentrification, oral traditions and the past offenses and silencing that occurs under the guise of preservation efforts of the past. In this space, understanding what it takes to build a community archive from the bottom up has been transformative in my academic and personal goals. Being a part of a community archive is to be a part of something grassroots, challenging the traditional, and taking back space of history that has always deserved to be present in our community.
By Jesus Villalobos, FOCAS Intern, Fall 2024 / University of Arizona
This semester, I had the unique privilege of serving as the Oral History and Archival Processing Intern at the Mexican American Heritage and History Museum in Tucson, Arizona. The Museum is housed in the historic Sosa-Carrillo House, one of the last remaining homes from the original neighborhood that once stood where the Tucson Convention Center now stands. Managed by Los Descendientes del Presidio de Tucson, the Museum serves as both a physical space and a symbolic cornerstone for preserving the voices and stories of Tucson’s Mexican American community. My work focused on two interwoven goals: honoring the community’s history and building a sustainable, accessible archive for future generations.
(The Sosa-Carrillo House / Mexican American Heritage and History Museum. Author’s photograph.)
The history of Los Descendientes and the Museum is rooted in Tucson’s complex past. Originally focused on the Spanish and Mexican origins of Tucson, often referred to as the Old Pueblo, the organization has gradually expanded its mission to include the preservation of Mexican American stories. Much of this history centers on Tucson’s barrios, the neighborhoods where generations of Mexican American families lived, worked, and built community. Unfortunately, many of these neighborhoods were devastated during the late 1960s by urban renewal projects, which displaced families and erased the physical traces of their presence. This destruction casts a shadow over the past, but the Museum represents an effort to reclaim, preserve, and honor those stories. I was humbled by the opportunity to contribute to the Museum’s mission.
At the start of my internship, I was tasked with two significant projects. The first was a short-term goal to be accomplished within the semester: creating a digital collection for the Museum’s oral histories. The second was a more long-term project, extending beyond my involvement, which focused on helping to establish the foundations for the Museum’s physical archive.
Digital Collection
In order to create the Mexican American Oral Histories collection, I used CollectionBuilder—an open-source tool designed for building digital collections and exhibits using simple, static web technologies. CollectionBuilder’s user-friendly and accessible design offers a template format that allows for a fair degree of customization based on the needs of the collection creator. I applied professional archival standards to describe and organize the materials, creating a structure that enhances discoverability for future researchers, students, and community members. This process involved:
Creating descriptive metadata for the oral histories in the collection.
(Partial image of metadata created for the oral histories collection using Google Sheets’ comma separated value files.)
(Partial image of a transcript created for the oral histories collection using Google Sheets’ comma separated value files.)
Editing a copy of the CollectionBuilder template to align with the collection’s specifications.
(Visual Studio Code workspace with a YAML configuration file (_config.yml) open, containing customized site settings made on a copy of the CollectionBuilder template.)
Identifying external sites to host the oral histories in the short term while exploring sustainable long-term hosting solutions.
(Composite image of oral history audio and video files hosted on Soundcloud and Youtube.)
The final product was the Mexican American Oral Histories collection website, providing a dedicated digital space to preserve and share these important stories.
(Composite image of the Mexican American Oral Histories main page and the Browse Items page.)
Physical Archive
Establishing the foundations for the Museum’s physical archive required envisioning and planning the archive’s processes, including collection development strategies, preservation protocols, space planning, and organizational workflows. My role involved collaborating with the Museum’s co-directors and additional archival experts to address the practicalities of building a sustainable and functional archive. This included tasks such as assessing storage solutions for fragile materials and developing bilingual documentation to align with the Museum’s inclusive mission. This work was essential in creating a blueprint for the Museum’s growth and establishing clear workflows for the next archival processing intern. As of this writing, the efforts to build and refine the archive are still ongoing.
(Contents of the archive pre-inventory. Author’s photograph.)
(Contents of the archive post-inventory, sorted by distinct collections and themes, awaiting processing. Author’s photograph.)
Lessons From the Community Archive
Beyond my work at the Museum, this experience taught me invaluable lessons about archival work and community engagement. Archives are more than just collections of materials; they can serve as spaces for amplifying community voices, fostering relationships, and building trust. I came to understand that ethical archival practices are essential, particularly when working with voices historically excluded from the archival record. Approaching people, their stories, and their objects with humility and respect ensures that the community represented in the archive maintains a sense of agency and ownership over their histories. Such an approach can prevent them from feeling distanced or alienated from the archival process.
As a Knowledge River Scholar and graduate student specializing in archival studies, this internship provided a valuable bridge between theory and practice. In the classroom, I studied archival principles, ethics, and the importance of community-centered approaches, but working directly in the archive brought these concepts to life in ways that theory alone could not. I gained hands-on experience navigating the complexities of community relationships, balancing technical processes with cultural sensitivity, and adapting to real-world challenges. This experience underscored that archival work is not just about materials and systems but about listening, learning, and building trust in ways no single course can fully convey.
Coda
The Sosa-Carrillo House itself added a profound layer of significance to this internship. As one of the last surviving structures from the original neighborhood, it stands as a monument to resilience and serves as a physical space for reclaiming memories erased by urban renewal. Walking through its rooms, I was struck by its beauty and the duality of loss and recovery—reminders of displacement intertwined with hope found in storytelling and preservation. The Museum transforms this space into a site of healing and memory, reclaiming what was lost and ensuring the past remains a living presence. Reflecting on this experience, I am deeply grateful for the mentorship of the Museum’s co-directors, Rikki Rojas and Alisha Vasquez, as well as archivist Alana Varner.
(An empty bedroom of the Sosa-Carrillo house.Author’s photograph.)
By Kelli Luck, FOCAS Intern, Fall 2024 / University of Arizona
I was selected to work within the Arizona Queer Archives as a FOCAS Intern in the Fall of 2024. Nestled within the LGBTQ+ Institute at the University of Arizona, the Arizona Queer Archives (AQA) stands as a vital repository of Arizona’s LGBTQ+ history and culture. Founded by Dr. Jamie A. Lee, the AQA is dedicated to preserving and sharing the diverse stories and experiences of Arizona’s queer communities. From rare magazines and personal essays to vibrant event flyers and oral histories, the AQA offers a rich tapestry of materials illuminating the everyday lives of LGBTQ+ individuals. The FOCAS internship position allowed me to delve into the fascinating world of the Arizona Queer Archives, explore the collections and the people behind its creation, and aid its ongoing mission to ensure that these important narratives are preserved and never forgotten.
On my first day alone in the AQA, I must confess I was a little overwhelmed and suffering from imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome might not even be the correct term for my feelings, but it’s the only one that comes to mind. I was the only one in the LGBTQ+ Institute on many of the days I worked, and even though I enjoyed the independence, I felt out of place and like I had no business being there. I began by looking through the other collections to understand the other materials of the archives and to seek direction about how those collections looked inside their boxes. I reviewed the labeled files and the finding aids to gain along with the finding aid templates to get a better understanding of the process and the language used while processing the Morgan Collection. After spending my first day in the AQA slowly getting acquainted with the organization of the collections, I felt ready to start reviewing the new collection.
I began by reading Susan E. Morgan’s Deed of Gift and a letter she wrote about why she wanted to donate the items and how she started collecting distinct types of media, including books, greeting cards, magazines, and flyers. Susan explains that she and her girlfriend briefly lived in San Francisco, CA, in the early 1990s after moving from the East Coast and before moving to Tucson, AZ, to pursue her graduate degree. Susan writes that coming to San Francisco was a shock because finding or creating a community was not as easy as it had been back on the East Coast and left them feeling alienated and alone. She explains that they had a favorite hangout spot, and in that spot was a popular bulletin board that many queer organizations, clubs, and event organizers utilized frequently. She found herself drawn to the different flyers and began collecting them, wondering for what.
Susan also describes the atmosphere and energy of San Francisco during the AIDS pandemic. Susan and her girlfriend enjoyed attending estate sales but found the sales in San Francisco to be rather heartbreaking. Most of the estate sales were due to AIDS-related deaths, and those who attended them were often friends or family of the deceased who needed to mourn their loss. This memory struck me as I have numerous gay male friends, and I began to wonder how different life would have been had we all been born earlier and had to face the consequences of a deadly virus and an apathetic government. I began to look at the flyers after reading Susan’s Donation letter and began to imagine the atmosphere of a gay mecca amid such turmoil. Undeniably, people were still trying to live unapologetically and authentically while enjoying life and pursuing happiness.
They were also trying to fight the spread of AIDS, gain access to treatment, and care for those already afflicted. Flipping through close to 200 flyers and advertisements for gay events, queer clubs, and businesses, I wondered how many my friends and I would have attended. I also wondered how many friends I would have lost by the early 1990s, and those thoughts literally took my breath away. I did some research, and one article estimated that 37,000 people had died from AIDS-related illnesses or complications, while the Center for Disease Control estimated that 45,000-64,000 people were living with AIDS. By 1994, AIDS was the leading cause of death for people aged 25 to 44. This was the world that Susan E. Morgan was living in when she and her girlfriend moved to the West Coast and began collecting these small pieces of memorabilia. Little did she know that over 30 years later, these provocative flyers and advertisements would be meticulously processed and researched to be placed and saved in a community archive.
I began by separating the flyers into categories based on the location and the events. Many of the flyers had dates, but unfortunately, most did not have the years listed on them, making research a bit rough. I found information on many clubs and events, including some retrospectives held around San Francisco highlighting different participants, disc jockeys, and locations. Clubs like Colossus, Flame, and Club Q are remembered fondly and continue to intrigue those of us from later generations. Today, everyone has a phone with a camera and can easily document anything, anywhere, at any time, and we can take that for granted. In the early 1990s, unless someone brought in a camcorder or a film camera, there was no documentation of these events, and we had to rely on people’s memories and a few saved flyers. What were these parties really like, and who attended them? What did people wear, and how did they dance? What was the vibe in these clubs, and what kind of effect did the pandemic have on these venues and the attendees?
Once I had the flyers separated by venue and/or type of event, I did something that may shock you. I asked Bing’s ChatGPT how to process items like club flyers for a community archive. I needed a step-by-step guide to follow and tailor to this situation with these collection materials. ChatGPT created that guide for me, streamlining the process and allowing me to dive into the materials thoroughly. The recommended method was first to gather and collect items, ensuring permission to archive the materials, assess and sort them, and begin to catalog each item, ensuring a consistent format for the metadata. I then described each flyer, the color, the images, any text, and the dimensions. I placed the separated flyers into different folders, which I labeled and placed in acid-free boxes. I cataloged each magazine, documenting the date and the cover content. Along with the flyers, there are several queer publications in the collection, and those included the lesbian magazine Girlfriends and the lesbian pornographic magazine On Our Backs. It was fascinating to flip through these and discover not only what issues were on queer women’s minds in the late 1990s and early 2000s but what was popular and what struggles were still being faced. I was genuinely captivated by the materials Susan had collected and curated for this collection. She included books of poetry and essays that were fascinating. It is sometimes jarring to realize how far we have come since the end of the last millennium, especially regarding identity, respect, acceptance, and tolerance.
Having never worked in an archive before, I navigated a new and complex world. By the end of the semester, I successfully processed each item in the collection, curated social media posts to promote it, and created images of most of the items. This internship was an invaluable opportunity to connect with professionals in the field and immerse me in the unique and fascinating process of community archiving.
Also, I was able to document the AQA’s Public History Mobile Exhibit Launch at the University of Arizona. This event was very well attended and covered by the local news.
Being part of this program and working with such fantastic community leaders was gratifying, but being among the first group of interns feels particularly special. Our community archives are vital in preserving unique histories, cultures, and experiences. Their importance cannot be understated. Their role in preserving marginalized histories and communities is as significant as the empowerment and ownership they give to those communities. They also provide social justice and activism opportunities while helping to shape and care for cultural identities and memories. Community archives are a way to ensure a more comprehensive and equitable historical record for all communities that can promote pride and respect for the community members. The archives are a way we can ensure all voices and experiences, even the most marginalized, are heard and remembered.
Social Media Posts from the Arizona Queer Archives Instagram!
“In 1991, a benefit was planned for Trikone, Asian/Pacifica Sisters & Gay Asian Pacific at The Box, a well-known San Francisco queer club. It was called the Funky World Party and held on June 26, 1991. Although information on the specific event is minimal, Trikone is a non-profit organization for LGBTQ people of South Asian descent, specifically those with roots in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tibet founded 1986 in the Bay Area. This is still an active organization and operates solely with the help of volunteers. According to their website, Trikone is the oldest organization of this kind.
Trikone – Desi LGBTQ Helpline: 1-908-367-3374”
“Popular in the 1980s and early 1990s, Colossus Club was known for being packed and sweaty, with a very strict doorman (who could be bribed according to word on the street.) The clientele was mainly men, primarily shirtless, with a few women interspersed. Colossus was located South of Market at 1015 Folsom and 6th and closed its doors in 1992. The owner of Colossus and another bar called Atlas was Gus Bean, and he is still an active “disco party warlord” who hosts events in Palm Springs. One thing that stands out about the Colossus parties is the advertisements and promotions. (From the collection of Susan E. Morgan, available for viewing at the AQA)
“For 15 years, on the first Friday of every month, over a thousand queer women of all colors, ages, sizes, and backgrounds would flood a large warehouse to dance until the sun rose at Club Q. One partygoer described as “where go-go dancers twisted on platforms above the heaving dance floor. Hundreds of women shimmied beneath the colored lights, and when I pushed through the sweaty crowd, I felt totally insignificant and yet completely seen.” The club founder was none other than legendary D.J. Page Hodel, who is still active in the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. Also known as Mixtress Page Hodel, she promoted and played at hundreds of events, including the famed Bra Party. A bra wasn’t required, but if you were willing to wear only a bra, you could attend the parties for free. 628 Divisadero now houses a music venue and is open as The Independent. Come view these flyers and many more at the Arizona Queer Archive in the Susan E. Morgan Collection.”
“After an exhaustive search, very little information was found about QThink. According to the flyer, Qthink was a queer art collective based in San Fransisco. Queer folk was invited and encouraged to send in snippets about the queer life experience. ‘Queers are misunderstood because we are invisible. The images of us which do exist in the media are little more than outdated grotesque caricatures. Who are queers? What are our lives about? Qthink, a San Fransisco-based queer art collective, has begun collecting paragraphs about queer lives. We want to know your story, your experiences of queer life as it is for you, and we want it in approximately 175 words. Any queer subject will be considered: sex, HIV, racism, family, religion, transgender, lesbian, bi, gay, whatever. WRITE. But please, no rhetoric, political jargon, or secondhand soundbites. We want to know about the people behind the politics. All entries become the sole property of Qthink and cannot be returned. We’ll post chosen submissions in finer business establishments and bus stops in a format similar to this poster. Send all inquiries and submissions to Qthink, P.O Box 190256, San Fransisco, CA 94119-0256. Don’t delay, send yours today.’
If anyone knows any information about Qthink, send us a DM, and let’s chat! If someone has old submissions, we’d love to talk to you about acquiring copies for the Arizona Queer Archives.
Gay Community Services, Tucson activism in the AQA
by Jules Baldino, FOCAS intern, Fall 2024 / University of Arizona
“Indigenous notions of time consider the present to be structured entirely by our past and by our ancestors. There is no separation between past and present, meaning an alternative future is also determined by our understanding of our past. Our history is our future” – Nick Estes
1976 in Tucson, Arizona. A group of gays & lesbians met to organize a landline-based information hotline started as a project to help connect gay (and otherwise) people to social spaces, medical & health resources, religious spaces, restaurants, gay-friendly roommate connections, and more. One could call a phone number and be connected to a volunteer who could talk to them in real-time, letting them know about the gay landscape of Tucson, mapping out locations across the city that were friendly to gays, or that were explicitly established for gays. This list of establishments pulsed with life, carving out spaces in Tucson during the height of the Gay Liberation movement in the United States for gays & lesbians to connect.
They slipped typewriter printed lists with addresses and phone numbers into the plastic sleeves of photo albums and handed them out to volunteers as they manned the line. They used word of mouth information on the gay networks in town and information from Arizona Gay News, a newspaper published beginning in 1976, to include businesses and spaces that advertised their businesses as a part of their resource list. One could guess that even if these businesses were owned by gay people, expressing that they were explicitly queer-owned might not have been an option or a practice of the times. Posting ads in Arizona Gay News could serve as a code within the community.
After a while, the organizing work of social connection led to community health work. The records show that GCS hosted a number of sexual health clinics, creating their own intake forms out of cut and paste text and photocopying them to pass out to attendees. The sexual health clinic worked with a local doctor to obtain medicine needed to treat common sexually transmitted infections, advocating for “a cure by the weekend” in a delightful celebration of queer sexuality amidst tending to community wellbeing. Gay Community Services cut a slice of a long legacy of queer community prevention and health work that had to exist outside of the medical industrial complex due to structural neglect and homophobia. Al Obermaier, one of the main organizers of GCS and the man who donated the GCS collection to the AQA, began responding to homophobic news channels that were incorrectly reporting on sexually transmitted infections through correspondence, beginning what would prove to be foundational dispelling of misinformation for the HIV/AIDS epidemic that would continue in the following years.
Through the archive, we can see how Gay Community Services developed their work into educating themselves on the HIV/AIDS crisis, attending national sexual health conferences to bring back information and prevention strategies, providing accurate information as it became available and as it changed over time. They organized to try and protect The Stables, the Tucson gay bathhouse, from being shut down amidst a national moral panic over bathhouses which targeted them as the sight of HIV/AIDS spread. GCS fought back, using a similar attempted case of a bathhouse shutdown in NYC to support how in actuality, similarly to many bathhouses across the country, The Stables was a localized site of prevention efforts, noting the number of condoms and informative pamphlets on the virus that had been distributed. While stories of HIV/AIDS advocacy and organizing out of major cities have become commonplace over the past few decades, it is rare to hear about the efforts of communities in a small town with less resources and a smaller queer population.
Community archives can be sites of power that hold a potential to connect a historical account of life with a present day fight towards connection and liberation. Archival collections inform us of our history, yes, but they also ask us to reflect on how we’re living now, where our ancestors worked to land us, and how that’s working out. Why are most of the sites from the Gay Community Services resource book now paved parking lots? Has liberation been on our minds and our hearts lately? Have we been wondering what life could look like outside of what we’re presently offered? Have we found each other amidst a hungry and quickly changing world? How have these been similar questions those who’ve come before us have also had to ask themselves?
Arizona Queer Archives is a community archive located in Tucson, Arizona, 60 miles from the US – Mexico border. AQA’s goal is to connect queer and trans people in Arizona with each other through archival collections of materials and mementos kept and cultivated, signs of life and struggle. In a state known for being socially conservative, known for its violent state-backed border policies and crumbling educational infrastructure, the queer archives stand out as a presence of queer desire and life, in all of its mess and glory, its fervor and its failures. The Gay Community Services collection locates inspiration for the continued fight queer people have for a life of dignity and freedom. The fight continues, and with our ancestors at our backs and evidence of the work here in our collections, we can continue to orient and demand life for all of us.
