Category: Blog
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Archiving in Motion: Community, Collaboration, and Storytelling at LAAPFF
By Blair Black, May 2025, FOCAS Intern, 24-25 / UCLA Volunteering at the L.A. Asian Pacific Film Festival (LAAPFF), presented by Visual Communications (VC), was a deeply moving experience that reminded me of how essential collaboration is to sustaining community memory. As an archivist, I often think about legacy in terms of preservation—but working the…
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Sharing Lesbian Joy at the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives
By Sam Stroud, April 2025, FOCAS Intern, 24-25 / UCLA During my time as an intern at the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives, I’ve gained experience in many aspects of the archival process. I’ve processed collections, written finding aids, digitized materials, and created metadata for digital collections– to name just a few of my intern…
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La Historia: The History of a Community With the Files of an Archive
By Priscilla Avitia, March 2025, FOCAS Intern, 24-25 / UCLA I first visited La Historia Historical Society Museum during their Mellon Grant showcase. Rosa Pena, La Historia director, Bianca J. Sosa-Phal, La Historia archivist, and Krystal Mendez, a former UCLA Mellon intern, each gave short presentations. They discussed the projects they’ve worked on and events…
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Festival for All Artists: Moments from the Skid Row History Museum and Archive
By Ana Elizabeth Lara Beltrand, Feb. 2025, FOCAS Intern, 24-25 / UCLA My experience at the Skid Row History Museum and Archive is something I haven’t stopped talking about. On my first day, my supervisor Henry and I did a data walk, taking in the contemporary landscape of Skid Row. This was an excellent first…
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From Harm to Healing: Creating Trauma-Informed Statements for the South Asian Canadian Digital Archive
By Iori Khuhro, FOCAS Intern, Spring 2025 / University of British Columbia Culture and Identity “The values and norms that connect us to a shared identity and community.”[1] My name is Iori Khuhro, and I am a second-generation Pakistani-Canadian settler born on lands constituting the Treaty and Traditional Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit…
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Dunbar Pavillion: Building a Community Archive, Preserving Voices
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…
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Building Tucson’s Mexican American Community Archive
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…
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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”…
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Processing process…
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…