by Kim Lamb Gregory
海角社区 Channel Islands (海角社区CI) Liberal Studies major Leonel Cleto grew up in a rough neighborhood in East Garden Grove.
鈥淲e were pretty much a hotbed in between two rival gangs,鈥� Cleto said. 鈥淚t was tough growing up. You got to keep your head down. It was hard being a boy growing up in that.鈥�
It was not always an easy life, but it was Cleto鈥檚 life and it is important.
That鈥檚 the message behind a library archive created especially for 海角社区CI students by Assistant Professor of History Hanni Jalil, Ph.D., and Assistant Professor of History Jacqueline Reynoso, Ph.D.
鈥淪o often our students don鈥檛 see themselves reflected in a conventional narrative,鈥� Reynoso said. 鈥淭he ideas of doing these different archiving workshops is so students can see their own histories reflected and know that their histories are worth preserving.鈥�
It also gives students an active role in selecting, labeling and digitizing their own stories鈥攍earning what goes into creating a record of history.
鈥淚t puts the student in the role of getting to decide what gets preserved,鈥� Jalil said. 鈥淚t teaches them that their history matters, and if they go on to be archivists and public historians, they become aware of how important these decisions are.鈥�
Cleto chose to digitize a gold family necklace that says 鈥淟eonel鈥�. He rarely takes it off because every family member has his or her own necklace, so it is a symbol of belonging for Cleto.
He also archived his memoirs of growing up in East Garden Grove and how much the music of rapper Tupac Shakur helped keep him and his siblings on the right path.
鈥淚 think when it comes to telling our own stories, we鈥檙e not heard a lot,鈥� Cleto said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e not given a platform and we鈥檙e hesitant as well. It鈥檚 tough to tell your stories鈥攄ealing with issues with domestic abuse and gang violence. These are not easy topics to talk about.鈥�
The students began developing the archive during the 2021/2022 academic year with a class Jalil and Reynoso taught called 鈥淭he Historian鈥檚 Craft" as well as during a public history series they organized titled 鈥淎rchiving the Local."
Besides arming the students with archiving skills, the class was also intended to address so-called 鈥渟ilences鈥� in archived human history.
鈥淪ilences鈥� are gaps in recorded history that exist either intentionally or unintentionally depending on who is deciding what is important to preserve. Very often, populations of color or other marginalized groups are not included in recorded history, resulting in an incomplete picture for historians.
History major Jacob Fuchsman knew his great uncle had served as a pilot in the Pacific Theater during World War II, but his uncle never wanted to talk about it, so Fuchsman knows little about the Taiwanese flag and the cloth map of the South China Sea found among his belongings. But Fuchsman digitized them with what research he could uncover.
鈥淭he map was cloth so that it didn鈥檛 crumple when you unfolded it in case you needed to be stealthy,鈥� Fuchsman said. 鈥淎nd it could get wet.鈥�
He believes the Taiwanese flag served as a kind of diplomatic letter to help pilots get to friendlier troops if they were shot down behind enemy lines.
On a lighter note, Fuchsman digitized a newspaper article from the Topeka Daily Capital about his maternal grandfather, Bradley Ashley, who worked as a news courier in Kansas.
鈥淥ne day on his route, a pig started following him,鈥� Fuchsman said. 鈥淗e delivered all the news and the pig still followed him all the way home. He kept feeding it and it stayed.鈥�
The headline read: 鈥淢ary had a Little Lamb, but Bradley had a Little Pig.鈥�
Reynoso and Jalil stressed that they were able to create the 海角社区CI student archive thanks to the guidance the students got from Digital Curation and Scholarship Librarian Elizabeth Blackwood and Library Services Specialist Sebastian Hunt.
None of it would have been possible without the August 2021 addition of the of the Mobile Archive Collaboratory in the John Spoor Broome Library. The Collaboratory consists of tables for work, lights, chargers, cameras and iPads as well as a state-of-the art mobile scanner called the Bookeye.
The Collaboratory was made possible by a generous gift from a longtime friend to the University, Linda Dullam.