Category: conference

Marcia M. Gallo (Associate Professor of History, UNLV; Co-President, SOHA Board of Directors), Franklin Howard (MA Program, History, UNLV; Graduate Assistant, SOHA), Sarah Rodriguez (History Program, The College of William and Mary), and Leisa D. Meyer (Community Studies Professor of History, American Studies, and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies) present individual and group oral histories and interviews conducted in the early twenty-first century to reveal local and national networks that predated the conscious creation of queer neighborhoods, organizations, and media in the 1970s and 1980s.This session will explore how the development of identities informed spatial, temporal, and geographic constructions of “communities.” It also explores the impact of visual and textual representations on our communities.

Barbara Tabach (Project Manager, Oral History Research Center, UNLV Libraries; Secretary and Newsletter Editor, SOHA Board of Directors), Emily Lapworth (Digital Collections Librarian), and Aaron Mayes (Special Collections & Archives Visual Materials Curator, UNLV Libraries) discuss the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project. When UNLV Libraries’ Oral History Research Center began the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project [SNJHP], two objectives were established: 1) create a digital collection that provides online access to historical resources about the local Jewish community and 2) initiate a strategic collecting initiative that ensures the preservation of and access to historical primary sources about this community. To capture the essence of the important contributions of Jews to the history of Las Vegas, new and existing oral histories were a major component. Collections of photos, documents, videos and newspapers have been digitized for the project. The SNJHP required the collaboration of many unique talents to make materials available on a dedicated web portal and in UNLV’s Special Collections & Archives.

Heather M. Ponchetti Daly Ph.D. {Kumeyaay of Santa Ysabel} (University of California, Los Angeles), Gregorio Gonzales, Ph.D. {Genizaro} (President’s Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Santa Barbara), Priscilla Martinez (Ph.D. Candidate, University of California, Santa Cruz), and José M. Aguilar-Hernández (Assistant Professor of Ethnic and Women’s Studies, College of Education and Integrative Studies, Cal Poly Pomona) work with oral histories to “un-erase” the voices of ethnic communities from southern California, northern New Mexico, and southern Arizona. (Re)tracing and elevating the lived experiences, realities, and identities of immigrant and Indigenous peoples in regions along the border, including California Native Americans, Genizaro, Chicanos/as, and Chinese, the presenters highlight various methodologies and approaches that illuminate the significance of oral histories.

Stefani Evans (Project Manager, Building LasVegas Initiative, UNLV Libraries; Nevada State Representative, SOHA Board of Directors), Julia Lee (Assistant Professor of English, Loyola Marymount University), and  Peter Michel (Special Collections Curator, Special Collections and Archives, UNLV Libraries) present A Special Tribute to Claytee White: “I Have The Best Job in the Universe”

In 2017, students (Isabella Hulsizer, Alyssa Ruiz, Lerman Montoya Hermosillo, Edwin Valenti) at Arizona State University conducted a research project about their own family history, beginning with physical documents such as photos, census records, and family trees. They also interviewed a family member. Many students shared family stories of trial, error, and triumph. They then put together a documentary exploring these narratives and informing others of the importance of learning and knowing immigration history. Through this project, students learned how their ancestors encountered life and the migration/immigration process; they also have identified the value of oral history and recording stories.

Greetings SOHA Members and Supporters!

SOHA OFFICE

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Box 455020

4505 S. Maryland Parkway

Las Vegas, NV 89154-5020

Joshua Cawley (Graduate Program in Public History, California State University, Fullerton), Anne Soon Choi (Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies, California State University, Dominguez Hills), Allison Varzally (Professor of History, California State University, Fullerton), and Shreshta Aiyar (History and American Studies, California State University, Fullerton) seek to broaden our understandings of post-World War II migrations and the profound changes to the individuals and groups involved as well as to the larger Southern California culture that resulted. From complicating the experiences of Japanese Americans who were forced to endure internment camps during the war yet maintained their friendships and community ties, to the contributions of Japanese-American Hawai’ian migrants postwar to the region’s suburbanization; from the impact on restaurateurs who experienced profound accelerations in the patterns and practices of “eating out” due to migrations, to the lived experiences of South Asians who changed familial histories and created new opportunities for future generations, each of these presenters spotlights the richness of oral histories, family interviews, and innovative interpretations of the increasingly globalized region of Southern California.

Holly Baggett (Missouri State University), Rachel Jamieson (Missouri State University), Anne Baker (Missouri State University), and Amy C. Schindler (University of Nebraska at Omaha) document the uses of oral history to resist homophobic bigotry. The NO Repeal campaign tells the story of how people in a city in southwest Missouri fought to retain legal protections in the face of overwhelming resistance from conservative forces. Activists recorded oral histories both during and after the campaign and donated them to a local LGBTQIA+ archive; they also helped expand the LGBTQIA+ archival collections at Missouri State University. The oral histories were transformed into “verbatim theatre” and many of the student/actors in the play were also NO Repeal activists, as were members of the audience – a rare opportunity for in-depth reflection on this experience. The challenges of initiating a new community-based LGBTQIA+ archive in Omaha archive, including working with student interviewers and addressing archival silences also will be discussed.

Carlos Lopez (Archivist, Arizona State Libraries, Archives, and Public Records; Arizona State Representative, SOHA Board of Directors), Ryan Morini (Associate Program Director, Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, University of Florida), and Joyce Marshall Moore (Archivist, Special Collections and Archives, UNLV; Historian, SOHA Board of Directors) features individuals and groups in Nevada and Arizona whose stories help illuminate not only their eras but also the present and future. Rugged individualists such as Nevada rancher Andy Thompson, a founder of the Duckwater Shoshone Reservation, complicate the narrative of Indigenous history. The stories gathered by the Legislative Oral History Project of Arizona state legislators who are no longer serving in office help us understand the shaping of Arizona and, arguably, national policy over the last thirty-plus years. Also timely are the reports of sexual harassment, coercion, and violence in their working lives described by Strip showgirls decades before today’s #MeToo movement.

Stefani Evans (Project Manager, Oral History Research Center, UNLV Libraries; Nevada Representative, SOHA Board of Directors), Claytee White (Director, Oral History Research Center, UNLV Libraries), Peter Michel (Special Collections Curator, Special Collections and Archives, UNLV Libraries), and Aaron Mayes (Visual Materials Curator, Special Collections and Archives, UNLV Libraries) discuss Building Las Vegas. When UNLV Libraries began the Building Las Vegas collecting initiative in July 2016, it thought broadly. The first three goals of the project, implemented simultaneously, involved three different skill sets and three different areas of collecting: 1) collect oral histories with individuals who shaped our region’s built environment; 2) identify and collect archival records from architects, builders, designers, developers, engineers, planners, politicians, and more; and 3) photograph the region’s architectural features and the interplay between built and natural environments. As the oral history gathering phase refocuses towards editing, the archival and photographic gathering continue.

Maria Elena de las Carerras, Ph.D. (Film studies lecturer, California State University Northridge and UCLA), Caitlin Diaz (Filmmaker, editor and colorist, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Oral History Department), Barbara Hall (Archivist and film historian, Writers Guild Foundation), Maya Montañez Smukler, Ph.D. (Film studies lecturer and oral historian, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences), and Teague Schneiter (Sr. Manager of Oral History Projects, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) consider the role of oral histories as a feminist intervention into the understudied subject of women whose varied careers, though often marginalized, have significantly contributed to film history. Participants will present clips from interviews produced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Visual History Program and discuss their roles in capturing myriad voices of female filmmakers and craftspeople.

Jamie A. Lee,  (Assistant Professor of Digital Culture, Information, and Society, School of Information, University of Arizona), Harrison Apple (Ph.D. student, University of Arizona; co-founder of the Pittsburgh Queer History Project), and Dalena E. Hunter (Ph.D. Candidate, University of California, Los Angeles; librarian, UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies) center queer community productions, such as the POP-UPArchives Event of the Arizona Queer Archives in collaboration with FARR, a coalition of feminist scholars, artists, and activists of public scholarship; an exploration of ongoing relationships beyond the interview encounter which reject the strict relationship of evidence to empiricism and narrator to oral historian; and the orality and experiential nature of Black lesbian archiving practices and material approaches to archival principles and practice in the discipline as experienced in working with ALOT, the Canadian-based online archive of lesbian oral histories.

Mark Hall-Patton (Museum Administrator, Clark County Museum System), Aaron Mayes (Special Collections & Archives Visual Materials Curator, UNLV Libraries), Barbara Tabach (Project Manager, Oral History Research Center, UNLV Libraries), and Claytee D. White (Director, Oral History Research Center, UNLV Libraries) discuss a major event in recent history. Attendees at the Route 91 Country Music Festival on the Las Vegas Strip numbered 22,000. As the final act of the three-day event began on the evening of October 1, 2017, shots rained down from the 32nd floor of the hotel across the street. 58 people were murdered and nearly 500 injured. Within days, and among other local emergency measures, UNLV’s Special Collections & Archives responded by meeting with the Las Vegas collecting community to develop ways to help their city and assist other cities in similar circumstances. They concentrated on digital remembrances, photographs, and oral histories, and envision these primary source materials being used by families, researchers, social scientists, and investigators from around the world. This panel reveals their strategies, issues, stories, and outcomes.

Students from Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, University of Florida present student-led and -organized work recording the voices of DACA recipients and other undocumented students at the University of Florida. In recent years, undocumented student activists have been increasingly vocal in public spaces and in the media. However, for the sake of attempting to pass bipartisan legislation, their narratives have often been rhetorically constrained to portray innocent, hyper-patriotic, would-be ‘model citizens’ who are often expected to shift the blame for their status onto their parents. Samuel Proctor Oral History Program (SPOHP) interns in fall 2017 used oral history interviews to create spaces for undocumented students to speak more freely in their own words about their experiences and their hopes and expectations for the future.

Suzi Resnik (2017 James V. Mink Award recipient, SOHA; President of Viewing Voices), Annie Duval (organizer and oral historian, consultant with Viewing Voices) Jennifer Keil (Archivist for the Moulton Family Foundation, Co-owner of 70 Degrees,  First Vice President, SOHA Board of Directors), Cindy Keil (Archivist for the Moulton Family Foundation, Consultant and Co-owner of 70 Degrees), Debi Salmon (Director, Del Mar Television Foundation), and Tensia Moriel Trejo (former President, Del Mar Historical Society and member of Del Mar Voices) present their shifting approaches with their interdisciplinary backgrounds, but their  central goal is to find out how our communities remember the past and to make that past come alive in historic sites with city councils’ endorsement. Through site visits, they learned more about our respective communities’ heritage and facilities. They juxtaposed the seaside villages of Del Mar, Balboa Island, and Laguna in terms of the physical spaces and how the residents retain their localized narratives. They use film to visually capture and present their perspectives on local television; station producers are providing their technological resources for this unique programming.

Rachael Cassidy {Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma} (Masters’ Program, University of New Mexico; New Mexico State Representative, SOHA Board of Directors) Diana [“Midge”] Dellinger {Muscogee/Creek} (Masters’ Program, American Studies, Northeastern State University; Student Representative, SOHA Board of Directors) Bridget Groat {Alaska Native} (Ph.D. Candidate, Arizona State University; Native Representative, SOHA Board of Directors),  Michael [“Mike”] Barthelemy {Hidatsa-Mandan} (Ph.D. Program, History, University of New Mexico), Neil Dodge {Diné} (Ph.D. Program, History, UNLV), and Joshua Thunder Little {Oglala Lakota} (Ph.D. Program, History, University of California, Riverside),  emerging Indigenous scholars, share stories and experiences of Native American community members – in some cases, members of their own families. Each delves into their own personal spaces and ties to Native American communities, within or beyond Native American reservations. They have initiated Indigenous oral history projects from rural, to bordertown, to urban spaces. They seek to serve and address the questions and needs of Native American communities. Some of them face the intricate processes of tribal review boards along with institutional review boards to gather and apply the oral histories in their writing and work. They have interviewed and had learn close to home and from home, discovering and developing oral history methodologies that balance professional, personal, and community goals.

Enjoy drinks and desserts with current undergraduate and graduate students from across the Southwest! SOHA members who are interested in providing a mentorship to our student members are encouraged to attend.

On January 18, 2017, students from the University of Florida’s Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research and The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program drove to Washington, DC to document and interview participants in the Women’s March on Washington and the presidential inauguration. Working together to evaluate and translate their research, several students co-created a collaborative theatrical experience. This unique peek into the diverse range of political, social, and personal viewpoints and experiences gives audience members an up-close and personal look into the fabric of American culture, women’s movements, and feminist intersectional activisms including Black Lives Matter, immigrant rights, and LGBTQ+ rights.