Anyone who reads this newsletter will be well aware of how I love an archival resource. So a whole episode about the collections at the Netty Lee Benson Library at the University of Texas in relationship to the 30th anniversary of LatinoUSA got me almost giddy. The LatinoUSA collection is housed at the Benson Library and producers and reporters have been working with archivists there over the past year to reflect on the early days of the show. Archives are wonderful for personal and organizational perspective.
Producer Victoria Estrada visited the library and spoke with several librarians and archivists onsite. I felt such kinship with the staff as they talked about their work and how it fits into the larger picture, understanding that the meticulous work we do now will help people access materials for generations. Librarians and archivists are “militant in that we provide information and in making that information widely accessible - which is a radical idea to do this as a service.” It is a combination of social passion, a moral compass and an incredible attention to detail.
“At their best Libraries seemed to me like the best version of what the world can be. They are more organized than any other place and the people you find there seem to be nicer and more helpful. Also they are free. But they are also places with their own histories, a product of their time and the people who built them and that can come with some baggage.” - Victoria Estrada
Not only did I learn about the incredible collections they have at the Benson like the Voces Oral History collections that started with collecting Latino/a stories of World War II and expanded to encompass “over 1800 oral history interviews about the Latina and Latino experience in the U.S. available to the public.” And the expansive collection of documents and materials dating back 500 years and covering all of Central and South America. There is also amazing whistle language recordings among the 400 recordings of indigenous languages in South America. I am almost breathless just thinking about it all. Next week I’ll post about the Gloria Anzaldúa papers that are housed there as well and what they mean to me.
I do have to say my head is spinning with all of the extraordinary materials available not only onsite but online. My brain is exploding.
Breathe, Mary.
I need to remember my own advice which is to do my own pre-work by reading books, online articles, etc to prepare for working with the materials. Most of all, contact the archivist who will help narrow the search and probably find the very thing you did not know you needed.
What brought me even more joy was the thoughtful way the librarians and archivists have approached a complicated collecting policy rooted in colonialism. Many museums in the United States and all over the world are grappling with collecting policies that just extracted anything deemed valuable from local communities. In recent years, museums and archives have worked directly with indigenous and other global communities to return or provide better access to documents and objects that were taken from people under the guise of being better able to care for and preserve items and documents.
Archivist Ryan Lynch summarizes perfectly: “That is one of the most complicated things about the legacy of the Benson, is taking that foundational collection, the Genaro García collection. It follows a certain logic that used to permeate the archivist profession. In our modern ethics we would not consider it something that should leave Mexico. It would be illegal. In the past there was a lot of paternalistic ideas of archiving and one of those paternalistic ideas was what museums were doing too, this sort of land grab mentality. We can take care of it better than the people in the country of creation. Or things get stolen out of those archives. All this racist crap you hear all the time.”
What excites and inspires me is the work archivists and librarians are doing to address the past and collaboratively figure out a path to the future. The show mentions new models such as providing training, resources, and materials like archival boxes and folders as well as scanners to help preserve and make local archives publicly accessible without leaving the community that produced it.12 Digitizing materials to create better access is a wonderful tool that was not available decades ago. For me it is about how we learn from past practices and policies that were hurtful and destructive and co-create a more inclusive path forward. I am glad these materials were saved and now we have to figure out a way to make them accessible and useful for the people who’s memories they hold.
Victoria Estrada pulls all the threads together beautiful: “Libraries are a reflection of who we are. They carry and are defined by the colonial history of our countries. Confined by national borders and limited by resources like money , space and time. There are no perfect libraries, but I do think that the people working at the Benson are striving to provide as much access as possible to what they have been tasked to take care of.”
These recordings are not perfect but I do get a chance to practice and hopefully embrace my voice.
postcustodial - relating to situations where records creators continue to maintain archival records with archivists providing management oversight even as they may also hold custody of other records
“The post-custodial model of archival practice uses digital technology in pursuit of a more collaborative approach to multinational archival work. The model originated as a response to the rapid increase of born-digital materials produced by institutions, a way of saying “archive your own emails.” But it was quickly taken up by archivists interested in human rights and social justice as a way to shift the balance of power in archival preservation.” - Post-custodial Archiving for Our Collective Good by Kathlin Smith