This Halloween will certainly be a different Halloween than previous years. Thankfully, social distancing and safety protocols will protect many from exposure to Covid-19, but unfortunately, it will take away the excitement of costume contests and haunted houses! However, as most of us have learned, humans adapt! Throughout this whole pandemic, we have found means to connect with our communities in safe, online ways. Halloween has always been a time for community, sharing new fashions and breaking gender norms. It is a time of collaboration and acceptance.
This exhibit showcases a selection of periodicals and photographs from the Bj Bud Memorial Archives. This collection, the largest LGBT collection in Arizona, was assembled by local LGBT activists and the Valley of the Sun Gay and Lesbian Center. The Community Center, established in 1993, provided a safe space for the LGBT community in Phoenix. They also started a small library and archive that was accessible to anyone who wanted to learn more about LGBT community and experiences. On February 14, 1996, a lesbian activist named Harlene "Bj" Bud passed away and the Community Center honored her life by naming the collection after her. Then in 2004 the collection was donated to ASU Library.
These chosen photos are collected from parties in the late 1980s and feature my personal favorite Halloween moments in the BJ Bud Memorial Archives.
However, it’s imperative to acknowledge the cultural environment of the 1980s in America. Most of this collection is composed of white members of the LGBT community and along with that, a few of the photos in the archive contain costumes that are racist and offensive. The struggle of making people understand that ‘culture is not a costume’ and that there is no excuse for dressing as another race or ethnicity seems to be never ending. We are still dealing with many of the issues in 2020 that our ancestors dealt with 40 years ago. These racist photos have been purposefully excluded from our public digital collection so that no people of color have to experience the trauma that comes along with seeing this type of disrespect and purposeful ignorance. However, these photos are still collected in the archive repository so that we can preserve the reality of the past to hold people accountable.
Contact me, Jessica Salow, with feedback at Jessica.Salow@asu.edu, as I would love to hear from you your thoughts regarding the work we here at ASU are doing in community archiving around Arizona. We also want your feedback on what you would like to see from us in future blog posts. And if you would like regular updates from the CDA team please follow our CDA Facebook page or the CDA Instagram page to keep abreast of the virtual events we are doing monthly. We have also made some changes to our website to better describe the community-driven archives initiative at ASU Library so please visit that page to learn more about our work or to connect with the rest of our team.
See you soon!