Welcome to the relaunch of the Community-Driven Archives Blog!

The Community-Driven Archives (CDA) team at Arizona State University (ASU) is excited to be back on this platform with the work our group is embarking on in community-driven archives. Due to various reasons (time, staff and student commitments) unfortunately the previous blog had to be shuttered. The journey back to this relaunch has been months in the making but we are so thrilled to have this space in order to share the hands on work this group is doing on a daily basis such as community outreach events, digitization of collections featuring communities of color and assisting communities in understanding the importance of their history and their stories. There are numerous reasons why the work the CDA team has started is so important to not only the communities we seek to engage with but to many of us on the team. This team, which consists of three ASU staff members and seven ASU student workers, all of whom bring their own unique expertise and cultural heritage to this project, feel strongly that as people from these communities we understand the feeling of being left out of the historical record. And as people from these communities there is a sense of duty felt by each of us to not only these communities but to the important work of making sure representation is equal on all fronts when it comes to Arizona’s archival collections. This amazing team who you will meet in a later post are on the cutting edge of an exciting shift within archives and look forward to sharing more about the work and introducing ourselves. 

This project, funded by a grant awarded to ASU in 2017 by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is a three-year project designed to build community partnerships and expand community-driven collections within Arizona in an effort to preserve and improve the archives statewide. The goals of this blog are two-fold. First, we aim to share information with the Arizona community about the efforts that ASU and the CDA team is undertaking. By doing so, we hope to raise awareness for the importance of archival work in the preservation of marginalized histories. Second, to share stories. Stories from all walks of the Latino, Black, Asian and LGBTQIA communities. The hope is that with the sharing of these stories there will be a moment of healing and of hope and empowerment to the people within these communities and to also bring awareness to the critical need for more inclusive archival holdings in Arizona. However, we never want to lose sight of our most important goal: to give a voice to the silenced. This project is a vehicle through which historically marginalized groups can share their stories, memories and cultural history. For so long, official American archives have only provided anglo-heterosexual-based perspectives on the history of the Latino, Black, Asian and LGBTQIA communities. Times must change. We see this work as an opportunity for under-represented communities to provide first-hand documentation of their own Arizona experience. By reclaiming this narrative, healing and empowerment are within reach for future generations who are able to see themselves richly represented in Arizona’s history. Our hope is that they will see the archive and say “I am here. I am Arizona. And I am made stronger by the stories of my ancestors.”

Each week we will talk about different segments of the project and we’ll explore why it’s important, not only to this group, but to the communities as well. Most importantly, we want to have FUN and provide you, the reader, with interesting ways to explore archives and collections. This blog, we hope, will be exciting and this team looks forward to this journey and hope you will too! 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. 

Next week’s post will have an in-depth introduction of our group and give you more information about the community partnerships we have formed through this project. See you next week!