After months of tumultuous moving and tiring days of re-adaptation into a Southern Californian lifestyle, this past week, I was sitting in an Oxnard, CA taquería. If you don’t know, Oxnard is situated by surrounding agricultural fields, a Naval base, all while at the welcome mat to the Pacific and shadowed by the Transverse Range.
The move was a physical reminder that my professional clock was ticking and a firm slap in the face that the cost of living is not cheap or easy. Only having a short apartment hunting timeframe, I had found an overpriced place to live in Ventura, CA. Santa Barbara living was going to be a miracle which would not happen, so I decided to move to the midpoint of LA and Santa Barbara, thus my relocation to Ventura. Before coming back to So Cal, I had the fortune of establishing short-term employment at Santa Barbara City College’s, Eli Luria Library, where I am currently engaging in professional community college librarianship.
It had been some time since I had walked through these green doors, I had been to Oxnard before and had eaten here once upon a time. I quickly realized the new edition; a jukebox which had been given a visible space in the corner of the main dining room. While I waited for my quesadilla, I made my way towards the music box. I may be no connoisseur of música mexicana, yet I do have my favorites and I was in need of some musical solace, After all, this had been a journey and back. After picking two songs which I was able to decipher easily amongst the sets of great musico/@s, I soon came to Ramon Ayala’s Un Puño de Tierra.
Listening, all-the-while contemplating the truth behind the song, I instantly awoke to some suppressed, pressing, past research interests that I plan to engage in very soon once I have a research plan, funding, and participants; every researcher’s dilemma and yes there will be a data management plan.
Ayala reminds me continually, as do other great artists. In that moment, he connected all that I had buried inside me while getting through the day-to-day at Simmons College. His song renewed my intention and reassured why I want to partake and conduct meaningful research. Even more, he is right that “when I die I’m not taking anything with me.” If I create anything, I want my products to be used in ways that innovate and add to the creative. After all, when I do pass, “no mas el recuerdo queda, “ as Ayala reminds us.
Months before, although knowing about the song, I was living in Boston, MA. I was finishing up my MS,LIS at Simmons College and had developed an interest in oral history research methods. Not trained in this area, I decided to do an Independent Study which would provide a foundation and really tell me if I wanted to pursue research methods in oral history in the future.
I had mentioned my interest in documenting the experiences of librarians and archivists, but only to few people I trusted to share my interests with. My intentions in this blog are to share to the community why liberating research frameworks have a place in the LIS/ Archives discourse, that la verdadera palabra comes from people through lived experience. I want to document Chicana, Latina, Native American librarians and archivists not only to partake in meaningful, liberating, work, but to, above all, add to the record.
My interest in this work is part of a social justice ideology, from researchers, writers, músicos, and practitioners beyond and within our fields. It could be argued that ALA has already started an oral history collection, Capturing Our Stories, but after having reviewed some of these videos and transcripts I am unsure of the motivations and treatment of participants. I want to share that oral history research methods and philosophy begins with the utmost respect for participants and the preservation of their words. It is the foundation of any project and where I start myself.
Another reason, I have come forward to share this interest is that I was greatly motivated by Salvador Güerena’s An Archival Call to Action. While in Boston I was reading Pathways to Progress: Issues and Advances in Latino Librarianship which vividly inspired my participation in research. I hope to use his wisdom to inform my project and add to the areas, that he has indicated through expertise, need more research in.
Some of the flack I may receive from others, possibly, could be sentiments which indicate that I only have interest in this work because I am Chicana. To those I say yes! I want to do this work because if I don’t it may be done poorly by others who have no vested interest, as I have seen in other projects. And to quote a friend of mine, this work is not a privilege but part of healing work within the disenfranchising system.
I am not totally convinced of how diversity functions in our profession. Although I have benefited from the prospects of it in some ways, yet deal with backlash in others. I am more interested in the lived stories of those, before and currently, which tell the collective narrative. Has it been documented to the fullest? I am not convinced it has. I feel the inspiration to document this wisdom for our own benefit, for researchers who need information in this area, and for those to come.
To reiterate Ayala, when we die we don’t take anything with us, but we leave our products, if they are preserved and deemed valuable, and worth preserving. Who decides worth? We know who.
Ramon Ayala, Un Puño de Tierra - Youtube
No comments:
Post a Comment