When I walked into this class in September, I was entirely unfamiliar with both the historical background of Chicana feminism and the methods for collecting oral histories and developing this project. Now, just a few months later, I cannot believe how far I have come. This class is so unlike any class I have ever taken before. As a pre-med student, I am used to big lecture halls and long exams. A class of only seven people working on an archive about a topic I knew nothing about actually seemed quite scary to me because I had no idea what to expect.

Over the course of the semester, learning about Chicano activism opened my eyes to the way history is portrayed in the mainstream. I had never heard of things like the blowouts or the Denver Youth Conferences before. Throughout middle and high school, textbooks never mention these monumental events, and this is entirely unfair to young students. They are taught to see a certain side of history as the truth instead of molding together multiple stories to create an inclusive and more accurate history. Based on the lack of Chicanas in the textbooks I grew up reading, it appears that Chicanas have rarely, if ever, done anything of historical significance. It is obvious that this is not true, but without learning about them in history classes, many young students would never know the differences that they have made in society. Marie and Lizette discussed during our last class period how the lack of narratives of Chicanas leaves young girls without any role models. Often times, people do not realize what they have the power to do if they do not see examples of it. Chicana Por Mi Raza has the ability to inspire people to make changes in society. The public website is available to anyone to learn about influential women whom they’ve probably never heard of before. It is so important for people to have resources like this to see that it is not just white people or men who have made lasting impacts on society.

This course also taught me more than I ever thought I’d know about the process of archiving materials and recording history. I had never even visited an archive until we went to the Bentley, and I definitely had never filmed a person’s oral history before. At first, it was really hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that we were going to look at boxes of a woman’s collection, decide what was important enough to save, upload it to a digital archive, and display parts of it on a public website along with a short description of the woman’s life that we would create. To me, this huge responsibility seemed overwhelming. How was I at all qualified to decide what of this woman’s belongings was relevant to a movement I’d never heard of? How was I qualified to write another person’s biography? Fortunately, as we worked through the semester, I found that I was gaining enough knowledge about the movement to be comfortable doing these things.

When the time came for our mid-semester biocuration assignment, I realized that writing a short biography wasn’t that scary, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed the responsibility. I only watched seven clips, each about ten or fifteen minutes long, but I felt like I knew a lot about Gloria Arellanes, the woman whose CPMR page I was assigned to work on. She was sharing intimate details of her life and telling funny or shocking stories that I wouldn’t soon forget. Writing her biography made me feel connected to her even though I had not and probably never would meet her. As a group of both undergraduate and graduate students from diverse backgrounds and with very different life experiences, I think we were each drawn to a different person for this assignment. I chose to watch Gloria’s oral history and write her biography because we had learned that she was involved in a free clinic in Los Angeles. As someone who is very interested in medicine and public health, I found it inspiring to see how Gloria, a woman without any background in the medical field, helped her community gain access to better health care and became very respected by the larger public health facilities and hospitals. Gloria’s achievements go far beyond El Barrio Free Clinic, and I am honored that I got to share part of her life story on a public platform so that she may inspire others and get some of the recognition that she deserves.

Eventually, after all the training with the camera equipment and Final Cut Pro, I felt prepared to conduct Juana Gonzales’s oral history with Shirley and Katelynn. This was a difficult interview, and the process was truly a team effort. We were also in a bit of a time crunch because Juana wanted to finish the interview by three o’clock, and she had a lot of material to scan and take pictures of. Despite the difficulty of the interview, I am grateful that Juana invited us into her home to share parts of her life. The experience showed me that conducting an oral history will never be exactly what you expect. Everyone reacts differently to being filmed, and it can be a lot of work to make someone comfortable talking about themselves in front of a camera.

At the beginning of the year, I could not envision exactly what people would do with our work. I knew that scholars would use the archive for their research, but I wasn’t sure who would be looking at our public website. As I learned more about the project, it was exciting to see how the website would allow anyone to learn about these women’s contributions to the Chicano movement and their work toward women’s equality. I had not realized that this material could also be used in art until Maria told us that one of her students created a play based on women featured in the archive. There are so many different ways that the archive and website can aid others in their studies, their art, and filling gaps in history. I’m so glad I got to be a part of this unique experience because I got to contribute to the historical narrative of our country.