Shirley Rivas, Final Reflection

I took this course on a whim in order to satisfy my hunger for feminism and as a Latina, I was interested to learn more about Chicana history. I knew that oral histories was at the crux of this course, but looking back, I really did not know what I was getting myself into. This course was extremely interdisciplinary and it really made for a demanding experience where we were actually learning knew content, and then being asked to engage and execute action on our newfound knowledge. This idea of putting what we learn in a course to actually come up with a final product that is a part of something as revolutionary as Chicana por mi Raza was truly not what I was expecting, it was much more.

            For one, the idea of creating history was unprecedented idea to me because as far as I knew, all types of histories must be recorded one way or another, right? However that may be true, I found out soon into the course that there are some histories that are widely accepted and one’s that are not. For this particular project, we were asked to not only record the history of a Chicana woman residing in the Midwest, but also scan and make digital copies of their own personal archives. Through talking during class time and really understanding the impact we were creating in the realm of history making, I was dismayed to realize that there are truly some people who would not find this type of work either important or legitimate. This has partly to do with the women themselves; many of these women are not easy to find on a Google search and many of them have not had people previous to us interested in the work they have done in the Chicana movement. It is disheartening to come to terms with the reality of this situation because as I have come to find out, all of these women have an important history to tell and many of them have kept large amounts of records to substantiate their history.

            The women that have taken part in the Chicana por mi Raza project are women that have taken part in the Chicana movement and have collected items related to the movement. But in reality, they might not have collected these items thinking one day it would be important to someone studying Chicano/a history. They may have collected items and taken/kept photographs for their own use, much like a keepsake, to remember about this time where they were fighting for the rights of their people. Since the Chicana movement is a history that many have not taken a want to record/preserve, these women’s items have remained in their basements, closets, drawers, and more of the usual suspects. It might not have been until we entered their homes that these items have finally touched the light. Not only are we taking an interested in seeing their archives, but we are just as interested in preserving their archives in a digital form! The point of making digital and having it assessable at basically any given computer/laptop is not only a unique form of history making, but it is also a unique subject matter. These women are at this unique position of having their histories finally being told and the items that seemed to only take up space in their homes are now substantiated from a historical standpoint.

            As far as the actual actions involved with the recording, gathering, scanning, and so forth involved with constructing someone’s history, it was all less intuitive that I had imagined it to be. Especially since the course at first glance seems to just heavily rely on recording what these women tell us about their own history and their involvement with the Chicana movement, I was really surprised to find out all of the “additional” work that needed to be put forth. To start, recording someone’s oral history is not as simple as recording off of one’s iPhone. Not that I thought we were going to record using our iPhones, however, using the recording and lighting equipment from the ISS Media Center was more than I had bargained for. The actual camera had many components from putting the cameras on the proper settings and setting up the microphone to our particular Chicana, Juana, Professor Cotera who was conducting the interview, and setting up the Zoom recorder. Not to mention the fact that the oral history recording is just a fraction of the work that goes into creating their history.

Additional to the oral history, we had to collect items to scan and put into our digital archive in Medici (let me tell you, learning and mastering Medici could be a course all in its own). Juana had items scattered around her home that we deemed important to scan/document and we did all of the scanning and picture taking the time we were there. This helped with allowing us to have plenty of more time post-interview to catalog all of her items. This process is really time consuming because it requires knowledge of the item itself and knowledge on using Medici and the format of the Excel worksheet for this project. Although it was all very labor intensive, I am really glad to have had that experience because I was really given the opportunity to see what all goes into creating an accessible history from scratch. There were many times where we had to go back and tweak things here and there (an we continue to do so), but overall, it was great to see our hard work take true form. Professor Cotera really is not joking when she says that this project really has no true ending.

Through this project, I was able to put my love for feminism and social justice together in a really unique way. These women’s histories are not superficially important to most because the Chicana movement is not something taught inside most public schools, but once you dig deeper, you realize that everyone’s histories have the potential to be “important,” it just comes down to who has the power to create these histories in an accessible way. Through this course, we did something about the systemic exclusion of a few women’s histories and us students were given the power to create history. This was a great privilege because not everyone is empowered to take part in history making. Through this project, we are not only giving the spotlight to these women, but we are also paving the way for a new generation of history making and inclusion.