Brittney Jimenez and Stephanie Shugert, Latin American and Latino Studies Department and J Ramos, Literature Department at UC-Santa Cruz
During spring break, Brittney Jimenez, J Ramos, and Stephanie Shugert had the opportunity to assist the Dolores Huerta Foundation (DHF), by processing materials that will eventually be the foundation’s official archives. A collaboration between the UCSC Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas, the Center for Archival Research and Training (CART) at McHenry Library, the Humanities Institute, and the DHF, this alternative spring break fellowship included receiving archival research training and spending a week in Bakersfield, CA, helping the foundation’s archivist organize records pertaining to Chicana labor rights activist, Dolores Huerta, and her organization. This long-term project fulfills the purpose of remembering Huerta’s long history of activism to inspire and inform current iterations of organizing. Along with the CART team, the project archivist, Emily Gudmundson, supported our learning as we became acquainted with archival lexicon and varying approaches to archival processing.
Before our trip to Bakersfield, we read texts that stressed the importance of preserving documents in ways that would benefit future researchers while simultaneously attributing respect to the historical memories of the documents we were working with. Together, the three of us had conversations about our interests in community memory and preservation, and how our work with the DHF archives would serve that goal. When we were considering what it meant to see archival records as “valuable,” it became integral to evaluate our own personal biases and what we saw as important. For example, some of the boxes had items like Post-it notes or event souvenirs, and sometimes it was unclear whether those items were worth keeping. With the help of Lori de Leon, who is both the Archives Director at DHF and Dolores’ daughter, we understood how items are sorted depending on the archive’s ultimate goals. Gaining more insight into how archives are constructed helped us grapple with the process of how narratives are created. For example, if we decided that an item was not needed in the archive, what did that mean about how we see the event the item came from? What was the story we were trying to tell? Indeed, archives function as sites that create stories, further informing our imaginaries of both people and periods of time. When we take this into account, having had the opportunity to contribute to the creation of the archives of the Dolores Huerta Foundation was truly an honor.
These were valuable lessons for us as our research interests include histories and archives of Chicanx and Latinx communities, from their political activism to their storytelling and literature. We reflected on our own personal experiences as Chicanx Californians who know Huerta’s history as part of our cultural communities. For all of us, being in Bakersfield was eye-opening, as it is only a few hours from our hometowns, yet we were unaware of all of its rich history. We were able to tour the original headquarters of the United Farm Workers (UFW) and the Cesar Chavez Foundation with Lori, and this made us feel like we were traveling back in time as Lori recounted stories of the space while we walked through the different sites. There were old buildings, such as Cesar’s house and office, and photographs all over the area. Lori detailed many of her memories of living in La Paz, bringing to life the spirits of Cesar and other founding UFW members. This reified the importance of archival work for us, illuminating how much power there is in establishing and preserving archives to keep the legacies of communities and their leaders alive. It was an amazing experience to visit a historical site and be able to feel a deep connection with the same community that walked down its paths over forty years before.
In addition to the archival work we conducted at the DHF, we had the privilege of meeting some of the Huerta family members, including Dolores Huerta’s daughters and Huerta herself. Lori was especially gracious to us, sharing stories of her mother that ranged from before Huerta’s co-founding of the UFW’s labor union, all the way to the present. As one of the elder daughters of her family, her experience being alongside her mother through and after the height of Huerta’s activist years has resulted in a wealth of knowledge of farmworkers’ labor history, the UFW, the DHF, and the community of Bakersfield. Truly, she revealed herself to be a phenomenal local historian. Her willingness to share her personal vignettes and memories of historical events, like the Delano grape strike that began in 1965, was one of the most enriching aspects of our experience as fellows. Her storytelling accompanied us throughout the week as memories resurfaced for her, and our piqued curiosity manifested as questions. We feel privileged to have met her and to have had her be a point of reference for our inquiries—little by little, she contributed to bringing to life the history and the historical figures of the city and the surrounding communities we had been so eager to learn more about and work with. Hearing Lori’s stories as we processed the boxes brought the items to life, too, as they represent the day-to-day materials that occupied Dolores’s, her family’s, and the foundation’s lives. Sitting with someone whose life story could be found through snippets in the archive marked an important conversation about who belongs in “traditional” history, and even forced us to consider what traditional history meant.
As one of the larger cities in the Central Valley, Bakersfield has been a central hub for organizing smaller farmworker communities. Our time working at the Dolores Huerta Foundation illuminated just how important this city has been to Huerta, her family, and, of course, the work that they have collectively carried out throughout their lives. Notably, when the foundation’s files become open to the public, they will serve as a community archive that will reflect the experiences of those involved in the history-making. The family has diligently preserved mementos over the past years, anticipating that community members would one day want to know the history and stories of the region from the protagonists themselves.Our time in Bakersfield allowed us to see the impact that community archives can make, but also the responsibility of having the powers of a community archive. Archives are a gateway of knowledge, and in the case of the Huerta Archive, it is also a heritage of a lifetime of activism for civil rights for marginalized peoples. It was an incredible experience working at the Dolores Huerta Foundation, visiting La Paz to visit the Cesar Chavez National Monument, and of course, meeting Dolores Huerta herself, and we hope to return again as volunteers with the archive project. These moments, while outside of the archive, richly informed the history we read and touched as we processed and rummaged through the archive boxes.
