Elvia Arroyo-Ramirez: the Minority Majority, Community Involvement & Our Plea to Stop Being a Jerk!

I am so glad that I am able to come back to the Podcast-waves with this episode.

Some things are a *little* out of date since we recorded this episode waaaaaaaaay back in April but most everything is still incredibly relevant and very very real.

I am so thrilled to have been able to have Elvia on this show. What she is doing in Irvine is so important and her drive to make sure that the future is a better place is so clear. I am incredibly impressed by this University archive and they are quite lucky to have Elvia. She is an incredible person who respects and values the voices that ask to be heard.

This is the rarest thing. I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed having this conversation. ELVIA IS AWESOME!!!!!

As usual, bio is below the podcast link!

Elvia is the Assistant University Archivist at UC Irvine where she is responsible for providing physical and intellectual access to University Archives and Faculty Papers. She was previously the Processing Archivist for Latin American Collections at Princeton University. She earned her Master’s in Library and Information Science (MLIS) at the University of Pittsburgh, and holds a Bachelor’s of Art in art history from UCLA. 

Archives & Intersectionality: Linking the Personal to the Professional–Panel from AMIA 2018, Portland, OR

The panel that I presented this year at the annual AMIA (Association of Moving Image Archivists) Conference in Portland, Or. As a longtime member, I have been trying to get a panel accepted for many years but social justice and moving image archives have not always…been seen as congruent. I have always always always believed that you cannot discuss one without the other. They are the reel to the film. The lens to the projector. The 1 to the 0 (in digital).

This year I was HONORED to have some of the most talented and amazing colleagues and friends I know come to speak with me on the most meaningful and important issues within our community: issues of race, gender, sexuality, personal identity, and power and how these have influenced their work, their lives and their experiences as moving image archivists. Two of my panelists you may have met previously if you are a regular Archivist’s Alley listener: Brendan Lucas is the Outfest Legacy Project Manager and you would have heard him on my Outfest Legacy Project Managers episode!  Erica Lopez is continually referred to on this show due to her amazing work with the Fuentes Collection and discussion on Latinx home movies as we discuss here. Ina Archer is INCREDIBLY BUSY so I haven’t gotten her on the show, but it will happen! But she is an incredible writer, artist and is now a media conservator at The Smithsonian National Museum Of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC). You can check her out here.

Please forgive me on the video quality. It was recorded off my laptop because my actual camera decided it didn’t want to play nice. But you can hear everything except the young woman’s question at the very end (apologies) who was asking about some international issues and terms like diversity and inclusion and…I don’t think that my response was very good. I spoke with her afterwards and we sorted things out. I feel a little awkward about that! Thanks to Brendan for taking the mic and repeating the other announcement during the short Q&A bit.

I hope you enjoy and if you have any questions or would like to follow up on this, plan a panel with me or discussion on this kind of conversation with me (I already have some in my head) or would like to get in touch with my guests to tell them how amazing they are…feel free to contact me at archivistsalley@gmail.com