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ARCHIVES
Los Angeles, California
Headline in L.A. Daily News
dated August 3, 2023,
"Los Angeles Public Library acquires new archive highlighting L.A.’s queer, Latinx history"
In 2023, I donated my collection of photographs, flyers, organizational documents, personal items, and other memorabilia that I've gathered over the past decades to the L.A. Central Library. It's a proud moment for me, and I'm thrilled that these materials will be preserved.
Related: "The Los Angeles Public Library Acquires Lydia R. Otero Archive."
Selected materials from my collection are now available digitally through the Los Angeles Public Library's TESSA Digital Collections, including photographs, flyers, organizational records, and other materials documenting queer Latine activism and community life in Los Angeles.
"My Archive: 20 Years of Los Angeles’ LGBTQ+ Movement." was the cover story for High Country News’ special “ARCHIVE” issue in April 2022. The article came to the attention of the director of Special Collections at the Los Angeles Public Library and led to an invitation to donate my collection
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Photo by Rosemarie Knopka. Special Collections, L.A. Central Library, July 23, 2026.
In July 2026, I visited my collection in Los Angeles to prepare for my ONE Institute presentation, “1987: Reflections on a Brown and Queer Life in Los Angeles.” Take it from me, researching yourself is a strange experience. I had selected 1987 somewhat arbitrarily, only to discover that it was the year I broke my hand and was unable to work for much of the year. I also learned that there were no 1987 issues of Gay and Lesbian Latinos Unidos's newsletter, Unidad, in my collection to inform me. The absence of what I expected to find forced me to ask different questions, so I turned to my 1987 Day-at-a-Glance and other materials in my collection to reconstruct what was happening in 1987 and how it mattered to me and the other Latine queers I organized with.
What emerged gave me a way to ask a larger question: What events do we consider important in queer history, important to whom, and according to which archives?
Tucson, Arizona
In 2024, I donated my Tucson and family archival materials to the
University of Arizona
Libraries Special Collections.
The collection features photographs and annotations that connect a working-class family's everyday barrio life to broader
historical narratives of the region.
Preparing for my collection to be picked up in 2024.
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