Lambda Archive preserving trans history in San Diego

S1: You're listening to KPBS Midday Edition , I'm Jade Hindman. August is Transgender History Month in California. It's a nod to August 1966 , when trans women and drag queens protested police harassment at Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco. It was one of the first LGBTQ plus related uprisings in U.S. history , three years before Stonewall. The Lambda Archives has done a lot of work over the years to preserve queer and trans history in San Diego. In fact , they're running a project right now that focuses on trans and Bipoc life in the region and Baja California. Here to talk more about the project and shine a light on this rich history is Gabrielle Garcia. They are the head archivist at Lambda and Gabrielle. Welcome to midday edition. Hi.

S2: Hi. Thank you so much.

S1: Well , it's nice to have you here. You know , Lambda is a community archive.

S2: So Lambda was actually originally founded in 1987 by our founder , Jess Jessup , who is a local community activist at the time. Um , and really , it was volunteer founded. So there was no real institutional support in the founding of the archive. It was really just a small group of LGBT folks in the community that wanted to come together and really recognize the rich cultural history of different materials that our community collected. Um , our organization was really born out of the early HIV and Aids epidemic. So really , a lot of local LGBT San Diegans were passing away and their stuff was actually just getting thrown away. So Jess and a couple other local folks really recognized that it was important to preserve our , our cultural history in this way. And traditionally , a lot of institutional archives , whether that's at universities or local governments , state governments , etc. often would not prioritize minority communities and would often distort their histories and experiences. So having a community archive allows really these kind of more marginalized communities , or just communities that aren't kind of in the mainstream , to really dictate their own history and their own experiences and prioritize material and stories that are important to them. And so that's kind of what we aim for here at Lambda. So we pretty much just receive donations of materials from local community members. And we really just collect anyone who feels that they're related to LGBT life and identity. Um , really just within San Diego County , Imperial County in northern Baja California. Right.

S1: Right. And so this project is focused on digitizing trans and Bipoc history in our region. Tell us more about that project. Yeah.

S2: Yeah. So this is a project that is grant funded through the California State Library's preservation and accessibility of California's LGBTQ plus history grant. So this for us , our kind of goal is to help make materials about Bipoc and trans life in San Diego and northern Baja California more accessible for the materials that we do have in our collection. So it's kind of a it's a two phase project. So this first phase is really scanning the material and then also writing the metadata for each object. So the metadata is information or contextual information about an object that accompanies it. Often when it's published online so users can have more understanding of what an object is about , where it's from , when it was created. Is also enhance the search process for even finding those items as well.

S1: It sounds like there are a lot of important reasons to preserve this history digitally compared to other methods. You touched on this , and I really wanted to get into it more , because one of the things you're focused on is called reparative description. Talk to me about the importance of that and what it is.

S2: Yeah for sure. So reparative description is effectively how we describe materials , people's experiences in a way that doesn't obscure or whitewash or kind of minimize the harm that has been done to those communities. So I would say historically in archives , as well as museums and even libraries , there has always been this attempt to describe things neutrally. Neutrally can mean many things , but oftentimes is reinforcing kind of the mainstream that might have been downplaying minority communities. So sometimes , like when we describe something , we might be obscuring the fact that , like , this is racist or this is homophobic or this is transphobic and not directly naming what we're seeing or acknowledging harmful histories that might be there as well. So what reparative description does is it either kind of iteratively revisits previously described materials and redescribed them ? This allows for users and researchers to kind of engage or find the material in a different way. It's also kind of an approach for when we do process collections here at the archive , how we then approach describing them in our finding aids , which are the guides to the collections , as well as in the metadata or the information about the objects. So it's really an effort to try to address and make transparent historical harms and the kind of damage that has caused discourse. So even how something that's written down in a certain way could have tangible consequences for people.

S1: Talk a bit about that , about the consequences of not having reparative description , from history books to the stories that we see on the news.

S2: For sure. So I often think about maybe this is a broader example , but in in regards to slavery and enslaved people , oftentimes in archival collections , enslaved people might be described in a way that kind of minimizes the experience or kind of overemphasizing this level of like ownership between the donor of the material or the inheritor of those materials , rather than really kind of focusing on the enslaved person as a subject. Right. So I think that's really important , again , for navigating such a violent and harmful part of our history that still has obviously very intense consequences today , as well as for things like I would say , like how LGBT people have been criminalized as well as , uh , I would say kind of medicalized. So obviously homosexuality and transsexuality have been put on lists of like mental illnesses in the past that has since been taken off. So kind of the language that kind of constructs those identities as something that's either identity or an illness can have a lot of impacts on the tangible lives of those people. So it's really about how do we kind of remedy harm , and how do we kind of set ourselves up so people aren't subjected to those same conditions. But don't forget that we had those at some point before. Yeah.

S1: Yeah. Sounds like just a more honest telling and in archiving of of history. And that really underscores the importance of reparative description , I think. Well , you know , to switch gears a little bit here , you know , there's also been a greater emphasis from within the community to uplift trans joy. For example , every April , San Diego celebrates Trans Day of Empowerment.

S2: I would say for me , where I've seen it , as you know , I sometimes will look back at some of the photos that we have that span several decades , whether that's like drag pageants or drag shows where you could see different people enjoying their experience together , or images of group events that people might have hosted or even photos of , of protest. I think even that I think , can be a source of joy in the sense that it brings community together. So it's been nice to see that. It's been nice to also kind of even explore the history of the Transgender Day of Empowerment here in San Diego , which was founded in 2004 by Tracy Jayda Jada O'Brien. I think almost as a response to the kind of earlier development of the Transgender Day of Remembrance , which is a bit more solemn and reflective about the violence that trans people face in this country. And I think that just even in the collaborations that we've done as an organization , that's been a really great way to see trans joy in the present. I we've had kind of partnerships with some local trans groups , and it's been fun to kind of be able to explore trans history through some of our local newspapers that we've collected here at the archive , and also kind of speaking frankly about how tough it can be to kind of search for trans material because our language has evolved so much over time. And that can make it even harder to find what someone might be looking for , because they might be thinking of more contemporary terminology versus other terms that might have been used historically. But I think that that kind of , you know , critical awareness and critical thinking and collaboration and coming together , I think has been a really cool way to see trans joy in the work that I do. Day to day. Yeah.

S1: Yeah. You know , often , you know , we hear about how these are unprecedented times , but a lot of these struggles are just a repeat of history in your eyes.

S2: So something that I always look back to is really to the the methods and the ideas and experiences of those during the early HIV and Aids epidemic. I think that was a huge explosion of activism and kind of different forms of activism , as well as even going back as far as you mentioned , at the very beginning of this segment to the Compton Cafeteria riots and uprisings like Stonewall as well. I think there's a lot of opportunities to think creatively about how to push back and to strive for what our community needs , because , you know , for instance , like transness and cross-dressing has been illegal before. That's like not something that is new. So these types of kind of clamp downs on our current moment are very sad to see the kind of regression , but it's something that we have dealt with historically. And I think that can be really helpful to inform the present , even as our technology and communications have really changed , obviously with social media and the internet. But I think it can also be nice to remind us that , like , we can physically come together as people and groups and collaborate and think strategically about how to make movements both at our local level as well as state and national level. You know , most things that people have encountered now , someone has thought through before , and it's good to not reinvent the wheel when you don't have to , you know. Mhm. Yeah.

S1: Yeah. Yeah. I mean the past can give a lot of insight on how to move in the future for sure. I've been speaking with Gabrielle Garcia , head archivist at Lambda Archives. Gabrielle , thank you so much for your time.

S2: Thank you so much.

S1: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.