California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives (CEMA) is an archival institution that houses collections of

primary source In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under ...

documents from the

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

of minority

ethnic group An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

s in California. The documents, which include manuscripts, slide photographs, newspaper clippings, works of art, journals, film, sound recordings, and other ephemera, are housed in the special collections department of the

UCSB Libraries The University of California, Santa Barbara Library is the university library system of the University of California, Santa Barbara in Santa Barbara, California. The Library includes four facilities: Two libraries (the Main Library (Davidson Libr ...

at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...

, where they are made accessible to researchers upon request. An effort is currently underway to make certain documents available online through the

Online Archive of California The California Digital Library (CDL) was founded by the University of California in 1997. Under the leadership of then UC President Richard C. Atkinson, the CDL's original mission was to forge a better system for scholarly information management a ...

History

CEMA was founded in 1988 by Joseph A. Boissé and Salvador Güereña, both UCSB librarians. The library already had a substantial collection of primary and secondary-sources in the ''Colección Tloque Nahuaque'', a library of

Chicano studies Chicana/o studies, also known as Chican@ studies, originates from the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, and is the study of the Chicana/o and Latina/o experience. Chican@ studies draws upon a variety of fields, including history, sociol ...

materials, and the need for special resources to preserve and catalogue primary resources became apparent. The primary resources, which at that time consisted primarily of silkscreen posters from the Chicano art movement, were transferred from the ethnic and gender studies library to the department of special collections. Güereña began the acquisition of other collections immediately, and today CEMA is the repository for over 100 collections from each of the four main ethnic groups in California:

Latino Latino or Latinos most often refers to: * Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America * Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States * The people or cultures of Latin America; ** Latin A ...

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

, and Native Americans, although Mexican American collections still outnumber collections from the other groups.

Projects

In 2001, CEMA was selected by the Online Archive of California, an internet resource, to supply digital images of Chicano art from its extensive photographic collections as part of California's contribution to the Congressionally-mandated

American Memory American Memory is an internet-based archive for public domain image resources, as well as Sound recording, audio, video, and archived Web content. Published by the Library of Congress, the archive launched on October 13, 1994, after $13 million w ...

project to preserve and increase the accessibility of documents from

American history The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Numerous indigenous cultures formed, and many saw transformations in the 16th century away from more densely ...

. Since that time, CEMA has provided over 7,000 digital images for the project.

Collections

CEMA's collections include the archives of artistic, political, and professional organizations, as well as the papers of individual artists, musicians, activists, and writers, many of whom were active in the

Chicano Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...

anti-war An anti-war movement (also ''antiwar'') is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to pa ...

, and

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...

movements. Notable collections include: ;Organizations: *

Asian American Theater Company The Asian American Theater Company (AATC) is a non-profit theatre performance company based in San Francisco. Its stated mission is "To connect people to Asian American culture through theatre". Background The Asian American Theater Company was es ...

Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...

(

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

) *

Católicos por la Raza Católicos por La Raza is a political association organized by Ricardo Cruz in the later 1960s in Los Angeles, California. Formed in the fall of 1969, Católicos por La Raza was made up of Chicano Catholic student activists who were engaged with bo ...

* Centro Cultural de la Raza *

Comisión Femenil Mexicana Nacional The Comisión Femenil Mexicana Nacional (National Mexican Women's Commission, CFMN) was a Mexican-American organization dedicated to economically and politically empowering Chicana women in the United States. Creation CFMN was formed during the ...

Galería de la Raza Galería de la Raza (GDLR) is a non-profit art gallery and artist collective founded in 1970, that serves the largely Chicano and Latino population of San Francisco's Mission District. GDLR mounts exhibitions, hosts poetry readings, workshops, a ...

Kearny Street Workshop Kearny Street Workshop (KSW) in San Francisco, California, is the oldest multidisciplinary arts nonprofit addressing Asian Pacific American issues. The organization's mission is to produce and present art that enriches and empowers Asian Pacific A ...

MEChA In science fiction, or mechs are giant robots or machines controlled by people, typically depicted as humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese (language), Japanese after shortening the English loanword or , but the mean ...

REFORMA REFORMA: The National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking, more commonly known as REFORMA, is an affiliate of the American Library Association formed in 1971 to promote library services to Lati ...

Royal Chicano Air Force The Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF) is a Sacramento, California-based art collective, founded in 1970 by Ricardo Favela, José Montoya and Esteban Villa. It was one of the "most important collective artist groups" in the Chicano art movement in C ...

Self Help Graphics & Art Self-Help Graphics & Art, Inc. is a community arts center with a mix Beaux-Arts and vernacular architecture in East Los Angeles, California, United States. The building was built in 1927, and was designed by Postle & Postle. Formed during the cul ...

Teatro Campesino El Teatro Campesino (Spanish for "The Farmworker's Theater") is a Chicano theatre company in California. Performing in both English and Spanish, El Teatro Campesino was founded in 1965 as the cultural arm of the United Farm Workers and the Chicano M ...

;Individuals: *

Oscar Zeta Acosta Oscar "Zeta" Acosta Fierro (; April 8, 1935 – disappeared 1974) was a Mexican-American attorney, politician, novelist and activist in the Chicano Movement. He was most well known for his novels ''Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo'' (1972) and ...

Ana Castillo Ana Castillo (born June 15, 1953) is a Chicana novelist, poet, short story writer, essayist, editor, playwright, translator and independent scholar. Considered one of the leading voices in Chicana experience, Castillo is known for her experiment ...

Iris Chang Iris Shun-Ru Chang (March 28, 1968November 9, 2004) was a Chinese American journalist, author of historical books and political activist. She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanking Massacre, '' The Rape of Nanking'', an ...

Frank Chin Frank Chin (born February 25, 1940) is an American author and playwright. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of Asian-American theatre. Life and career Frank Chin was born in Berkeley, California on February 25, 1940; until the age of s ...

* Ricardo Cruz * Adelina García *

Lalo Guerrero Eduardo "Lalo" Guerrero (December 24, 1916 – March 17, 2005) was an American guitarist, singer and farm labor activist best known for his strong influence on later Latin musical artists. Early life Guerrero was born in Tucson, Arizona, one o ...

Yolanda Lopez Yolanda may refer to: * Yolanda (name), a given name derived from the Greek ''Iolanthe'' Places * Yolanda, California * Yolanda Shrine, monument located at Barangay Anibong, Tacloban, Leyte Film * ''Yolanda'' (film), a 1924 film starring ...

* Miguel Méndez *

José Montoya José Montoya (May 28, 1932 – September 25, 2013) was a poet and an artist from Sacramento, California. He was one of the most influential Chicano bilingual poets. He has published many well-known poems in anthologies and magazines, and serve ...

* Rini Templeton *

Don Tosti Don Tosti (given name: Edmundo Martínez Tostado) (March 27, 1923 – August 2, 2004) was an American musician and composer. Tosti forged a career spanning several decades and styles, from classical to jazz and rhythm and blues. He was best rem ...

* Maria Helena Viramontes *

Nellie Wong Nellie Wong (born 12 September 1934) is an American poet and activist for feminist and socialist causes. Wong is also an active member of the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women. Biography Wong was born in Oakland, California to Chinese ...

References

{{authority control Archives in the United States California culture Ethnic museums in California Geographic region-oriented digital libraries History of California Mexican-American culture in California Mexican-American history Multiculturalism in the United States University of California, Santa Barbara American digital libraries