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 (archaeology), artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was cre ...

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 groups 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 at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the ...

, 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 ...

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 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: Latinos,

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 peopl ...

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

, 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 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 Settlement of the Americas, the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Native American cultures in the United States, Numerous indigenous cultures formed ...

. 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, 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 ...

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, Cali ...

(

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 Gov ...

) * Católicos por la Raza *

Centro Cultural de la Raza The Centro Cultural de la Raza (Spanish for ''Cultural Center of the People'') is a non-profit organization with the specific mission to create, preserve, promote and educate about Chicano, Mexicano, Native American and Latino art and culture. ...

* Comisión Femenil Mexicana Nacional *

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, worksh ...

* Kearny Street Workshop *

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 *

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 *

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 C ...

;Individuals: * Oscar Zeta Acosta * Ana Castillo *

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'', and ...

* Frank Chin * Ricardo Cruz *

Adelina García Adelina Garcia (December 16, 1923 – 1999) was a Mexican-American or Chicana singer. She remains one of the most famous American singers of the ''bolero''. Biography Adelina Garcia was born in December 1923 in Phoenix, Arizona and moved as a ch ...

* Lalo Guerrero *

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 Miguel Méndez (June 15, 1930 – May 31, 2013) was the pen name for Miguel Méndez Morales, a Mexican American author best known for his novel ''Peregrinos de Aztlán'' (''Pilgrims in Aztlán''). He was a leading figure in the field of Chican ...

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 ser ...

Rini Templeton Lucille Corinne Templeton (July 1, 1935 – June 15, 1986), better known as "Rini" Templeton, was an American graphic artist, sculptor, and political activist. She was most active in Mexico and the Southwestern United States, although she also vo ...

* Don Tosti *

Maria Helena Viramontes Helena Maria Viramontes (born February 26, 1954) is an American fiction writer and professor of English. She is known for her two novels, '' Under the Feet of Jesus'' and '' Their Dogs Came With Them'', and is considered one of the most signi ...

* Nellie Wong

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