The OSU Queer Archives was delighted to collaborate with the OSU Pride Center for the Center to host the event “Add Glitter to the Archives”!
The crafternoon event “Glitter in the Archives” began in 2016 as part of Oregon Archives Month and OSU’s Queer History Month celebrations to feature copies of materials from the OSU Queer Archives to use for craft-making. It was hosted in the Special Collections and Archives Research Center’s 5th Floor Reading Room in the Valley Library from 2016-2019, and in 2023-2024, we collaborated with the Libraries’ Crafternoon series and the event was hosted in the main lobby of the Library — hence the new name “Add Glitter to the Archives.”
Hosting the event at the Pride Center was extra special because the event was an opportunity for many new students to come to the Pride Center for the first time as part of the start to the academic year. It was an event by and for the community in a safe community space. And, it was a great opportunity to get to know the Pride Center staff!
Below is the crafternoon setup featuring lots of glittery collaging supplies and copies of OSQA archival materials ~ about 12 students, plus Pride Center student staff, joined us for the event!
Event Space Set Up
Event space set up at the Pride Center
Crafting supplies, including button-makers!
Copies of archival materials available for craft-makingEvent space set up – supplies and crafting materialsNew for this year: posters the Pride Center is not retaining, and OSQA documented via photographs, were made available for crafting
Event Participants
Two event participants with crafting supplies
Three event participants reviewing crafting materials options
Two event participants crafting
Photos of some of the beautiful crafts!
Two collages made by the same artistThree collages made by the same artistButtons made by a third artist A collage made by the same artist who crafted the buttons
Be sure to visit the Pride Center!
OSU Pride Center, located at 1553 SW A Ave, Corvallis, OR 97333
SCARC’s anti-racist descriptive activities were represented by Oregon Multicultural Archives curator Natalia Fernández at the National REFORMA Conference with a poster presentation titled “Moving from Words to Actions: Anti-Racist Description Projects of Archival Materials Pertaining to Oregon’s Latinx Community History.”
About the Conference
The National REFORMA Conference is the premier training and networking event for those dedicated to library services for Latinos and Spanish-speaking communities. It is hosted by REFORMA, established in 1971 as an affiliate of the American Library Association (ALA), as a national association to promote library and information services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking. The conference theme for this year was “Moving Forward Together: Empowering the Latino Community” and the conference took place September 18-21, 2025, in Long Beach, CA.
Poster Abstract
Archivists are actively engaging in anti-racist work, especially regarding how we describe the materials and collections we steward. This poster shares the Oregon State University Special Collections and Archives Research Center’s collaborative process for developing and completing anti-racist description projects. As examples, two projects pertaining to Oregon’s Latinx community history are featured: highlighting materials pertaining to Indigenous communities from Mexico present in the Erlinda Gonzales-Berry Papers and remediating the description for our online Braceros in Oregon Photographs collection.
Fernández spoke to 12 attendees during the 1 hour poster session to share SCARC’s work. Many attendees were not members of the special collections and archives community and were delighted and inspired that repositories across the county are engaging in anti-racist descriptive activities.
Poster as presented at the National REFORMA Conference poster session on September 20, 2025
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Highlights from the National REFORMA Conference 2025
Keynote Speaker: Maria Hinojosa
In 1992, Hinojosa launched Latino USA, “the longest-running public radio Latino news and cultural program,” and in 2010, she founded Futuro Media Group which “creates multimedia content for and about the new American mainstream in the service of empowering people to navigate the complexities of an increasingly diverse and connected world.” (from Latino USA and Future Media Group about pages)
Tour! Chicano History & REFORMA Archives
Description: Explore the REFORMA Archives and uncover Chicano history in Los Angeles. Begin at the REFORMA archives at California State University, Los Angeles, to learn about the organization’s role in preserving and advocating for Latino library services. Then, visit the Chicano Resource Center at the East Los Angeles Library, a vital hub for research on Chicano heritage and activism.
REFORMA archives at California State University, Los Angeles
California State University, Los Angeles, Special Collections and ArchivesA variety of REFORMA newslettersREFORMA newsletters from 2001-2002 featuring information about the need for mentorship within the profession and advocating for language rights nation-wideReports from the 1980s on topics still relevant to this day: the lack of representation of people of color in the library profession
The Chicano Resource Center at the East Los Angeles Library
The East Los Angeles Library
The Chicano Resource Center, external view
The Chicano Resource Center, internal view
Resources Featured During Conference Sessions
Bibliopolítica: A Digital History of the Chicano Studies Library ~ at the intersection of Chicana/o/x Studies, Digital Humanities, and Library History, this online exhibit chronicles the history of one of the first Chicana/o/x collections, the Chicano Studies Library (CSL) at the University of California, Berkeley. Viewers are invited to explore the digital exhibit, listen to recorded oral histories, browse digitized archival items, or explore on their own path.
Cinco Books ~ making available the classic and also the newest from the Spanish speaking world / acceso a las obras clásicas de la literatura del mundo hispano hablante.
Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves ~ a session partially inspired by this article which defines vocational awe as “the set of ideas, values, and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in notions that libraries as institutions are inherently good, sacred notions, and therefore beyond critique.” The author states: “I argue that the concept of vocational awe directly correlates to problems within librarianship like burnout and low salary. This article aims to describe the phenomenon and its effects on library philosophies and practices so that they may be recognized and deconstructed.”
The Oregon Multicultural Archives participated in 4 events this month to celebrate 2025 Latino/a/x/é Heritage Month!
To kick off the month, we were invited to feature the Colegio César Chávez exhibit as part of two Latinx community celebration events, the Festival Latino in Albany and the PODER Hispanic Heritage Month Summit, Salem.
On October 8th, we were invited to introduce the OPB film The Living Legacy of the Colegio César Chávezat Portland State University for a film screening and panel discussion. To close out the month, on October 12th we were invited to host a table at the 2nd annual OSU Latina Luncheon.
Festival Latino, Albany, OR on September 14th at Monteith Riverpark
The event included musical acts, art and history exhibits (including Colegio!), activities for children, and plenty of food vendors. It was hosted by the Linn-Benton Hispanic Advisory Committee.
Event Photos of the Exhibit and Information Table
About 150 people viewed the exhibit and about 75 event attendees stopped by the information table to ask questions and learn more during the 5 hour event!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PODER Hispanic Heritage Month Summit, Salem, OR on September 15th
PODER, Oregon’s Latino Leadership Network is a nonprofit organization made up of over 3,200 Latino leaders, organizations, businesses, public employees, community members, and allies across Oregon. Oregon’s premier Hispanic Heritage Month Breakfast & Summit brought together hundreds of leaders, executives, and changemakers to celebrate and lead.
This is the 3rd year the Summit has featured the exhibit! About 50 event attendees viewed the exhibit during the pre-breakfast 1-hour resource fair.
The event featured a panel of speakers which included Alicia Avila, a multilingual journalist and documentary producer based in Portland, Oregon, who produced the film; Sonny Montes and José Romero, the co-founders of the Colegio César Chávez; and Anthony Veliz, the founder of PODER: Oregon’s Latino Leadership Network. There were about 25 attendees.
This event was organized and hosted by PSU’s Global Diversity and Inclusion office which “offers robust diversity programming that serves and empowers student populations whose success, retention, and academic success are most challenged by historical factors and contemporary inequity” (GDI website). PSU was designated as an “emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution” (HSI), a distinction provided to institutions in which Hispanic students make up between 15 and 24 percent of full-time undergraduates and was awarded the 2024 Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award from Insight Into Diversity magazine, the oldest and largest diversity-focused publication in higher education. In the summer of 2025, is was announced that GDI was being dismantled as part of a broader university restructuring process and this was the office’s final HSI event.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2nd Annual OSU Latina Luncheon at Oregon State University, Corvallis, on October 12th
The OSU Foundation and Alumni Association hosted the 2nd Annual OSU Latina Luncheon to honor the resilience and fortitude of the Latine/Hispanic community while offering a stage for distinguished Oregon State and community Latina leaders to share their remarkable journeys of overcoming challenges and achieving success.
OMA Table at the OSU Latina Luncheon
Of the two hour event with over 100 visitors, there was about 45 minutes of mingle time before the formal program began. We had the opportunity to talk with about 15 event attendees to share information about the Oregon Multicultural Archives, specifically, our Latino/Latina community archival materials.
The space was decorated beautifully and the event concluded with a couple lively rounds of Lotería.
SCARC is delighted to share a behind-the-scenes look at the how and why of exhibit curation through the lens of the 18 exhibits we have hosted since 2012!
When: The 2025-2026 academic year (Fall 2025 – Summer 2026)
The article includes information about the exhibit, the exhibit curation process as well as its promotion and community response, and plans for next steps.
The issue was featured in the September 17, 2025 “In the Loop” digital newsletter mailed to members of the Society of American Archivists (the image below is a screenshot from the digital newsletter):
The Oregon Multicultural Archives and OSU Queer Archives were interviewed by Choice, a source of reviews of new books and digital resources for academic libraries that publishes a bi-monthly feature called “Ask an Archivist” to profile select special collections. The feature is intended to introduce readers to the treasure trove of materials housed in all kinds of archives and libraries.
Oregon State University (OSU) houses the Oregon Multicultural Archives (OMA) and OSU Queer Archives (OSQA). Can you provide an overview of the two collections and the types of materials they include?
Both the OMA and OSQA contain a substantial number of university records, including meeting minutes and photographs from student organizations and documentation on the activities carried out by cultural centers on campus. Could you speak more about these records? How do documents from university groups and initiatives help center and amplify student voices?
The OMA and OSQA also feature oral history interviews with students, staff, and members of the wider Oregon community on their histories and experiences. Could you speak to the importance of oral histories, particularly for communities that are currently facing erasure? What does the transcription and cataloging process for the OMA and OSQA’s audio files entail?
The Oregon Tribal Archives Institute resulted from a grant project created by the Oregon Multicultural Archives. Can you describe the project and your work with Oregon’s nine federally recognized tribes? How does the Institute support the tribes’ autonomy when it comes to preserving and cataloging their histories?
I understand that the OSU Queer Archives are overseen by you, an archivist, and Bradley Boovy, a professor. What is the value of archivist-professor partnerships? How can they enrich the development and use of archival collections?
What outreach efforts do the OMA and OSQA engage in? How do the collections build community among students and faculty, other universities, and the wider public?
In an article about the OSU Queer Archives titled “Co-Founding a Queer Archives,” you and Boovy write that, “…archives have the ability to shift the culture at institutions of higher education towards greater visibility and acceptance by acknowledging and validating the experience of marginalized students and other members of communities connected with universities including faculty, staff, alumni, and administrators.” Can you speak more about archives’ ability to “shift the culture at institutions of higher education” and how they can create opportunities for new stories and modes of understanding?
The Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections & Archives Research Center (SCARC) recently held an exhibit called “Anti-Racist Description Activities in the OSU Special Collections and Archives Research Center.” What does this exhibit entail, and how does OMA center anti-racist decision-making?
Homepage of the BIPOC Greek Letter Organizations in SCARC new research guide
In honor of Juneteenth, celebrated each year on June 19th to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved people, SCARC is delighted to publish a research guide featuring a curated list of collection materials documenting the histories of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) Greek Letter Organizations at Oregon State University.
The National Pan-Hellenic Council (the Divine Nine) and the Multicultural Greek Council (consisting of 11 chapters) focus on creating safe and inclusive spaces for students of color on college and university campuses. As part of SCARC’s broader anti-racist and enhanced description efforts that began in 2020, we engaged in a collections survey and conducted research to chronicle the history and activities of these organizations to identify archival collections that would support research on each group (for more information on SCARC’s on-going anti-racist work please see our online guide).
As noted in the guide, the sororities and fraternities featured in this subject guide surfaced as part of our initial round of research into BIPOC Greek life on OSU’s campus. This is an ongoing project for which we will continue to seek out and add materials to our collections, and will update this guide with additional information we or community members surface.
This summer we plan to update relevant archival collection finding aids to highlight specific materials. Look for another blog post later this year with more information documenting our process and providing more context for this project.
The OSU Queer Archives hosted a booth at OSU’s June 2nd Pride event in the MU Quad and we had a blast! Lots of organizations shared information with the hundreds of attendees, there was an assortment of games, crafts, a photo booth, and free rainbow tamales, and Poison Waters and her friends performed a special drag show on the steps of the MU – they were all fabulous!
OSQA Booth
We had over 150 people stop by to view the materials and/or chat with us! We featured copies of materials from a few of our collections including the Corvallis Lesbian Avengers Collection, the After 8 Records, and The Lavender Network Newsmagazine. We also included some materials pertaining to general information for archiving personal papers and some newsletters from the Society of American Archives Archival Outlook newsletter that showcased how archives across the nation support traditionally marginalized communities. And, we gave away free Pride themed as well as cute Benny the Beaver pins 🙂
Photos of the Event
BONUS: Pride Display at the OSU Pride Center
OSQA shared digitized content from various collections for the OSU Pride Center to showcase as part of their renovated space, which includes permanent display space!
Sol: LGBTQ+ Multicultural Support Network Collection: The Sol: LGBTQ+ Multicultural Support Network Collection consists of records and materials documenting Sol’s history, from its beginning in the early 2000s up to its operations in 2023, at Oregon State University. Sol’s intention is to create spaces that celebrate the intersectional identities of queer and trans people of color. Sol works closely with the Pride Center (historically known as the Queer Resource Center), as well as other Cultural Resource Centers on campus. The collection contains administrative and programming records, as well as art related materials. The collection contains digital and physical items, including oversize materials. Sol related oral history interviews can be found in the OSU Queer Archives Oral History Collection.
Ellen and Carolyn Dishman Papers: The Ellen and Carolyn Dishman Papers are the collected materials and photography by the Dishmans documenting their involvement at Oregon State University in the late 1990s to early 2000s. As OSU students, they were involved in prominent LGBTQ+ groups on campus and served as primary advocates for the establishment of the Queer Resource Center (QRC) in 2001; the QRC is now called the Pride Center.
Pride Center (RG 236) (currently closed for processing): The Pride Center serves as Oregon State University’s resource center for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) members of the OSU community and their allies. In addition to its roles in outreach and education, the center provides a safe space for anyone in the community to “explore aspects of sexual orientation and gender identity in an open and non-judgmental atmosphere.”
Corvallis Lesbian Avengers Collection: The Corvallis Lesbian Avengers Collection documents the activities of the Corvallis chapter of the Lesbian Avengers throughout the 1990s. The Corvallis Lesbian Avengers were a local chapter of the national Lesbian Avengers organization. Originally formed in 1992 in New York City, the Lesbian Avengers were a direct-action group focused on issues vital to lesbian survival and visibility. The bulk of the collection is made up of photo albums and scrapbooks containing photographs, news clippings, flyers, artwork, poetry, and other paper material. The collection also includes a small collection of artifacts, an annotated calendar, and 3 issues of the Necessary Friction zine produced by the Corvallis Lesbian Avengers.
During winter 2025, the Oregon Multicultural Archives (OMA) collaborated with OSU Professor Adam Schwartz to gather materials from his course SPAN 399 “Bilingüismo local y personal” as an addition to the Oregon Multicultural Communities Research Collection. The set of materials includes course materials, documents pertaining to a book launch, an OSU Today article, and a sample of student projects.
About SPAN 399 “Bilingüismo local y personal”
“This course explores Spanish language education as a deeply personal, local (as opposed to foreign), and lifelong practice. Distinct from a survey course that introduces that thesis through published and multimodal texts, this class challenges students to realize their own bilingualisms as lived, dynamic experiences, and in ways that do not organize neatly into academic categorizations. Students will individually and collectively write, share, reflect, interview, sit in conversation, and present Spanish-English bilingualisms as lifelong relationships with and through teaching and learning.
Our work will be guided by the contents of Aquí Se Habla: Centering the Local and Personal in Spanish Language Education, a co-edited volume to be published this term. One of the co-editors of this text is the course instructor, and the other three will visit our classroom to invite students in as additional contributors. Over the course of ten weeks, students will read the text and learn about its foundational theoretical framework: The tension point. Aquí Se Habla raises awareness about long-standing points of tension that organize as ideological binaries (e.g. “home” vs. “abroad”) which relegate local and personal Spanish to marginalized status in academic spaces. Students will make the case for a tension point of their choosing, one that concerns not just themselves, but their families, friends and bilingual communities. In so doing, their own voices and testimonios will warrant inclusion alongside Aquí Se Habla’s diverse set of contributors, whose perspectives help to deconstruct disciplinary boundaries and elevate the knowledge and lived experiences of U.S. Spanish speakers. Final work in this course will prepare students to showcase how their local and personal bilingualisms may double as calls to linguistic justice. As such, students are invited to co-present with Aquí Se Habla’s co-editors at the volume’s official book launch at OSU in May.”
~ SPAN 399 “Bilingüismo local y personal” Syllabus
About the OMA and SPAN 399 Collaboration
Professor Schwartz shared the tension point the class selected to explore was “self-identity / imposed identity” — a tension point that resonated greatly with archival materials. As part of the students’ first of three visits to the archives, we talked about how archives can be a place in which people choose how their stories are represented on their terms as a form of empowerment and how archives can also be a place in which materials about but not by a community or individual can sometimes cause a great deal of harm. During their second visit, the students engaged with a curated set of materials that showcased the variety of ways in which communities and individuals have represented their identities — examples included diaries, songbooks, collective works of art, scrapbooks, and zines. On the third visit, we discussed the students’ ideas and questions for them to determine if they planned to donate their final projects to the archives. We discussed the importance of choice, representation, and consent, not only from them but for those who they interviewed for their projects. Of about a dozen students, five decided to share their final projects. At the end of the term, the students gave presentations of their findings and reflections, and many again shared their work as part of the Aquí Se Habla book launch on May 21, 2025.
