Tag: Matt Garcia Papers

Posted on by seanb

Chicanx History in the Coachella Valley

The Coachella Valley has a rich history, filled with the experience of Chicanx students and workers organizing and advocating for their rights to education and fair labor. The Coachella Valley played host to numerous union conflicts regarding labor and education in the 1970s, long before the name of this desert landscape became linked to an overrated music festival.  
Garcia’s research details Chicanx student walkouts in the Coachella Valley and the participation of several teachers and administrators. Two teachers, Socorro Gomez-Potter and Yolanda Almaraz Esquivel lead the charge in advocating for bilingual education and the rights of Chicanx students. Garcia created profiles for these two based off interviews he conducted, and once posted online on Brown University’s website, a response he held onto demonstrated how contentious the issues were for those who lived through the movement.  
Garica kept an email from someone who claimed there was incorrect information on Brown’s website regarding the details of student abuse by a certain teacher, which sparked the decision for the students to engage in walkouts. The email comes off as hastily written, claiming they were an “Anglo teacher” in the district during the time of the walkouts. They write, “You need to tell both sides of the story, before others do.” Significantly, and perhaps ironically, the underrepresented and marginalized experience of Chicanx students and teachers is exactly what Garcia was researching for his book. Unknown to the individual who wrote the email, the second side of the story was on its way in the form of his next book.   
I’d like to include details of these profiles, the walkouts, and the oral histories next week. I’ll also write regarding details of oral history research Garcia conducted on UFW members as well.  
Posted on by seanb

Back from Germany

How does one process while jet-lagged? Carefully and intentionally. Most of the materials I worked with this week were organized quite well, so arranging them were not too difficult. One challenge I came across presented itself in the form of timelines taped and glued together. Garcia created two timelines, one of the UFW and farm worker movement, and one regarding the Synanon program (I will write more about Synanon and what it is in a later blog post). I will have to carefully separate what I can, without damaging the materials, to ensure safe storage and preservation. 
I stumbled upon some interesting correspondence and memos regarding the United Farm Workers (UFW) and their internal relations in 1977. One folder he labeled “Purged/Resigned” contained information regarding a wave of firings and resignations from the UFW referred to as the “Monday Night Massacre.” The materials provide unique insight into the inner workings of the UFW under the leadership of Cesar Chavez. This is just one sample of compelling evidence that Garica uncovered in his research. Next week, I’ll give some more examples of some significant and surprising information Garica was able to find regarding the UFW and Synanon.
Posted on by seanb

So it begins…

Today I began the major processing work on the Matt Garcia Papers. After completing my collection survey and processing plan last week, my first goal was to place all the loose materials found in the collection into archival folders. This will make processing go by quicker in the future, and it will help to preserve those materials until I can get to them.

The loose materials did present a bit of a challenge, as it takes time to separate out large stacks of documents from each other and differentiate reports and articles from correspondence and transcripts with no clear labeling or fasteners to combine them together. Overall, Garcia was well organized with his research and most of his materials are in file folders or clearly labeled. Where there is chaos, I will establish order. Such is the life of a lone arranger.
One quick note, we decided to tweak the processing plan a bit. Instead of treating this like an individual collection, I will eventually incorporate materials from this half into the existing collection (the processed first half). This will ease the efforts of researchers in the future. I was able to fully process one box today and made a significant dent in the second box. 
I’m looking forward to next week when I will continue the first round of processing. For now, I am off to Germany. Until next week, auf wiedersehen! 
Posted on by seanb

CGU Student, meet CGU Alumnus

This is my first week as a CCEPS Archival fellow at the Honnold/Mudd Library, and I am looking forward to the semester ahead. As a graduate student in History and Archival Studies, I bring some theoretical knowledge and practical experience into the fellowship with me. My hope is that my work here will sharpen my skills and challenge me in new ways. 

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I will be processing the Matt Garcia Papers. Matt Garcia received his PhD in History from Claremont Graduate University in 1997. Specifically, I will be working with the second half of a larger collection donated by Garcia, which contains research materials gathered in the process of writing his second book From the Jaws of Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement. 

 

Working with Garcia’s collection should prove to be exciting and stimulating for two reasons. One, I am interested to become familiar with the research of an alumnus from my school’s program. His research covers a portion of US History that I am not well versed in, so I am eager to learn from the body of research present in the collection. In an indirect sort of way, I suppose I will be Matt Garcia’s student this semester. Second, I already have some experience with the first half of his collection which I helped process as part of a practicum for the Introductory Archives course I completed in the Fall of 2018. This half was created in the process of writing his first book, A World of its Own: Race, Labor, and Citrus in the Making of Greater Los Angeles, 1900-1970.  

 

I plan to describe and arrange this collection to the best of my abilities, in order to facilitate research into his work in the future. Thank you for reading and thank you to CCEPS for giving me this great opportunity.