COMMUNITY ARCHIVES AND AUTONOMY: MEETING THE CHALLENGE TO PRESERVE VITAL RECORDS OF THE COLLEGE AND THE COMMUNITY

William Casari

Hostos began life in 1968 as Community College Number Eight, fought for and demanded by Puerto Rican community members and local elected officials who felt the higher education needs of the South Bronx community were not being addressed by mainstream colleges and in essence, the whole of the City University of New York. Ac its founding, Hostos served primarily a Puerto Rican and African American student body. Classes began in fall 1970 and were held in a renova1edtire factory on the Grand Concourse. The decade of the 1970s proved to be a challenging rime for the college and for the Bronx itself. It is a story of survival and resurgence and one that must be preserved and cold again and again for future generations.

In this article I would like to flesh out a discussion started at an Archivist Round Table of Metropolitan New York meeting while hinging in finer points specific to Hostos that have been discussed at the Hostos Archives Advisory Committee. I will argue that Hostos muse take a broad and in-depth view coward collecting records that document not only the college bur the South Bronx community that created and fought for it. Hostos must plan a broad-based documentation strategy char incorporates the diversity of the local area and one that meets the changing demographics of the college as reflected in the community. This effort aligns with the Hostos Strategic Plan and requires a deep commitment from the college. While Hostos still serves a large immigrant and minority community, the mix of ethnicities and the neighborhood have changed markedly since 1970.

In 2004 the college received a New York State Archives Documentary Heritage Program Grant to document the first ten years of the college's existence, which in turn sparked a more formal conversation about documenting the college and the community. While additional grants were secured to process and provide access to specific collections like the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Are and the Magda Vasillov Collection, many ques1ions were raised about how thoroughly records were being kept of the community, disparate college departments retiring faculty members, and staff.

Is Hostos and the surrounding community chat created it being thoroughly documented? Though Hostos has a small and vital archival collection, arc we meeting the challenge of preserving permanent records of the college and the surrounding neighborhood? What is the responsibility to document and preserve the history of chis unique South Bronx community college that defied the odds to stay open in the 1970s and, like.: the Bronx itself, has made a huge resurgence today? With these issues in mind, what are the options going forward for the future growth of the collections housed at Hostos? These questions reveal it's time to take a look at the bigger picture of non-mainstream archival collections, sec against the backdrop of the community that created them, to thoroughly chart a broader collecting strategy that represents our diverse community and college.

With repositories like the Center for Puerco Rican Studies at Hunter College, The Dominican Studies Institute at City College and some emphasis on archival collecting at most CUNY schools, it may seem that the recent past has been well preserved with regard to local college and community documentation. While some rime periods and areas are well documented, gaps exist. Whose history is being documented and who is left out? Going forward, archival advisory committees, community group s and faculty and staff can evaluate what gaps exist and what voices are missing from the archival record at the local level. Many associate college archives with college records only, like yearbooks, minutes and photographs; how­ ever, archivists and librarians cannot forger the communities they serve. This is the call to be mindful and recognize what viral archival records non-pro firs, churches, performance centers and alternative spaces may have. For example, this collecting strategy could be in relation to Latino/a records or documentation of the broader mix of ethnicities and groups in diversifying New York neighborhoods like the Mott Haven, Melrose, Morrisania and Grand Concourse neighborhoods that border the college.

Let's take a careful look at current literature on community-based archive and autonomy to better understand the issues raised above and illustrate how the college can proceed.

In the case of documenting regional Latino arts, culture and community the call for archivists to collect documentary evidence of minorities and other historically marginalized groups remains largely unanswered according to two archivists who studied the issue in depth and have extensive experience in Latino Studies, Latino Art and media, and teaching in community -based archival practice.

Tracy Grimm and Chon Noriega examine the topic in a recent American Archivist article. Grimm and Noriega assert: "With the exception of a relatively few specialized institutions and dedicated programs, the identification and preservation of Latino archives are not keeping pace with the nation's fastest growing and increasingly geographically dispersed population." (95). The authors argue that a shift in acquisition policies and collecting strategies were needed to record the history of immigrant and minority communities. As a result of this shift, much literature began to appear in the 1980s that dealt with identity, ethnicity and the role of the archivist (96). More than forty years after this emphasis the push to document historically marginalized groups remains a challenge. "This is particularly true in the case of Latino archives for which few case studies have appeared to provide practical models" (96).

The authors go on to argue that the Latino community has undergone large geographical expansion and now reaches far outside traditional gateway communities like New York, Chicago and Miami. Latino history is being made in many new places across the country and on a completely new scale (97). In this sense diversity initiatives need to be much more broad and meaningful to truly represent community members and the institutions that reflect them.

These statements may come as a surprise to those who may think that because our college has an archive, all areas are being represented. Many smaller institutions do not have administrative capacity or storage space to reach out more broadly to

the local community and take in their records. Some collections like the Gerald J.

Meyer Collection at Hostos may be completely appropriate considering Hostos's collection development guidelines; other collections may be less useful based on future research value and interest to the community. However, many donors feel their records are important and need a permanent home. Finding the right fit for both donor and the collecting repository is important because many donors rightfully feel their records, like a local music collection, belong in the neighborhood where the music was created and performed. Therein lies the rub: How can archives be most inclusive of the community while collecting the most appropriate records future researchers may want to consult and create from? This will in form a future generation of scholars based on what material is available to research. It is often difficult to refuse a collection from an in influential community organization or member even though it may not fit well with the collection development policies of the archive.

Even though Hostos has a strong base of collections, how can our holdings more thoroughly represent the South Bronx Community' Writing in an American Archivist Perspective article Rabia Gibbs recommends that to make diversity initiatives more authentic and meaningful, "we must set aside our assumptions, examine the diversity within diverse groups, and modify our objectives to incorporate the full range of perspectives available with these respective: communities"(204). In the context of I Hostos this will go beyond sim ply the records of the college, which are not complete, and move into more broadly representing the people and organizations in the neighborhood. One suggestion made by an archives advisory group member is to create a South Bronx Urban Institute char will incorporate diverse collections from the community and by housing them at Hostos, will create a locally based research center.

With this concept of broader inclusivity in mind iris important to recognize the singular place Hostos holds in the neighborhood. While pares of the South Bronx were burning in the mid-1970s, Hostos was alive with teaching, educating hundreds of students and providing a counter-narrative to the destruction happening in Bronx neighborhoods. As the worldwide reputation of the South Bronx came robe so notorious, Hostos stood rail against the headlines and bad news infiltrating the: Bronx during a turbulent rime. The strong ties to the community are only strengthened through archival collections, oral histories and other evidence preserving what happened since the college's founding in 1968 .

Donors of archival collections may often be faculty and staff of Hostos, bur community groups and other local organizations reach out to local repositories as well, knowing they may be better able to ca re for record long term. As part of a New York State Archives Documentary Heritage Program grant, Hostos performed a community survey of important local records in 2006. While several importance local collections were identified, Hostos lacked the space to house any new materials. Made clear during the process was the fact that donors wanted their records cored in a secure place, accessible to those in the neighborhood- in essence- by the community and for the community. In this way the collections remain a pare of the community y and can function as a community resource. For instance. research­ as may visit the collection without leaving their local a rea or travelling far away to visit a governmental repository like the National Archives. Often rimes if records arc separated from the community of origin they are nor as widely consulted or are seen through the fil1cr of a mainstream organization. Digitization and online access may help mitigate required travel but eventually most serious researchers or writers need to physically visit the collections they are studying and consult with the archivist. Additionally, many collections are only partially digitized and may not have been made available through a content management system or online archival finding aid.

Shaunna Moore and Susan Pell present a convincing argument that repositories should be located in the community that created the records; in essence, they should be housed in the place the records came from. In other words, Hostos Community College must control its records and be able to tell its own tory, rather than having the records stored "downtown" in a mainstream institution. In "Autonomous Archives” the authors present conceptual frameworks fur archival collections:

The preservation of archives is a highly political work of memory. In providing rights advocates, concerned citizens and community groups, archives are crucial to the struggle 10 define social contexts and hold chose in positions of power account­ able (255).

Not only do archival collections help establish public opinion while preserving a record or what happened, through their constitutive and relational capabilities archives act as spaces for public formations... as they bridge how people may con­ struct the past and imaginations for the future (256).

This interaction line of chinking becomes very important as rime passes. Retirements and changes in administration force us to ask "who and what is left to tell the story or provide documentation?" While the history or Hostos is really quire recent, only beginning in 1968, do our archival collections represent the story or the last 46 years or only part of it? And whose voices are included in the collection for a future researcher who may want to reconstruct what happened? [11 some cases collections represent those who actually kept documents as events happened the: thus preserved that part of the story. A prime example is the Gerald J. Meyer Collection at Hostos which heavily documents the 1970s and 1980 ac the college including photographs, Ayers, and the heavily used "Save Hostos" materials which preserve the records of demonstrations waged co keep the college open. In this sense the collection was created by, about and for the community and b preserved in the location where the events transpired. Most students were Bronx residents at that time. However, collections of ocher faculty members and community residents from that rime period at nor part of the repository, perhaps because they don't exist or perhaps a more thorough community documentation survey need to be undertaken immediately. Hostos cannot afford to lose the collective memory of the recent past. We must act collectively now!

Students smile after graduation. The first Hostos commencement ceremonies were held in the Cardinal Hayes High School Auditorium on June 13, 1972. Hostos President Candido de Leon conferred degrees on 152candidatesMaria Josefa Canino, member of the Board of Higher Education was the commencement speaker. Magda Vasillov, photographer. Magda Vasillov Collection, Hostos Community College Archives/ The City University of New York.

Moore and Pell assert char many groups have taken a stronger role in form of grassroots archival practice aimed at documenting the heritage of those on the peripheries of society, largely without the intervention of outside entities (257). Practices typically associated with ''community archives" have gained more importance and visibility in recent years. Particularly those include archives throughout the world documenting the histories of particular ethnic groups, and gay and lesbian organizations. "Some view these practices as methods of political contestation and resistance against dominant social and cultural narratives. Others looking at archives char arise from groups with a common interest or within a particular geographical region, present them in a more neutral light'' (257).

Within this conversation is the importance of place in the community. It can be argued char by locating Hostos at the prominent corner of 149ch and The Grand Concourse in the South Bronx, the Puerto Rican community members and local officials were sending a strong message about the importance of place. Located directly above three subway lines and across the street from the New Deal era Bronx General Post Office, this was a location that spoke to the importance of the college's mission and of place within the community. And char the college's namesake, Eugenio Maria de Hostos, was a 19th Century Puerto Rican scholar, educator and author further underscored the importance of chis undertaking, and its roots ou1- ide the mainstream CUNY college experience in the 1960s. "By connecting stories of past experiences co present localities, public histories give places meaning. ·n1is connection to place affects the relations hips between community members, their sense of responsibility for their environment and, ultimately, collective memory'' (Moore, Pell 260).

Readers m y ask themselves how a nearly abandoned corner reinvents itself and creates lilt: a new. Across from the rehabbed tire warehouse where Hostos rented classroom and administrative space stood the abandoned Security Mutual Insurance headquarters building at 500 Grand Concourse. Built only a few years before Hostos founding, it was vacated by the company when it moved LO Connecticut in the late 1960s. On this changing corner where restaurants, bars, the pose office and a gas station still existed, what sense of community cohesion began to take over when Hostos moved in and established a foothold?

The development of a collective sense of place many times involves struggles between (and within) various groups and perspective with different understandings of the same place, (Glass berg 1996). These shared perceptions perform a crucial function in community cohesiveness and identity. 1l1is was clearly true at Hostos during the tumultuous 19 70s when Hos10s was faced with closure via a merger with Bronx Community College, then saved with a last-minute act of the New York State Legislature. Who saved" Hostos and the involvement of multifarious groups with different agendas is still a discussion point today as the college approaches its 50th anniversary in 2018.

When thinking about diversity within the community and possible political implications coupled with changing demographics, gentrification, new businesses and non-profits all sec against the backdrop of a college with a rich history of protest, it's best co strategize how these disparate factions might be documented.

"Documentation of such understandings in rexes often forms the basis for the establishment of archives. The archive is then central to the relationship between place and discourse, and tl1e ways in which these coalesce as resources for the formation of emergent publics" (Moore, Pell 260). Creating a centralized place to keep the college history and its neighboring community records thus becomes paramount in preserving what occurred and gives the public a place to research it.

Some would argue that the Hostos Archives are in fact already part of a main­ scream institution, CUNY, and by accepting government funding for processing and surveying collections makes it not really a "community controlled” archival enterprise. What voice do neighborhood residents have in telling their story or guaranteeing its preservation? How independent is the identity of the archive from the controlling hand of the administration? While these are compelling questions the very existence and struggle of Hostos challenged the mainstream itself and the face that Hostos still operates is a victory against the status quo! In that sense Hostos very much belongs to the community that created and fought for it. To have someone else in another place cell or preserve the story is unacceptable.

In "Whose Memories, Whose Archives? Independent Community Archives, Autonomy and the Mainstream," the authors describe grassroots projects and initiatives that have been created co record and preserve the memories and histories of different communities that are often under-voiced and under- represented within the mainstream heritage. The authors state:

Most community archives offer an important and empowering assertion or community resistance to otherwise exclusionary and (often) marginalizing dominant narratives. They offer mainstream heritage institutions not only a reminder of their obligation to diversify and transform collections and narratives but also perhaps the opportunity through equitable and mutually beneficial partnership co achieve one of that transformation (Flinn, Stevens and Shepherd 83).

Stewardship of archival collections within the community is important and partnering with other organizations may be necessary or crucial for the continued existence of smaller archives. While this may not be a pressing case for those col­ lections supported by CUNY-affiliated colleges, smaller collections that still remain with their parent organizations, like churches or non-profits, are at risk of being lust completely. One example is the Melrose-based Nos Quedamos (We Seay), a development group whose longtime leader, Yolanda Garcia, was arrested for stealing from the group. While Nos Quedamos participated in the 2006 Hostos documentation survey, its records remain with the non-profit and are in danger of being loser destroyed. During times of transition or office space changes it's easy for records m be misplaced or si mply left behi nd

Cristine Paschild argues chat for institutions dependent on private or other funding sources. "very often the solution to remaining viable is through a clear definition of mission. Institutions that identify a core function are better able to seek funding strategically and allocate resources effectively" (138). She cautions against identifying the archives too closely with one ethnicity while leaving others in the community" behind.

The demographics of Hostos have changed from primarily a Puerto Rican and African American student body at its founding to one, in 2014. chat is largely Dominican, West African and Mexica n. These groups attend Hostos in record numbers. The activity, campus and social life happening around these communities’ muse be documented along with college life. Hostos has the responsibility to document the diverse communities it draws from as mentioned in its original mission and founding. Also, the local community is mentioned prominently in recent college publications. The "grounding elements" of the 201l -20l6 Hostos Strategic Plan state the following:

Hostos Community College on the quiet morning of February 1, 1971. Later that day students would wage a strike for better campus conditions and more space. Hostos classes had begun the previous September in the 475GrandConcoursebuilding, a rental space that previously housed a tire factory. After passing through a courtyard enclosed in barbed wire, students and faculty entered the building through a single metal door. Magda Vasillov, photographer. Magda Vasillov Collection Hostos Community College Archvies The City Univeristy of New York.

Hostos Community College is determined to be a resource to the South Bronx and other communities served by the College by providing continuing education, cultural events, and expertise for the further development of the community it serves. (Hostos Strategic Plan I).

The goals of the strategic plan can be enhanced by engaged, community focused archival in initiatives that could include a survey, outreach events where the various community groups feel included and are made aware of how preserving viral documents can create historical memory. These activities can be implemented to directly support the strategic goals of the college.

Hostos values are further elaborated in the plan under Community Building item #6:

We believe our college's primary strengths are embedded in our diverse, multicultural, and historic community roots. We are inspired by our community origins and our mission, and seek to embrace its spirit each day. (Hostos Strategic Plan I).

Goal Area 2 of the document specifically addresses campus and community leadership in that Hostos will nurture the leadership capacities of its employees and Bronx Community Organizations so they can better engage as active members of their neighborhoods and communities. (Hostos Strategic Plan 37).

Since the importance of the local community is so strongly expressed in the college strategic plan, the college is poised to strengthen the archives going forward. Identifying storage space for collections so that college and community-based records can be accessioned and processed is necessary. Working with other Bronx CUNY colleges and the community to provide full-time access to our valuable resources and developing a strong program of integrating primary sources on college history and the history of Eugenio Maria de Hostos into the curriculum would help promote the archives and library's rich collection of materials.

As a public institution, Hostos has the resources- both technical and personnel-to support a highly diverse archival program that embraces and reflects the community chat is so important to its development. Lastly, as a public institution with such a history of community relations and support, the development of an extensive archive’s repository is essential for maintaining a historical memory of how the college came into being through popular political struggle that demanded a public institution perform its democratic obligation to be accountable to all-no matter their race or class- and not just a few. This speaks to the heart of Hostos Community College and co the ideals of our namesake Eugenio Maria de Hostos.

WORKSCITED

Flinn, A., Stevens, M., & Shepherd, E. (2009). Whose memories, whose archives? Independent community archives, autonomy and the mainstream. Archival Science, 9(1-2), 71-86.

Gibbs, R. (2012).The heart of the matter: the developmental history of African American archives. The American A1·chivist, 75, 204.

Glassberg, D. (1996). Public history and the study of memory. 1he Public

Historian, 19(2), 7-12.

Grimm, T. B., & Noreiga, C. A. (2013). Documenting regional Latino arts and culture: case studies for a collaborative, cornmunity-oriented approach. The American Archivist, 76, 95-112

Hosrns Strategic Plan. (2011). Hostos strategic plan: rooted in our mission, our compass to the future 2011-2016. Hostos Community College of the City University of New York. Bronx, NY.

Moore, S., & Pell, S. (2010). Autonomous archives. International Journal of

Heritage Studies, 16(4-5), 255-68.

Paschild, C. N. (2013). Community archives and the limitations of identity: considering discursive impact on material needs. 1he American Archivist, 75, 125-142.