Personal Biography:

I began working in communications over 20 years ago, editing, writing, producing newsletters, and eventually developing websites, mostly in corporate settings. I learned a lot along the way, but I knew something was missing. I wanted to find a way to connect the skills I had learned with what I cared most deeply about: that we should all have what we need to live lives of health, dignity, and sacredness.

Inspired by this purpose, five years ago, I made a decision that has changed my life: to work at the Southern California Library, an independent library and archives in South L.A. that holds the histories of how people have struggled together for justice—in their schools, their workplaces, and their communities.

The Library’s mission is to document, preserve, and provide access to the stories of these struggles for justice. Being part of this work has immense meaning for me because I believe these stories are critical to helping us understand how things have come to be the way they are, particularly in poor communities of color, and what we can do to create change. This takes on added weight given that the histories we hold are the ones that are usually silenced and left out: stories of tenants living in roach-infested buildings fighting for their rights; of people coming out of prison with no money, nowhere to go, and no place to get a job; of immigrant workers struggling to get livable wages and decent working conditions.

An important part of my job as the Library’s Communications Director is to help provide access to and create spaces of interaction with these and other stories of marginalized, under-represented, and under-served communities, so that we can learn from them. In my time at the Library, I have had the opportunity to help develop programming and materials on topics like L.A.’s housing crisis and the impacts of incarceration on communities; produce a reader entitled “Without Fear...Claiming Safe Communities Without Sacrificing Ourselves”; work with women just getting out of prison to develop digital stories of their life journeys; and gather stories from young people in South L.A. about their day-to-day life in the neighborhood. Through these and other experiences, I have seen the impact it has when we create, share, and interact with our stories in community.

I am excited about the possibilities of using new media and communications technologies to even further increase the impact of the Library’s rich collections as we use the power of stories to help create a world that works for all of us.

Goals:

Goals for the Fellowship

My goals as a ZeroDivide Fellow are to build my knowledge and understanding of the use and potential impacts of new media and communications technologies and to explore how these technologies can help us develop “third spaces” where our communities can define, create, and interact with our own content in ways that reflect our experiences and cultures.

I think the development of such spaces is particularly important in poor communities of color, like South L.A., where access to technology is important but cannot be considered in isolation. Community, culture, and meaning are also part of the mix.

Professionally, I want to gain understanding, knowledge, and relationships that can help the Southern California Library use the new technologies to increase our effectiveness in functioning as a third space and using our collections to create social change.