Abstract

With the support of an SSRC/NEH SHIP grant, the AAACNA Studies Center will digitize a collection of videos of the San José GI Forum as a part of its efforts to restore its multicultural humanities programming at the King Library for 2022. A SHIP grant will support staff time and exhibit development. Staffing support will restore the student assistant positions that the AAACNA Studies Center lost due to the pandemic while assistance for exhibit development will help with the digitization of San José GI Forum videos. Digitizing the videos will preserve the fragile tapes (1 Beta, 60 VHS-C, and 176 VHS tapes) and make them publicly accessible for the first time – first as a part of East Side Dreams: The Untold Story of East San José, an exhibit in collaboration with the SJPL’s CA Room that delves into the larger context of the Chicano/Mexican American history in East San José and, after the exhibit, as a valued primary resource in the King Library’s digital collections to use for teaching and research on the rich Chicano/Mexican American history in San José. Digitizing the video collection will be an important part of the AAACNA Studies Center’s efforts to restore its multicultural humanities programming at the King Library, which prior to the pandemic included close to ten public events annually that allowed participants to engage and connect with guest artists, authors, and scholars.