Mapping New California Histories
Jan 23–Jan 24, 2025
University of California Humanities Research Institute, UC Irvine
A UCHRI and UC Humanities Network Entanglement Program in partnership with the UC Irvine History Project, the UC Irvine Teacher Academy, and the UC Irvine Humanities Center.
Elevating the work of public historians, geographers, K-12 teachers, and community and university archivists, this event invites participants to share their work recovering stories and mapping the impact of diverse communities that have contributed to the political culture and democratic promise of California. By bringing together public historians from around the state, this convening aims to share new knowledge and collaborative curricula that link regional histories to an expanded vision of California as a whole. The program features regional history projects from eight UC campuses that document the entanglement of migration, conquest, land use, integration, contestation, creativity, and renewal that shape the region. The event includes hands-on opportunities to explore unique primary sources from around the state.
Thursday, January 23, 2025
Humanities Instructional Building 135
4:00 pm | Learning with A People’s Guide to Orange County
featuring co-authors Gustavo Arellano (LA Times), Thuy Vo Dang (UC Los Angeles) and Elaine Lewinnek (CSU Fullerton).
Introduction by Julia Lupton, UCHRI; Q and A facilitated by Cindy Mata, UC Irvine History Project
Reception to follow.
Friday, January 24, 2025
9:00 am | Breakfast and networking
9:15-9:30 am | Welcome
Julia Lupton, UCHRI and Laura Mitchell, UC Irvine History Project
9:30-11:00 am | Co-Creating History for a Shared Future
Moderated by Nicole Gilbertson, UC Irvine Teacher Academy
Crystal Baik (UC Riverside) and Thuy Vo Dang (UC Los Angeles): Reparative Memories: Communities in Crisis and Archival Care
Susan Derwin (UC Santa Barbara): The Making of Monuments
Meleia Simon-Reynolds (UC Santa Cruz): Watsonville Is in the Heart
11:00 am | Coffee break
11:15 am-12:30 pm | Co-Creating History for a Shared Future
Moderated by Judy Wu, UC Irvine Humanities Center
Matthew Herbst (UC San Diego) and Angelina Lutz (Imperial Valley Desert Museum): Colorado Desert Education Collaborative
Cecilia Tsu (UC Davis): Uncovering Diverse Histories of Yolo County
Clancy Wilmott (UC Berkeley): Before You Are Here: Rematriating the Map for Indigenous History, Culture, and Storytelling
12:30-1:30 pm | Lunch
1:30-2:30 pm | Workshop – Participatory History Using Documents and Artifacts
Session led by Laura Mitchell, UC Irvine History and UC Irvine History Project
Groups will engage with a document or artifact with a California curator.
Breakout session moderators include
Heather Lanctot, Archives and Records Center Coordinator, Yolo County Archives
Angelina Lutz, Executive Director, Imperial Valley Desert Museum
Krystal Tribbett, Curator for Orange County Regional History, Orange County and Southeast Asian Archive Center, UC Irvine
2:30 pm | Coffee break
2:45-3:45 pm | Workshop – Participatory History with Communities
Session led by Cindy Mata, UC Irvine History Project
3:45-4:00 pm | Final Reflections and Next Steps
Facilitated by Julia Lupton
This convening is funded by MRPI funds from the UC Office of the President.
Image credits (from lower left, clockwise): Jose and Tecla Reyes in the Strawberry Fields, c. 1955 (Reyes Family Collection, Watsonville Is in the Heart Community Digital Archive); Japanese American Community in Winters, California, 1930s (Yolo County Archives); Hendrik Zeitler, from The Archive’s Fold (Latipa, 2018).
Project Descriptions and Resources
A People’s Guide to Orange County & Educator’s Guide to Orange County
Project Representatives: Elaine Lewinnek (California State University, Fullerton), Gustavo Arellano (Los Angeles Times), Thuy Vo Dang (UC Los Angeles)
A People’s Guide to Orange County is an alternative tour guide that documents sites of oppression, resistance, struggle, and transformation in Orange County, California. It was published by UC Press in 2022.
Reparative Memories: Communities in Crisis and Archival Care
Project Representatives: Crystal Baik (UC Riverside) and Thuy Vo Dang (UC Los Angeles)
This working group of humanities scholars, community archivists, librarians, and cultural memory workers engages communities in crisis whose histories, memories, and cultural heritage are threatened by systemic violence (e.g., war and militarized colonial displacement, police violence and carceral surveillance, and settler state occupation and genocide).
Project Representatives: Susan Derwin (UC Santa Barbara) and Casey Haughin-Scasny (UC Santa Barbara)
A collaboration between UC Santa Barbara’s Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, fourth- to sixth-grade educators in the Santa Barbara Unified School District, and the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation, The Making of Monuments is a place-based education project that prepares students to become custodians of their local histories by querying how monuments come into being.
Watsonville Is in the Heart: Mapping a Recuperative History of Filipino Farmworkers
Project Representatives: Meleia Simon-Reynolds (UC Santa Cruz) and Ian Doyle (UC Santa Cruz)
This multimedia mapping and curricular project is a collaboration between UC Santa Cruz and the Watsonville-based organization, The Tobera Project, which preserves and uplifts the narratives of Filipino migrant farmworkers in California’s Pajaro Valley.
Additional resources: Watsonville is in the Heart: A Community Archive and Research Initiative, Educational Resources, The Tobera Project, Media
Colorado Desert Education Collaborative
Project Representatives: Matthew Herbst (UC San Diego), Angelina Lutz (Imperial Valley Desert Museum)
This educational partnership between the Imperial Valley Desert Museum in Imperial County, CA, and UC San Diego’s Making of the Modern World Program is creating digital content for schools in Imperial and eastern San Diego County on the human and environmental history of the Colorado Desert region.
Additional resources: Imperial Valley Desert Museum, Virtual Classroom
Uncovering Diverse Histories of Yolo County
Project Representatives: Cecilia Tsu (UC Davis) and Heather Lanctot (Yolo County Archives)
This project aims to bring together academic researchers, county archivists, and K-12 educators to research and share the local histories of underrepresented groups in Yolo County, located between Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Additional resources: Yolo County Archives
Before You Are Here: Rematriating the Map for Indigenous History, Culture, and Storytelling
Project Representative: Clancy Wilmott (UC Berkeley)
Before You Are Here will create an innovative Indigenous web map of the San Francisco Bay Area, designed for educational and museum contexts. It seeks to convey Ohlone history and contemporary realities through a spatial lens using the tools of geography.
Additional resources: Songorea Le’s Land Trust, Resources
