The San Diego State University Library’s Chicana & Chicano Archive Project has been selected as a recipient of a 2011 Excellence in Historic Preservation Award by the City of San Diego’s Historical Resources Board. The awards are given each year to individuals, groups, businesses, and agencies who contribute to the preservation and advancement of San Diego’s history and heritage.
The Chicana & Chicano Archive Project was created by a committee of community activists, students, faculty, and library administrators. Over four years, the committee raised more than $16,000 dollars with grants and private fund raising events to allow the SDSU Library’s Special Collections and University Archives Department to process the materials it had collected. More than 20 contributors have donated collections to the project; some of these collections include the Arturo Casares Papers, the Enriqueta Chavez Papers, the Chicana and Chicano Studies Department Records, the Chicano Federation of San Diego County Records, the Leonard Fierro Papers, MANA of San Diego County Records, the Rene Nuñez Papers, and others.
One of the most striking and notable collections is the Carmen Sandoval Fernandez Poster Collection, which features 62 rare Chicano-Movement related posters, broadsides, and advertisements dating from the early 1970s to the early 1980s. These unique posters and broadsides document local events and organizations, as well as local and national groups involved in San Diego’s Chicano Movement.
Last fall, the library celebrated the opening of the Chicana/o Archive with a bilingual exhibit titled “Unidos Por la Causa: The Chicano Experience in San Diego.” The exhibit featured a display of photographs, art, and historic documents from the archive that illustrated the early years of the Chicano movement in San Diego.