Last week, I had the privilege of attending the Society of American Archivists (SAA) Annual Meeting 2025 in Anaheim, California. The SAA conference is the largest gathering of archivists, records managers, and memory workers in the United States, and this was my very first time participating. My attendance was made possible through the Faculty Organizing for Community Archives Support (FOCAS) Project, funded by the Mellon Foundation. Alongside Itza Carbajal and four MLIS students from the first cohort of FOCAS interns, I spent four days in Anaheim engaging in conference sessions, connecting with peers, and visiting local communities. I also had the opportunity to present a poster on Mapping Human Rights Archives.
I am interested in how human rights archives were formed and used around the world, and as I am doing my literature review, I decided to organize these archives into a map. Broadly, I looked at various institutions that manage records of human rights violations, usually committed by state governments. So far, I have mapped 72 archives held by various institutions and communities. Three lessons that I shared in my poster presentation is that one, provenance or the origin of the records are very important to understand the political nature of human rights archives (such as the Stasi Archives). Second, is that international cooperation and partnerships are crucial and saving human rights archives (as seen in the case of the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal Archives). And lastly, since human rights archives are highly political, their progress are dialectical, or continuously being challenged (such as the case of the National Police Archives in Guatemala).
It was inspiring to exchange ideas with colleagues who are also grappling with questions of memory, power, and justice.
Beyond the conference, the FOCAS Project arranged site visits to local community archives in Orange County. We began with a walking tour of Little Saigon, the largest Vietnamese American community in the United States. Led by Prof. Thuy Vo Dang, co-author of A People’s Guide to Orange County, the tour showcased how Vietnamese immigrants built thriving businesses and institutions despite the challenges of racial discrimination. Walking along Bolsa Avenue in Westminster, I was struck by how every shop and restaurant carried stories of resilience across first, second, and multiple generations.
Later, we visited La Historia Society Museum in El Monte, which highlights the history of Mexican American families in the city. Unlike the well-funded El Monte Historical Museum located just a block away, La Historia amplifies voices and stories that are often excluded from mainstream narratives. Interns and volunteers preserve oral histories, photographs, and memorabilia—many connected to families who served in the U.S. Army. With the support of the FOCAS Project, MLIS interns from UCLA gained invaluable experience working with these community-driven collections.
Attending SAA 2025 and participating in these community visits gave me a deeper appreciation of the many ways archives can shape collective memory. Whether in global struggles for human rights or local efforts to document immigrant experiences, archives are not just repositories of the past but are living sites of contestation, resilience, and hope. The conference affirmed for me that archival work must remain attentive to issues of provenance, power, and access, while also building solidarity across institutions and communities.