Donate items for Queer Asian American Archive

Librarian Peggy Glowacki, with student research assistants Naomi Salcedo (center) and Vicky Tai, are collecting material for the Queer Asian American Archive project. Photo: S.K. Vemmer

The Queer Asian American Archive project based at UIC is seeking materials for a new collection to preserve local Asian American lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer history.

Project organizers welcome donations of items such as newspaper and magazine articles, photos, posters, event programs and other memorabilia.

Laura Fugikawa, founder and co-director of the project, was inspired to establish the archive upon discovering that she and her students had limited research options when seeking queer Asian American archival material in Chicago and the Midwest.

“As someone who often uses archival material in my own research, I am very conscious of what is, and is not, gathered and collected,” said Fugikawa, visiting assistant professor of Asian American studies and gender and women studies.

“I want students 50 to 100 years from now to have access to the wonderful things local Asian American LGBTQ groups have been doing.”

Fugikawa and project co-director Liz Thomson, interim director of the UIC Asian American Resource and Cultural Center, are working with student research assistants to build the collection and get community involvement. They hope to later add oral histories to the collection.

The archive, which will be housed in the Daley Library, is tentatively scheduled to open in the fall. It will be available to students, faculty and the public for study and research.

The first archival materials were provided by one of the project’s partners, the community-based organization Invisible to Invincible: Asian and Pacific Islander Pride of Chicago.

“We hope that collecting and increasing the accessibility of these materials will allow the archive to serve as a key educational resource on matters regarding Chicago’s Asian American LGBTQ community,” Thomson said.

To donate materials, call 312-413-7696 or email fugikawa@uic.edu or lthomson@uic.edu.

The Asian American studies program and the Asian American Resource and Cultural Center are UIC project partners.

Funding for the project is provided by the UIC Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution grant initiative, which is fully underwritten by the U.S. Department of Education.