The Re-telling of Voices Less Heard as an Act of Historical Reconstruction

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    On Wednesday and Friday of this past week, our class went down to the kenyon archives to finalize our displays. We met outside of class as well on Tuesday and Thursday to look into more person files that might correlate with our pre-existing research of groups on campus. Luz V. Lopes' file had one thing in her file which was a photo of her. we pulled this photo out and put it next to the ADELANTE registration document, next to her name as one of the three presidents/ founders of the group. On Friday, each group presented their displays for five minutes, discussing their process and experience curating this presentation of Kenyon history. Learning about this history, attaching a face to the names, made this history feel more attainable. I felt more connected with these people and all that they are doing, reminding of the importance of my roll on this campus, and that this reflection on a smaller history makes my role here more important.  

    Mondays discussion revolved around the #metoo #himtoo movements, white feminism and an all-inclusive feminism. Within these movements, Yazdiha focused specifically on the act of restoration and reconciliation as two key pieces of change. "These feminist movements imagine the restoration of the collective past, the correction of the historical record, as essential to the work of dismantling patriarchy"(162). The author discusses the event of the 2018 Golden Globes, several white actresses were accompanied by feminist activists of color who prepared statements, not regarding the clothes they wore, but the regarding their histories, their work, and their expertise. This act of solidarity invited a new dialogue around the feminist movement. But the moment became a time in history, one I thought, might be productive in ritualization and tradition. 

    Yazdiha discussed three practices of narrative analyses necessary in the construction and reconstruction of the collective memory: "Combing three forms of data: social movement organizational documents from the publicly available websites[...]archived data; newspaper data; and social media data"(164). The authors refinement of steps towards historical reconstruction, aligned with our process in the archives. Organizing documents of archival data to display a lesser known history about kenyon. Upon finding the pictures of past leaders, Segre, Lopez, Ballard, Marley, and more, I felt a connection to them by the end of the week. Upon reactivating there voices, I felt the courage of a larger community before. Like the 2018 Golden Globes, shedding light on diverse voices, may act as a reconstruction of the present. Upon looking at the display and bringing Kenyons history of identity and Inclusion into present dialogue, we can open up a wider discussion for celebration and improvement. 



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