Call for Archives & Public History Student Volunteers

Dear fellow classmates,

On Sunday, October 4th, the Asian/Pacific/American (A/P/A) Institute will be hosting the reunion of Basement Workshop, an Asian American arts and resource center based in New York Chinatown from the 1970s through the 1980s. Many Asian American artists and activists passed through Basement and were profoundly influenced by their time in it before moving on to do other things inside and outside the Asian American Movement. When the organization disbanded in the ’80s, documentation about its activities became scattered among the possessions of various individuals as they went their separate ways and no central archive was created that collected this material and history. The purpose of the reunion is to bring people together, encourage them to share the documentation that they’ve held onto, and bring these individual pieces together to finally form a Basement Workshop archive. The event will include an oral history collecting component and kiosks for digitizing and scanning doc
umentation brought in by members, along with other yet-to-be-formulated activities designed to actively engage members in the documentation creating and gathering process. There will also be great food and entertainment, such as readings and storytelling workshops, performances from artists whose music created the soundtrack for the Movement in the 1970s, and an exhibit featuring what members are currently doing. It promises to be a fun and meaningful event but it also requires more staff than what A/P/A has right now to make it happen. It would be great to have your help! I think it will be a great learning experience on the practice of archives and public history on the ground as it relates to a specific community still maintaining strong emotional attachment to and debates about the memory of this organization. If you are interested in volunteering for the event and in learning more, email me at ynt204@nyu.edu. Thank you for all of your support!

Best,
Nancy

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ÎéÓ½»ª
Y.H. Nancy Ng Tam
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Graduate Scholar in A/PA Archives

Asian/Pacific/American Institute
New York University
41-51 East 11th Street, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10003

http://www.apa.nyu.edu/
http://dlibdev.nyu.edu/tamimentapa/

Email: ynt204@nyu.edu

Peter J. Wosh
Director, Archives/Public History Program
History Department
New York University
53 Washington Square South
New York NY 10012
Phone: (212) 998-8601
Fax: (212) 995-4017
http://history.fas.nyu.edu/object/history.gradprog.archivespublichistory.html