CONTRIBUTE TO THE QUEER HISTORY TOUR

The Queer APA history tour is a digital community archive focused on Bay Area Queer Asian Pacific American history, and will eventually expand to include all of California. The material comes from mementos scanned from individuals and community organizations, combined with research. It’s placed in an online map in specific locations, with descriptions, dates, and keywords. Think google maps meets pinterest! Instead of a physical tour, we created a digital tour to allow for larger geographic reach and 24/7 accessibility to this information. We seek to make visible the histories of Queer APAs that have been erased or forgotten.

Too often we hear the narrative of not knowing our own histories. It’s not taught in school, certain elements are just “not talked about”, and it’s just hard to find this information on our own or without knowing anyone. The Queer Asian Pacific American / LGBTQ Asian Pacific American movement is still quite young. Our goal is to work with the founders and contributors to this movement to ensure that these histories and memories are preserved in an accessible way. We want people nationally and internationally to be able to see this work.

We’re open to many different types of materials. The content we’re looking for needs to related to Queer Asian Pacific American history or personal stories. This could be your personal journal entry about a non-LGBTQ APA event you went to, but written from the perspective of a Queer APA. It could also be photos of friends from pride, past art events or exhibitions. We’re looking to weave together a comprehensive community history, which includes major movement building, like the founding of Trikone, or a workshop you took that featured a Queer APA instructor.

• Photos
• Newsletters
• Fliers
• Personal stories
• Home movies
• Visual arts
• and more!

If you contribute materials, we would also appreciate:

• Location information, down to the address if possible
• Date (year is great, year/month/day is best)
• Description: who is in the photo, what was the event about, etc
• Copyright and publishing release (see below)

You can contribute in a number of ways. Donate material, volunteer to scan images or upload content, or contact us if you have other ideas. We’d like the opportunity to publish all the materials we digitize. If you have questions, restrictions, or concerns, let’s talk!

Have us digitally archive your materials

• We’ll set-up an in person or phone meeting
• We’ll collect your materials, digitize them, and return them to you
• You’ll provide a hard drive, pre-paid shipping, and we’ll send you the digital files
• This process can take 3-6+ months or more depending on the amount of materials you have

Email or upload your digitized materials

• Send us your histories if they’re already in digital format!
• If you have a lot of materials, contact us and we’ll send you a private upload link

Have us convert your work

• If you have old media on vhs, zip drives, dvds, etc, we’ll convert them
• You’ll provide a hard drive, pre-paid shipping, and we’ll send you the digital files

We’re taking the time to get permissions and release forms from everything we can. We’re using public domain materials from previously published works and working with individuals and organizations to digitize their materials. Here’s a brief breakdown of who owns what and why. These are general guidelines. If you have specific questions, let us know. We are VERY cautious about “outing” people and not publishing personal information (emails, home addresses, phone numbers, etc).

Photographs
The person who took the photo owns the right to the image. If the photo has people in it, and it was taking in a public space (on the street, at a march, etc), then it can be published. If an image was taken in a private space (church, a home) and there’s an expectation of privacy, you need permission from the people in the photo to publish the image. Yes, even if you took it. To ensure all of your bases are covered, a model release is required.

Articles + Newsletters + Publications
Unless there is a written contract between a writer and a publication, the writer has copyright over all their written work. If a writer may signed an exclusive contract to publish their work with a particular media outlet, then that outlet might own the copyright or publishing rights. We’re contacting the original publishers and/or creators to ask permission.

Films
These are a little trickier because they involve so many more people, sound, music, etc. There are very similar guidelines to photographs. If the film is fully produced, you can simply ask the production company or owner of the copyright. If it’s a home movie, then it’s best to ask the people in it if it’s okay to publish.

We’ll work with you to answer any questions, but are not lawyers. California Lawyers for the Arts is an excellent resource for copyright questions.

We can help you. Our Co-Director, Mia Nakano, leads the digitizing and community engagement part of this work. She works with our Radical Librarian Advisor, Sine Hwang Jensen, to work with organizations or individuals who have large collections. Sine is a librarian at the UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies library and is an expert on preservation and cataloging practices of physical items. They can support the beginning processs of organizing, recommending best storage practices, and providing archiving guidelines.

Co-Director, Mia Nakano, has over 20 years of experience working in photo labs, digitizing and cataloging media. Nakano trains and works directly with community volunteers to support the digitization of this work. She oversees proper digitization and handling of materials. Sine Hwang Jensen is a consulting librarian trained in best practices of physical archiving and cataloging.