The interviews in the series African American Artists of Los Angeles document significant African American Artists and others in the Los Angeles metropolitan area who have worked to expand exhibition opportunities and public support for African American visual culture. The series was made possibl...
Biographical Note:
African American artist and community-activist. First director of the Watts Towers Art Center in Los Angeles.
The Craft and Folk Art Museum (CAFAM), founded in Los Angeles by Edith and Frank Wyle, grew out of The Egg and The Eye, a commercial art gallery/restaurant devoted to international contemporary craft and folk art—and (in the restaurant) omelettes. The gallery opened November 1, 1965 at 5814 Wilsh...
In 1980, the late Eugene Fingerhut, a congregant at the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center (PJTC) and a professor of American history at California State University, Los Angeles began interviewing elderly congregants with a focus on the history of the Pasadena Jewish community prior to World War I...
Biographical Note:
Congregant of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center.
The interviews in the series African American Artists of Los Angeles document significant African American Artists and others in the Los Angeles metropolitan area who have worked to expand exhibition opportunities and public support for African American visual culture. The series was made possibl...
This series includes full-life histories of a number of prominent Korean Americans who represent their community’s tremendous expansion during the period after federal anti-Asian immigration laws were repealed in 1965. The series focuses on the remarkable growth of the Korean American community i...
Biographical Note:
Architect. Founder and principal of Archeon Group, an architectural, planning, and interiors firm.
The interviews in this series document the ideological transformation of the Chicana and Chicano generation in Los Angeles. Dissatisfied with their position in U.S. society, Chicana and Chicano activists built a civil rights movement from the ground up. Interviewees were selected based on their e...
Biographical Note:
An organizer and leader of the Chicana/o student movement at CSULA from 1969 to 1973, and one of the leaders of the Comisión Feminil chapter at CalState LA as well as La Vida Nueva at East Los Angeles College.
This series includes full-life histories of a number of prominent Korean Americans who represent their community’s tremendous expansion during the period after federal anti-Asian immigration laws were repealed in 1965. The series focuses on the remarkable growth of the Korean American community i...
Biographical Note:
Businessman and dharma teacher at the Dharma Zen Center.
The South Asian Women in Los Angeles series documents the lives of a number of women who are first generation South Asian immigrants and who lived or currently live in the greater Los Angeles area. This project was generously supported by Arcadia funds.
The interviews in the series American Indian Relocation Project document the experience of American Indians who came to Los Angeles as part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' urban relocation program in the 1950s and 1960s. The initial interviews were conducted by students in Professor Peter Nabok...
Biographical Note:
Caddo and Potawatomi. Came to Los Angeles as part of the American Indian Relocation.
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability relate...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Before her Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) became debilitating, Petit was a multilingual school teacher and Girl Guides of Canada volunteer.
The past sixty years have been an important period in the development of Chinese studies in the U.S and Canada. Those years have seen increased funding from Title VI and other sources, the evolution of new fields and areas of specialization, and the systematization and professionalization of scho...
Biographical Note:
American historian of modern China and Distinguished Professor of History and Chinese Studies at University of California San Diego
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability relate...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Experiences Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS), and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS).
The Ralph Edwards Productions series seeks to document the history of the Ralph Edwards Productions company by interviewing persons who had worked closely with Ralph Edwards in the early years of the company. Ralph Edwards Productions produced This is Your Life, as well as Truth or Consequences, ...
Biographical Note:
Producer for Ralph Edwards Productions who was involved with the television series “This is Your Life.” Senior vice president of programming and development for KindWorld Productions.
The Many Branches, One Root series traces the histories and practices of a range of Buddhist traditions and communities in the greater Los Angeles area. Beginning in the early twentieth century, a succession of Buddhist traditions have put down roots in Los Angeles, each one providing spiritual s...
Biographical Note:
Immigrant from Sri Lanka. Buddhist monk in the Sri Lankan Theravada tradition, abbot of the Dharma Vijaya Buddhist Vihara, and author of a number of books on the experience of being a Buddhist monk living in the West.
Interviews in this series were undertaken by the UCLA Oral History Program in conjunction with similar efforts at the University of California, Berkeley, Regional Oral History Office; Claremont Graduate School Oral History Program; California State University, Fullerton, Oral History Program; and...
Biographical Note:
Co-founder of the Behavior Science Corporations (BASICO), which advised Ronald Reagan’s first gubernatorial campaign.
The interviews in the series American Indian Presence in Southern California: Those Who Came survey some of the diversity of tribes and experiences of American Indians who have immigrated to the urban area. Over 205,000 American Indians live in Southern California, almost 73,000 of them in Los An...
This series documents community organizations and institutions that arose in the aftermath of the Watts Rebellion to address issues such as education, employment, healthcare, housing, transportation, and police harassment. The first phase of the series involved interviews with key organizers of ...
Biographical Note:
Member of the Black Congress and the Long Beach Community Improvement League.
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability relate...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Experienced lead poisoning as the result of environmental racism. Environmental activist with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice.
The interviews in the series African American Artists of Los Angeles document significant African American Artists and others in the Los Angeles metropolitan area who have worked to expand exhibition opportunities and public support for African American visual culture. The series was made possibl...
Biographical Note:
African American artist. Creator of ten acres of sculpture near Joshua Tree.
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability relate...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Chief Deputy of Administration at Asian Health Services and immigrant rights activist. Policy advocate for nail salon workforce.
Physician to Chilean president Salvador Allende. Volunteer at Venice Family Clinic in Los Angeles, treating torture victims. Faculty at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
The series documents environmental activism in the Los Angeles area from the 1970s through to the present day. The majority of interviews are with either founders or knowledgeable participants in major regional environmental organizations. Represented groups embody a wide range of issues, includi...
Biographical Note:
Community organizer for Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. Organizer for the Long Beach Clean Trucks Program and member of the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports.
The interviews in the series the American Indian Presence in Southern California: Those Who Were Already Here survey the experiences of unrecognized tribes at one extreme and gaming tribes at the other. Southern California is the homeland of numerous tribal peoples indigenous to the region. Foll...
Biographical Note:
Chair of the San Manuel tribe. Co-founder of the tribe's Cultural Awareness Program and chair of the California State Native American Heritage Commission. Member of San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors.
The South Asian Women in Los Angeles series documents the lives of a number of women who are first generation South Asian immigrants and who lived or currently live in the greater Los Angeles area. This project was generously supported by Arcadia funds.
The interviews in this series document the ideological transformation of the Chicana and Chicano generation in Los Angeles. Dissatisfied with their position in U.S. society, Chicana and Chicano activists built a civil rights movement from the ground up. Interviewees were selected based on their e...
Biographical Note:
Member in the Chicano Blowouts. Co-editor, writer, and photographer for La Raza, a Chicano-movement newspaper.
Interviews in this series were undertaken by the UCLA Oral History Program in conjunction with similar efforts at the University of California, Berkeley, Regional Oral History Office; Claremont Graduate School Oral History Program; California State University, Fullerton, Oral History Program; and...
The interviews in the series American Indian Studies M200A Student Interviews were done by master's students in American Indians Studies M200A. Each student conducted a life history with one person of Native ancestry. The first year the class was offered, the interviews focused on the narrators' ...
Biographical Note:
Screenwriter, filmmaker, entrepreneur, financier, promotional speaker, and philanthropist of Cherokee and English descent.
Los Angeles disc jockey on soul radio stations during the 1960s and 1970s who was known as “the Master Blaster.” Producer and host of "For Members Only," a Los Angeles news and entertainment program directed at African Americans.
Purpose Served: An Oral History of the Exemplary Life of Arthur Ashe, 1943-1993 is an initiative of the Arthur Ashe Legacy Fund (AALF) at UCLA and is funded by AALF and by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. By launching an oral history project to document and capture the firsthand recollections of ...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed because of connection to tennis player Arthur Ashe. He is Deputy Secretary of the US Army and Chairman of the Panama Canal Commission. He attended West Point at the same time that Arthur Ashe came to serve his military commitment. Reeder was on West Point’s tennis team and Ashe coach...
This series documents long-term and multigenerational business ownership in the black community through oral history interviews with owners of businesses located in Los Angeles County. The title is inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.'s last book, Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community, whic...
Biographical Note:
Owner of First Security Investment Company, a real estate and property management company in Los Angeles.
This series includes interviews with key individuals who served in Los Angeles city government during the administration of Mayor Tom Bradley. The interviews focus on each individual’s political development, activism, and role in the Bradley administration. Major urban policy issues addressed in ...
Biographical Note:
Member of the Democratic National Committee. Advisor to Tom Bradley and Jerry Brown. Nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The interviews in the series American Indian Relocation Project document the experience of American Indians who came to Los Angeles as part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' urban relocation program in the 1950s and 1960s. The initial interviews were conducted by students in Professor Peter Nabok...
Biographical Note:
Cherokee. Came to Los Angeles as part of the American Indian Relocation.
The Community-Engaged Theater in Los Angeles series seeks to document the work of a grouping of theater companies in Los Angeles whose mission combines an artistic focus with explicit attention to social justice and community building. The companies included use a working method that seeks creati...
Biographical Note:
Manager of Center Theatre Group's community programs. Founder and creative artistic director of the creative center East LA Rep. Los Angeles County arts commissioner representing the first district.
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability relate...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Experiences Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). Advocate for fragrance-free spaces.
The interviews in the series African American Artists of Los Angeles document significant African American Artists and others in the Los Angeles metropolitan area who have worked to expand exhibition opportunities and public support for African American visual culture. The series was made possibl...
Purpose Served: An Oral History of the Exemplary Life of Arthur Ashe, 1943-1993 is an initiative of the Arthur Ashe Legacy Fund (AALF) at UCLA and is funded by AALF and by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. By launching an oral history project to document and capture the firsthand recollections of ...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed because of connection to tennis player Arthur Ashe. He and Ashe were members of the US Davis Cup together, and Riessen was a player in 1981 when Ashe was Davis Cup captain. Riessen and Ashe also co-founded Players Enterprise Incorpoated in October 1969, the Association of Tennis Profe...
The interviews in this series document the ideological transformation of the Chicana and Chicano generation in Los Angeles. Dissatisfied with their position in U.S. society, Chicana and Chicano activists built a civil rights movement from the ground up. Interviewees were selected based on their e...
Biographical Note:
Organizer with United Farm Workers alongside Cesar Chavez and instructor for teatro campesino courses in Mexican American studies department at San Diego Sate University. Later known as Taru Ruth Rivera
These interviews with African American musicians provide details about the narrators' background, training, influences, and musical choices and discuss their contributions, and connections to the music of black Los Angeles. The series was a collaborative project of the UCLA Center for Oral Histor...
Biographical Note:
Bandleader of the Evelyn Freeman Swing Band, Wings over Jordan, Evelyn Freeman Orchestra, and the Young Saints.
In 1980, the late Eugene Fingerhut, a congregant at the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center (PJTC) and a professor of American history at California State University, Los Angeles began interviewing elderly congregants with a focus on the history of the Pasadena Jewish community prior to World War I...
Biographical Note:
Congregant of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center.
Purpose Served: An Oral History of the Exemplary Life of Arthur Ashe, 1943-1993 is an initiative of the Arthur Ashe Legacy Fund (AALF) at UCLA and is funded by AALF and by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. By launching an oral history project to document and capture the firsthand recollections of ...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed because of connection to tennis player Arthur Ashe.
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability relate...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Born in El Salvador, Rodriguez is a domestic worker and a member of the Women’s Collective in San Francisco.
Purpose Served: An Oral History of the Exemplary Life of Arthur Ashe, 1943-1993 is an initiative of the Arthur Ashe Legacy Fund (AALF) at UCLA and is funded by AALF and by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. By launching an oral history project to document and capture the firsthand recollections of ...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed because of connection to tennis player Arthur Ashe. Mentored Juan Farrow, a young player from Virginia, who was sent to St. Louis, Missouri to train with Richard Hudlin, Ashe’s former coach at Charles Sumner High School.
The Craft and Folk Art Museum (CAFAM), founded in Los Angeles by Edith and Frank Wyle, grew out of The Egg and The Eye, a commercial art gallery/restaurant devoted to international contemporary craft and folk art—and (in the restaurant) omelettes. The gallery opened November 1, 1965 at 5814 Wilsh...
Biographical Note:
Daughter of Craft and Folk Art Museum (CAFAM) founders, Frank and Edith Wyle. Artist and designer. Developed educational materials for several CAFAM exhibitions; worked on “Masks in Motion” exhibition for 1984 Olympic Arts Festival.
This series of interviews was undertaken in collaboration with the Art Directors Guild. Its aim is to document the lives and work of Guild members and staff who have made a significant contribution to film and television history. Interviews capture the work of title artists, set designers, art di...
Biographical Note:
Labor and entertainment law attorney. Served as executive director of the Art Directors Guild. Art Directors Guild Service Award honoree.
In 1980, the late Eugene Fingerhut, a congregant at the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center (PJTC) and a professor of American history at California State University, Los Angeles began interviewing elderly congregants with a focus on the history of the Pasadena Jewish community prior to World War I...
Biographical Note:
Congregant of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center.
The series documents environmental activism in the Los Angeles area from the 1970s through to the present day. The majority of interviews are with either founders or knowledgeable participants in major regional environmental organizations. Represented groups embody a wide range of issues, includi...
Biographical Note:
Co-founded Santa Barbara’s Community Environmental Council in response to the 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara. Founding director of Santa Barbara Citizens for Environmental Defense and the Environmental Defense Center.
Temple University professor of anthropology. Founding member of the Society for the Anthropology of Visual Communication. Interviewed because of connection to Coffee House Positano: A Bohemian Oasis in Malibu.
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability relate...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Experiences hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Experienced mold exposure in the workplace. Storyteller and self-advocate.
The series documents environmental activism in the Los Angeles area from the 1970s through to the present day. The majority of interviews are with either founders or knowledgeable participants in major regional environmental organizations. Represented groups embody a wide range of issues, includi...
Biographical Note:
Founder and executive director of Eco-Home Network. Founding member of the Eco-Cities Council.
The interviews in this series document the ideological transformation of the Chicana and Chicano generation in Los Angeles. Dissatisfied with their position in U.S. society, Chicana and Chicano activists built a civil rights movement from the ground up. Interviewees were selected based on their e...
Biographical Note:
Journalist, photographer, and editor for La Raza, a Chicano-movement newspaper. Ran for office as a candidate of the first and only Mexican American political party, La Raza Unida Party.
This series includes full-life histories of a number of prominent Korean Americans who represent their community’s tremendous expansion during the period after federal anti-Asian immigration laws were repealed in 1965. The series focuses on the remarkable growth of the Korean American community i...
Biographical Note:
Korean American founder and publisher of KoreAm journal.
This series includes full-life histories of a number of prominent Korean Americans who represent their community’s tremendous expansion during the period after federal anti-Asian immigration laws were repealed in 1965. The series focuses on the remarkable growth of the Korean American community i...
Biographical Note:
Judge for the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. Liaison to the Korean American community in the office of the attorney general of California.
The purpose of this series is to document the social justice activism of the Mexican American generation and to explore family and community life in war-time Los Angeles. Individuals selected for this series resided in Los Angeles during the 1930s and 1940s and began their civic participation pri...
Biographical Note:
Co-founder, publisher, and editor in chief of Eastern Group Publications, a Hispanic newspaper company. Member of the Mexican American Political Association, the Chicana Service Action Center, and Comisión Femenil Mexicana Nacional.
The interviews in the series American Indian Studies M200A Student Interviews were done by master's students in American Indians Studies M200A. Each student conducted a life history with one person of Native ancestry. The first year the class was offered, the interviews focused on the narrators' ...
The Community Service Organization, commonly known as the CSO, was founded in 1947 as a civil rights advocacy group that boasted a multi-ethnic membership. Individuals selected for this oral history series resided in Los Angeles during the 1940s and joined the Community Service Organization durin...
Biographical Note:
Anti-Defamation League's Pacific Southwest regional director of civil rights and fact-finding. Involved with the Chicano civil rights group the Community Service Organization.
The Community Service Organization, commonly known as the CSO, was founded in 1947 as a civil rights advocacy group that boasted a multi-ethnic membership. Individuals selected for this oral history series resided in Los Angeles during the 1940s and joined the Community Service Organization durin...
Biographical Note:
Co-founder of the Chicano civil rights group the Community Service Organization. First Mexican American woman organizer and business agent for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), founding member of the California Democratic Council, and a political appointee of the Lyndon B. J...
This series of interviews documents the work of costumers in the film and television industries in Los Angeles. The interviews preserve a dimension of Hollywood history and Los Angeles history that has been under-documented to date.
Biographical Note:
Owner of Studio Art Metal, a shop that has provided metalwork for the costume and props department for hundreds of films and television productions.
Purpose Served: An Oral History of the Exemplary Life of Arthur Ashe, 1943-1993 is an initiative of the Arthur Ashe Legacy Fund (AALF) at UCLA and is funded by AALF and by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. By launching an oral history project to document and capture the firsthand recollections of ...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed because of connection to tennis player Arthur Ashe. He was a business associate of Arthur Ashe. Ashe supported Shutlz’s 15-Love organizations. They became friends.
The Narratives of Justice oral history series documents issues related to the criminal justice system in California through interviews with a variety of people who seek to reform that system. It includes interviews with individuals who provide services to at-risk youth; individuals engaged in com...
Biographical Note:
Founder and executive director of the Social Justice Learning Institute in Inglewood, California.
Musicologist, composer, and folklorist. Research professor at the UCLA Institute of Ethnomusicology and founding member of the American Society for Comparative Musicology
In 1980, the late Eugene Fingerhut, a congregant at the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center (PJTC) and a professor of American history at California State University, Los Angeles began interviewing elderly congregants with a focus on the history of the Pasadena Jewish community prior to World War I...
Biographical Note:
Congregant of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center.
Between the early 1970s and the mid-1990s, thousands of people participated in protests, political campaigns, community organizing, and other activism related to issues of police violence in the Los Angeles area. This series documents this area of activism, including the work of the Coalition Aga...
Biographical Note:
Community activist and member of the Coalition Against Police Abuse, an organization that worked toward justice for victims of police violence and was active in the Los Angeles area in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
Women’s Activist Lives in Los Angeles is a series of interviews done by graduate research assistants under the auspices of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Women. The series addresses the diverse ways in which women’s social movement activities affected public policy and transformed civic institut...
Biographical Note:
Activist for labor, children, and women’s rights. Executive director of Centro de Niños, a bicultural, bilingual children’s center.
This series documents the Justice for Janitors movement in Los Angeles from the 1980s through the early 2000s. Justice for Janitors is a labor organization of the Service Employees International Union that has historically sought to improve the working conditions and bargaining power of workers ...
Biographical Note:
Organizer for the Service Employees International Union. One of the leaders of the union’s Justice for Janitors campaign.
This series of interviews was undertaken in collaboration with the Art Directors Guild. Its aim is to document the lives and work of Guild members and staff who have made a significant contribution to film and television history. Interviews capture the work of title artists, set designers, art di...
Biographical Note:
Owners of Shaffner/Stewart-Production Design, which designed sets for Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, Friends, several David Copperfield specials, The George Lopez Show, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Their work has received several Emmy Awards.
The Traditional Asian Arts in Southern California series focuses on both immigrants and second- or third-generation Asian Americans who have continued East Asian or Southeast Asian musical, dance, and performance traditions in Southern California. Some preserved their art form by adhering to the...
Biographical Note:
Teacher and performer of Cambodian dance. Co-founder of the Khmer Arts Academy in Long Beach, California, and the Sophiline Arts Ensemble at the Khmer Arts Academy in Cambodia.
This series documents long-term and multigenerational business ownership in the black community through oral history interviews with owners of businesses located in Los Angeles County. The title is inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.'s last book, Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community, whic...
Biographical Note:
Second-generation owner of Little Red Hen Coffee Shop in Altadena, California, which was established by Shay’s mother in 1972.
This series includes interviews with prominent Los Angeles-based visual artists and other members of the art establishment whose careers span the period from the 1920s through the 1970s. It documents the art community of the pre-World War II period and the rise of Los Angeles as a nationally rec...
Biographical Note:
Painter known for his painted mosaic murals. Scripps college professor of art and director of the Otis College of Art and Design.
This series of interviews documents the work of costumers in the film and television industries in Los Angeles. The interviews preserve a dimension of Hollywood history and Los Angeles history that has been under-documented to date.
Biographical Note:
Costumer and costume designer who worked on films such as My Fair Lady and To Kill a Mockingbird and on TV shows such as Mannix and Mission Impossible.
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability relate...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Experiences Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). Canadian citizen. Self-advocate for workplace accommodation.
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability relate...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Author of "Intentional Healing: One Woman's Path to Higher Consciousness and Freedom from Environmental and Other Chronic Illnesses." Experiences Multiple Chemical Sens...
The Many Branches, One Root series traces the histories and practices of a range of Buddhist traditions and communities in the greater Los Angeles area. Beginning in the early twentieth century, a succession of Buddhist traditions have put down roots in Los Angeles, each one providing spiritual s...
Biographical Note:
Immigrant from Hong Kong and Buddhist nun of Chinese Chan lineage. Senior nun at the Fo Guang Shan Hsi Lai Buddhist Temple in Hacienda Heights, California.
The interviews in the series American Indian Relocation Project document the experience of American Indians who came to Los Angeles as part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' urban relocation program in the 1950s and 1960s. The initial interviews were conducted by students in Professor Peter Nabok...
Biographical Note:
Sioux. Came to Los Angeles as part of the American Indian Relocation.
The Women Architects in Southern California series documents the impacts made by women in architecture on the built environment of Southern California from the nineteen fifties and on. Overcoming gender bias in a male-dominated profession, the selected women represent a cohort of architects, educ...
Biographical Note:
Founder of one of the first all-woman-owned architecture practices in California in the 1980s, Siegel Diamond Sklarek. Instrumental in the founding of the city of West Hollywood
This series includes interviews with studio workers who gained entry to the motion picture industry following Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They were donated to the UCLA Center for Oral History Research by Andrew Dawson of the University of Greenwich, London, who conducted them as part ...
Biographical Note:
Crewman. One of the first African Americans to work in Hollywood in the areas of stage lighting, rigging, and as a best boy.
Purpose Served: An Oral History of the Exemplary Life of Arthur Ashe, 1943-1993 is an initiative of the Arthur Ashe Legacy Fund (AALF) at UCLA and is funded by AALF and by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. By launching an oral history project to document and capture the firsthand recollections of ...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed because of connection to tennis player Arthur Ashe. He was a lifelong close friend of Ashe. They met during childhood.
Purpose Served: An Oral History of the Exemplary Life of Arthur Ashe, 1943-1993 is an initiative of the Arthur Ashe Legacy Fund (AALF) at UCLA and is funded by AALF and by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. By launching an oral history project to document and capture the firsthand recollections of ...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed because of connection to tennis player Arthur Ashe. First African American head pro of Longwood Cricket Club. Sims first met Arthur Ashe in 1972 during Ashe’s visit to MacGregor Park in Texas.
The Traditional Asian Arts in Southern California series focuses on both immigrants and second- or third-generation Asian Americans who have continued East Asian or Southeast Asian musical, dance, and performance traditions in Southern California. Some preserved their art form by adhering to the...
Biographical Note:
Performer and teacher of traditional Northern Thailand dance forms. Founder of the dance company Lan Sattha.
The Craft and Folk Art Museum (CAFAM), founded in Los Angeles by Edith and Frank Wyle, grew out of The Egg and The Eye, a commercial art gallery/restaurant devoted to international contemporary craft and folk art—and (in the restaurant) omelettes. The gallery opened November 1, 1965 at 5814 Wilsh...
Biographical Note:
Assistant Buyer, Craft and Folk Art Museum Shop, 1976 -1982. Associate Manager, CAFAM Shop, 1982 – 1984. Co-Curator, “Fiber, Clay, and Glass,” 1978; Co-curator, “Introductions: 12 Artists,” 1980.
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability relate...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Experiences Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) and fibromyalgia. Environmental and disability activist.
Purpose Served: An Oral History of the Exemplary Life of Arthur Ashe, 1943-1993 is an initiative of the Arthur Ashe Legacy Fund (AALF) at UCLA and is funded by AALF and by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. By launching an oral history project to document and capture the firsthand recollections of ...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed because of connection to tennis player Arthur Ashe. A childhood friend of Arthur Ashe who spent time in Dr. Walter Johnson’s tennis camp. As a journalist was at the center of Ashe’s disclosure of contracting AIDS.
This series documents community organizations and institutions that arose in the aftermath of the Watts Rebellion to address issues such as education, employment, healthcare, housing, transportation, and police harassment. The first phase of the series involved interviews with key organizers of ...
Biographical Note:
Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science professor of medicine. Education and health activist.
This series documents community organizations and institutions that arose in the aftermath of the Watts Rebellion to address issues such as education, employment, healthcare, housing, transportation, and police harassment. The first phase of the series involved interviews with key organizers of ...
Biographical Note:
California State University, Fullerton, professor of linguistics and expert on ebonics.
Purpose Served: An Oral History of the Exemplary Life of Arthur Ashe, 1943-1993 is an initiative of the Arthur Ashe Legacy Fund (AALF) at UCLA and is funded by AALF and by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. By launching an oral history project to document and capture the firsthand recollections of ...
Biographical Note:
Interviewed because of connection to tennis player Arthur Ashe. Between 1975 and 1976, ten-year-old Smith became the first non-white person to attain a membership to the Los Angeles Tennis Club after then honorary board member, Arthur Ashe, wrote a letter on his behalf.
This series documents black women’s activism in Los Angeles from 1950 to the present, showing how women’s roles in the professions and in religious, civic, and social organizations translated into community activism to address disparities in education, healthcare, housing and political rights and...
Biographical Note:
University of Southern California vice provost for graduate and professional studies, vice provost for minority affairs, and dean of the Graduate School of Social Work.
This series includes full-life histories of a number of prominent Korean Americans who represent their community’s tremendous expansion during the period after federal anti-Asian immigration laws were repealed in 1965. The series focuses on the remarkable growth of the Korean American community i...
Biographical Note:
Executive director of the Koreatown Youth and Community Center.
This series includes interviews with key individuals who served in Los Angeles city government during the administration of Mayor Tom Bradley. The interviews focus on each individual’s political development, activism, and role in the Bradley administration. Major urban policy issues addressed in ...
The interviews in the series American Indian Presence in Southern California: Those Who Came survey some of the diversity of tribes and experiences of American Indians who have immigrated to the urban area. Over 205,000 American Indians live in Southern California, almost 73,000 of them in Los An...
Biographical Note:
Member of the Cherokee tribe. Student in sociology and criminal justice at University of California, Irvine.
This series of interviews looks back on Synanon, the first self-help residential community for drug rehabilitation in the United States, which was founded in Venice, California in 1959 and continued through the early 1990s. In the interviews the former residents speak from their own experience in...
Biographical Note:
Associated with Synanon drug rehabilitation program.
This series documents efforts to secure quality education for Black students in the Los Angeles area in the years 1950-2000. This includes the issues of integration/desegregation, increasing the numbers of Black teachers and administrators and the struggle against discriminatory hiring practice...
Biographical Note:
Director of research and evaluation for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Senior research fellow for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and Program Director for the National Science Foundation (NSF).
This series documents black women’s activism in Los Angeles from 1950 to the present, showing how women’s roles in the professions and in religious, civic, and social organizations translated into community activism to address disparities in education, healthcare, housing and political rights and...
Biographical Note:
County of Los Angeles Public Library system librarian serving underrepresented communities. Founding member and president of the California Librarians Black Caucus, member of the California Library Association's Council, and member of various American Library Association committees and programs.
The past sixty years have been an important period in the development of Chinese studies in the U.S and Canada. Those years have seen increased funding from Title VI and other sources, the evolution of new fields and areas of specialization, and the systematization and professionalization of scho...
Biographical Note:
Professor Emerita, Premodern Chinese Literature, University of Pittsburgh (PhD in Comparative Literature from Indiana University).