Librada González Fernández's Archivo Cubanecuir, an archive documenting the lives of Cubans who have lived outside of the gender norm, is preserving trans and queer Cuban and Cuban American history.
, Librada González Fernández couldn’t get enough of her hometown library. As a kid, she would go after school and look at its, transportation, and children. “It was very basic,” she remembers. But ever since then, she has dreamed of having her own.
The collection started with Fernández, a transgender Cuban woman, wanting to learn more about her community. As a teenager, she longed for stories of trans Cuba: She wanted to know how people talked, how they dressed, and the joys they experienced. “I kept doing research and there was really no talk about trans people,” Fernández says.This knowledge gap is what propelled her forward. Not having any official archival training, she started creating her history.
“All we see in this view of history is white men leading the country toward an idea,” Pulido tells Somos. Through Archivo Cubanecuir, Fernández rejects that serialized history and makes space for cuir and trans people to tell their own rich stories.“When you have people like Librada trying to connect in such a personal way with her own history, what you get is groundbreaking,” Pulido adds.
Fernández’s next step is to take all she has collected and turn it into descriptive archival language. This can pose a hurdle because institutional archives can rely on outdated language based on prejudiced beliefs when describing trans people. Fernández experienced this first hand, often having to use traumatizing and offensive language to find material in other archives.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
How Corinne Bailey Rae and Theaster Gates are preserving Black cultureOn her album, Black Rainbows, Bailey Rae was inspired by the art, books and magazines at the Stony Island Arts Bank, a repository for Black history on Chicago's South Side, created by Gates.
Read more »
8-year-old CEO got a $50,000 ‘Shark Tank' offer from two billionaires: ‘I believe you're going to be a winner'Eight-year-old Gavin Batarse braved “Shark Tank” to pitch his business, Glove Wraps — and landed a $50,000 offer from billionaires Mark Cuban and…
Read more »
8-year-old CEO got a $50,000 'Shark Tank' offer from two billionaires: 'I believe you're going to be a winner'Eight-year-old Gavin Batarse braved 'Shark Tank' to pitch his business, Glove Wraps — and landed a $50,000 offer from billionaires Mark Cuban and Michael Rubin.
Read more »
In search of the Old Ones: Where to find the world's longest-lived treesThe famed tree of Sycamore Gap in England was cut down after growing there for around 200 years – but this is just rustle of a leaf compared to the lives of some woody plants.
Read more »
80-Year-Old Woman Has Lived Her Whole Life with a Needle in Her BrainThe 3-centimeter-long needle has seemingly caused no major health issues and will remain put.
Read more »
Study shows beavers had a big influence on how people in the Stone Age livedFor thousands of years, beavers had a big influence on the Dutch ecosystem and the people that lived there. This is the conclusion of research by archaeologist Nathalie Brusgaard. The rodents were used for food, clothing and tools, and created a landscape hospitable to many other species.
Read more »