"...not all research experiences are 'happy' ones."

You know that feeling you get when you wake up and your head feels like it is the size of Mt. Rushmore, and your body feels like you've been hit by a bus? Yea, that's how I felt Wednesday morning. I could feel the symptoms starting on Tuesday, but they really took over on Wednesday. Thus, the only day I got anything pertaining to my internship done this week was on Tuesday. So let me tell you about that!

Tuesday morning I brought the Brian Arbogast collection out of the storage unit and to my work space in RICHES. I started processing the first box, getting an idea of its contents. Brian Arbogast created the first chapter of GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) to Florida. The documents I inventoried and processed were amazing! He was able to get the Florida chapter of GLAAD registered with the ILGA (The International Lesbian and Gay Association) in the early 1990s! Making the Florida chapter the first American chapter of GLAAD registered with the ILGA! Most of the contents in this box consisted of newsletters and correspondence between the FL GLAAD chapter and other chapters of GLAAD throughout the United States. It also included newsletters and correspondence between the FL GLAAD chapter and the ILGA. 

Going through this box really paralleled with one of my readings for my History and Historians class. We had to read some selections from a book called Beyond the Archives: Research as a Lived Process edited by Gesa E. Kirsch and Liz Rohan. (for all intents and purposes this is my citation for what follows). The book is a bunch of essays written by various authors. "The collection on the whole addresses what inspires our work, what attracts us to our research subjects, how they attract us, and the role of serendipity, place, and cultural memory in making knowledge." In reading the introduction I came across this section that really resonated with me (albeit not at the moment of reading, but later):

     "...not all research experiences are "happy" ones. Archives can re-inscribe power structure and imperialist discourse, particularly when the researcher is both the object and the subject of research."

This portion of my assigned reading resonated with me later when I was going through the Brian Arbogast collection. I was going through two of the folders that contained the documents from the ILGA. In it there was correspondence and newsletters about a ILGA conference to be held in Mexico (I forget the year, I am fairly certain it was 1990). Though this was the past, I was very excited for the members of ILGA! But then I continued to turn the pages and found that the conference had been canceled due to many anti-gay protests and death threats. This saddened me, and I immediately recalled that sentence (mentioned above) from my reading. This internship, though amazing, may not always be a happy one. I am going to come across the anti-gay rhetoric of society, and it is going to hurt because I can be considered both the object and the subject of this internship (I am a part of the Central Florida community, and I am gay).

Alas, I can not let the negative aspects of history bring me down. For another section of the introduction to this book also stood out:

     "We are convinced - and our chapters bear this out - that the most serious, committed  excellent historical research comes from choosing a subject to which we are personally drawn, whether through family artifacts, a chance encounter, a local news story, or some other fascination that sets us on a trail of discovery, curiosity, and intrigue."

Who knows? Maybe as a result of this internship I will end up writing something that could be considered an "excellent historical research" pertaining to the Central Florida GLBT community. One can most certainly dream. After all, it is rather serendipitous how I landed this internship. 

Until next week,

-Kyle the intern

PS. Have no fear, I thought I had the flu, but my body actually just was not satisfied with having a sinus infection. It decided it wanted to have an ear infection as well! Alas, I have some good antibiotics and a steroid to help me power through this!