Author Archives: Miguel Juárez

When fellow contributor Dr. Michael Bess inquired as to my interest in writing an essay about why the Oscar Castillo exhibit was organized as part of the Western History Association, I wholeheartedly accepted his offer. One of the reasons we organized the exhibit was to show that the study of history is not separate from engaging with communities we are researching and writing about. Secondly, we felt organizing the exhibit would add another dimension to a 55^th Annual WHA Conference in Portland, October 21-24, 2015. Having had the experience of attending numerous conferences over the years as an academic librarian and archivist, I feel it is important to engage with the communities where we hold our conferences and what better way than via an exhibit. I want to preface my essay by acknowledging that the exhibit was the product of a 10-month process and a group effort. Also, if not for the intervention of Dr. John W. Heaton, Executive Director of the Western History Association, it probably would not have been included in the conference program at all.

Organizing the Exhibit

On December 20, 2014, my paper titled “The 1972 Raza Unida Party Convention,” was accepted for the 55^th Annual Western History Association as part of the panel “The Chicano/a Movement as Western History Emerging Scholars.” I had the idea to organize a parallel event in the community to accompany the panel. I approached the photographer Oscar R. Castillo, a Los Angeles-based photographer whose archive is housed at the Chicano Studies Research Center (CSRC) at UCLA where I was employed in 2008, to see if he would be interested in exhibiting his photography in Portland, as part of the WHA. I had organized events remotely before. In 2008-2009, I was chair of the Southwest Oral History Association (SOHA) conference and working with a group of volunteer oral historians, faculty members and librarians, we organized a regional meeting at the University of Southern California, via e-mail and phone calls. For the Castillo exhibit, I felt all I had to do was locate a venue, perhaps a university or community college gallery in Portland willing to host the exhibit.

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