Yamashita Family Archives

Why keep a family archive?


Comic by Lucy Asako Boltz.

But why should we care about this one family? Yamashita is a common Japanese name. So is this the [Insert generic name here] family archive? Why should people keep their own papers and ephemera? Beth Doyle writes, "Our goal as librarians and as conservators is to put collections in the hands of people who want to use them, to help make connections between ideas and people who will take those ideas and create new and wonderful things. We are here to make sure that happens today, tomorrow, and decades from now." Maybe this family archive will inspire art (See Karen Tei Yamashita's forthcoming novel).

The act of keeping (and preserving) is a sentimental one. Or if your family member is famous enough a "historical" one. Doyle writes about growing up hearing of a forbearer, a man named Howell Cobb (a high ranking Confederate officer), for whom she would have been named if she were born a boy. Through her work, she came across a photograph of this man, from a digitization project of a photo album of Confederate figures. She writes, "Imagine stumbling upon this mythical figure from your family history quite by accident and being able to play a small part in its digitization. These kinds of genealogical discoveries are made every day in our libraries, archives and historical societies." What does it mean to see a physical scrap from what you have heard through stories? The writer does not share (or confornt in this piece) what it means that her forbearer is a Confederate soldier. What if your family's history produces shame?

This tangible piece of evidence (a pressed flower in a diary or a photograph) can make the story more real or more present, confound your own constructed images, or just build more constructed images of the past.
To see a comic made by Lucy Asako Boltz that involves this process of discovery/ revelation through the archive.
 
 
 
 
 
Why keep a family archive?