"June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives Serving the Community for 32 Years!" Angela Brinskele, Ann Giagni, Pat Williams, Mary Norcross, Jamie Fitzpatrick, Jeri Deitrick, Marilee France, 2013/12/12
[caption: Mazer Lesbian Archives]
[caption: Angela Brinskele, Director of Communications, Mazer Lesbian Archives]
Brinskele: The Mazer Lesbian Archives is a vital resource for our community because it empowers women, and it also shows all the history up til now so that women don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I mean, they can start from the progress already made by women before them and move forward, and that’s a really valuable gift.
[caption: Ann Giagni, Board President, Mazer Lesbian Archives]
Giagni: I think the vitality comes from us being rooted in the grass roots and it’s like a plant that’s in real soil and not in some phony baloney pot somewhere. We’re rooted and we draw in from the community, and the community nourishes us and we provide the fruit of our history back to the community. And the leaves drop, and they decompose, and the soil enriches, so I think we have that kind of a cycle. I think the fact that we’re grass roots is the thing that has really kept us alive and that I really value.
[caption: Pat Williams, Board Member, Mazer Lesbian Archives]
Williams: I think one of the most important things about the Mazer is it gives a perspective of what has happened in the lesbian community throughout the years. When I first came out, it was a very different world. People were being fired from their jobs, especially teachers, social workers, and I originally was a social worker. We were–military people were being separated from the military as a result of just who they loved. We have the history of all these women, not all these women but a lot of these women, here. It’s very important for us to know that history, because if we don’t know it then we cannot have a perspective to give to the next generations of the homophobia and the bigotry that many of us lived through, and without having that perspective, they don’t know what to fight to keep. It’s very important we fight to keep our freedoms that have come along since I’ve been out, especially in the past fifteen or twenty years, because if we don’t keep that perspective, it’s very easy to lose freedoms, and it’s very easy to go back into those times where we’re afraid, and where we’re afraid to go out and hold hands or to talk about who we are. A lot of that perspective is within these rooms, and a lot of the history and the knowledge and the understanding of what all we have fought so hard in order to maintain and preserve for the future.
[caption: Mary Norcross, volunteer, Mazer Lesbian Archives]
Norcross: I think the Mazer collection is very important for the coming generations. For instance, I left all my work–I went back to school in ’82 to become a family therapist and studied psychology, eating disorder topics, many many topics, and I’ve given them all my work. And I feel future generations of young lesbian women can learn from a lot of our paths, especially women like me who have lived so long and had many lives in one life.
[caption: Jamey Fitzpatrick, Board Member, Mazer Lesbian Archives]
Fitzpatrick: One of my favorite parts of the collection are the photographs, and we’ll be walking through and–you know, you have in your mind an idea of the times that you didn’t live through, before you were born, what the 60s and the 70s were like, for me. And then I’ll see a picture, and I’ll be showing it to somebody as a part of a tour, and a woman will say, “Oh wait! There’s Sally in the background,” or “You know, I was right over at the side there, helping lift something out of the truck,” and for a moment, that history comes alive, and you can see in people’s faces how excited they are to see their own life histories within our walls.
Giagni: I was going through stuff, we were moving stuff out, and I opened this [video shows image of First Sex, by Elizabeth Gould Davis], and it had said “Elizabeth Gould Davis,” who was the author of a book, and I had never looked–I’ve been here for years and years and years, and I’d never bothered to open it up. I opened it up, and it was a sequel to The First Sex. I was beside myself–I was screaming, I was so excited. And apparently what had happened was that she had written it, and she died before it was published. I tried–there was an agent listed in the cover sheet. I tried–whom I tried to contact, but I don’t think she's around any more. But it is her sequel to that book, and it was going to be her response to the criticism that she got from writing the book. So that was pretty damn exciting. [laughs] So that was the most exciting thing.
[caption: Jeri Deitrick, Board Member, Mazer Lesbian Archives]
Deitrick: When you would research a button, it would be a button, and it would say “No on 6.” So, we got to figure out what that is and so then we’d go on to the research and we’d learn about all kinds of things, and it was very interesting. And the most interesting thing to me was a button that said “AHF–AIDS Hospice Foundation.” In all my years I’ve been thinking it was called AIDS Healthcare Foundation. So in the beginning, AIDS Healthcare Foundation was called AIDS Hospice Foundation because in the beginning of this horrible disease, all people thought about was dying with dignity, and today it’s AIDS Healthcare Foundation because they are living with dignity.
[caption: Marilee France, Board Secretary, Mazer Lesbian Archives]
France: My very favorite–Jeri and I were here one time and a woman from Japan came in to visit our collection. She’s a newscaster in Tokyo. She came out as a lesbian, and she is the first and only woman or even gay male to come out. She wanted to come here, she had heard of us, she wanted to come here, and she wanted to see our collection. And she came in, and she was so enthusiastic, and she was laughing and giggling and jumping–just kind of jumping up and down and clapping her hands together. She couldn't–she couldn't get enough of what she was seeing here, and I'll never forget that enthusiasm and realizing this is really what we’re all about. Here’s this woman who has this lone voice in a very large populous country and she’s a lone voice in the news world, and how she–I’m sure she took a lot of flak for coming out. But how brave she is, and that she could come here and get a sense of community and feel like she was really part of a larger picture–that was really very exciting. That will live with me forever.
Giagni: So I just think it’s really important for us to have the stories here of everyday people so that everyday people can come here and discover they’re not alone, other people have lived a perfectly happy lesbian life at other times through difficult eras. And I think that’s one of the big things that the collection does, the materials do, and that’s–I think–something that I really value about it.
[caption: Your Support Means the World!]
France: It’s because of you and because of your generous support that we are able to continue our mission and move forward.
Williams: It’s because of the donors that I have been able to do this project of preserving all of these films. And I am very grateful to you for giving us financial support to give the opportunity for this. I just think that’s very important, and I’m very grateful to all of you for that.
Brinskele: Thank you for supporting the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives. We couldn't be here without your help.
Fitzpatrick: Thank you so much for all your support for the Mazer.
Giagni: It’s important for lesbians to be responsible for our history.
Brinskele: With your help, we will be able to continue forever empowering and supporting lesbian and feminist women all over the world.
[END OF VIDEO]
Mazer Lesbian Archives Board and Volunteer's Speak about this Lesbian and Feminist Archives located in West Hollywood and serving the community for 32 years!
The June L. Mazer Archives is the largest major archive on the West Coast dedicated to preserving and promoting lesbian and feminist history and culture. By creating a safe place for women to explore the richness of lesbian history, perhaps adding to it themselves, we are paving the way for future generations to understand more fully their own identity and history and help maintain this vital link to their own past.
Click here to open a PDF transcript.
Interviewee: Angela Brinskele
Interviewee: Ann Giagni
Interviewee: Pat Williams
Interviewee: Mary Norcross
Interviewee: Jamey Fitzpatrick
Interviewee: Jeri Deitrick
Interviewee: Marilee France
Interviewer: None
Transcriber: Kate H.
Formatter: Serena R.
Recording Date: Unknown
Release Date: December 12, 2013
Location: June L. Mazer Archives in West Hollywood, California
Interview Length: 00:07:58