I’ll be going on an adventure for my English class. This coming Wednesday, we’ll be journeying into my university’s archival collection and have the opportunity to observe the different artifacts and documents about my university’s history.
When I think of myself going to into the archives and doing research, I picture myself in an underground library and in an explorer outfit on ladders sliding down vast and tall book shelves searching for lost books. Although I know this imagery is unrealistic, I hope that searching through the archival collection will be exciting and allow me to see research in a new light.
The purpose of our archival search is to find information about my university’s history. Archives are incomplete sets of information and because of this, I decided that it would be in my best interest to remain open-minded about needing to switch topics and to have low expectations for the amount of information available.
Since my university was initially a California mission, I hope to find information about Native Americans and where they were when the mission became a university, how were they treated, where are the remnants of their village before the mission was built, how the missionaries viewed the Native peoples, where (if any) are their graves… I am very doubtful that I will find a wealth of information on Native peoples because of the “Principle of Selectivity” that Tirabassi explained in her essay, “Into the Archives.”
The “Principle of Selectivity” is the process in which one decides which documents or artifacts to keep within the archives and which ones to toss out. I do not have very high expectations that my answers regarding Native Americans can be answered with my school archives alone. In America, Native American history is omitted from textbooks and is heavily romanticized in grade school textbooks, so I would not be surprised by the lack of information. Another thing I would like to add is that the history of natives at my university, specifically, was not very pleasant. I feel that the university would have discarded much of the Native American artifacts because they thought the Jesuit documents and artifacts relating to the mission were more valuable. I will be extremely surprised if my school had a wealth of information about Native Americans but I highly doubt that this will be the case when my class visits the archival collection.
In short, I will head into the archives with an open mind and low expectations while hoping to find valuable information.
Wish me luck as I journey into my university archives!
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