During the winter quarter, my students are doing work in UCLA Special Collections. Here’s the course description:
Candace Hansen takes a “selfie” while researching in the Justice for Janitors collections.
“In the last decades of the 20th century, working people and their allies transformed the political culture of southern California. Once a stronghold of antiunion employers, and a crucible for the politics of resentment against immigrants and poor people, Los Angeles is now considered one of the most progressive and immigrant-friendly cities in the country. Driving this change forward was a network of service-sector unions, working-class community organizations, and activist researchers and artists. Sometimes separately and sometimes in dialog, they pioneered new forms of social movement unionism, political engagement, policy research, and political iconography. Students in this research seminar will explore the stories behind this rise of L.A. Labor using the recently donated records of the Justice for Janitors campaign, the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) and other archival collections at UCLA.”