Starting Points: archives

Sep 4, 2009

Archives in Timor-Leste, 2009: Summary update - Timor Archives

My brief on-the-ground exploration of archival developments in Timor-Leste during August leaves me both encouraged and bewildered.

Encouraged because the interest in archival matters I found in Dili in 2003 continues, unabated, to drive several interesting institutional developments and encouraged by the very strong interest in Timor archival materials being held in Australia.

Bewildered by the funding, building, training and personnel difficulties that all archives in Timor face, the uncertainties of government decision-making processes and what seems, in part, a rather negative competitiveness between some developing archival projects.

More on all that later. For now, here is a taste of what Cecily Gilbert and I managed to learn in a few short days in the very busy run-up to the 10th anniversary of the decisive independence ballot of 30 August 1999.

Arquivo Nacional
The National Archive, created to hold past and current government records, was established in the early years after independence. Since 2003 the Arquivo has been allocated a building, but does not yet appear to be a major government priority. A sizeable collection of Portuguese-era administrative records are held in reasonable storage conditions but the Arquivo does not have sufficient storage space to properly house a large volume of seemingly unexamined Indonesia-era administrative records. Transfers of independence-era government records have just begun. There does not appear to be any available listings of collection holdings and public access to the collection remains in planning stages. A detailed legislative basis for the Arquivo Nacional’s existence and function, in draft form in 2003, has yet to be adopted. It’s too early to know the likely outcome of internal government discussion about possibly co-locating the Arquivo Nacional with the planned National Library; the current Director of the Arquivo doesn’t think much of this idea.

CAVR
Materials collected in Timor as evidence for the monumental ‘Chega’ report form the centre-piece of the archives of East Timor’s Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR). Since CAVR’s wind-up in 2005, the Post-CAVR Secretariat has managed the archive, notably conducting a copy program funded under the British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme whereby digital copies of original materials are held in London for preservation and (later) access purposes. Both paper and audio-visual materials are currently housed in reasonable archival conditions. Preservation copying of a large collection of audio-tapes of victim statements and other interviews is an important future task which will require significant resources. Access to the archives is possible with applications considered on a case by case basis but is somewhat hampered by incomplete documentation on collection content. Planning for a successor institution is well-developed but currently stalled by Parliament’s continued delay in formally considering the recommendations of Chega. The proposed institution includes a human rights documentation centre based on the existing archive and acquisition of related material from abroad.

Centro Audiovisual Max Stahl Timor Leste (CAMSTL)
Currently housed in part of the Independence Memorial Hall in Farol and directed by the inimitable Max Stahl. In addition to holding historical footage from the occupation years, CAMSTL maintains an active program of recording, for the historical record, video of current events and interviews on Timorese experience of occupation. Timorese employees are trained in camera work, editing and archival procedures and work with volunteers to transcribe all spoken words in footage held. CAMSTL has created a number of films for sale on DVD. Max Stahl has recently concluded an agreement with INA, the French national audiovisual institute, to house archival copies of Timor footage for long term preservation and access. Detailed public listings of the content of CAMSTL are not yet available. We did not have time to learn more about the funding structure and long-term administrative and viability planning for CAMSTL.

National Library
The ‘new kid on the block’ in archival terms, a National Library is under very active consideration at the highest levels. Part-funded by an international donor, a building site has been allocated (but not yet made public), books and temporary storage space have been acquired, plans for appointing an international advisor, beginning staff training and conducting an international design competition are in progress. Planning is the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, Virgilio Smith. It remains unclear to us what the final form of the National Library will be. The archival aspect arises from a declared interest by ministerial advisers to acquire for the Library Australian and other Timor solidarity archival materials from abroad and discussion about the possible co-location of the Arquivo Nacional (and other smaller archives mentioned here) with the new National Library. We found considerable resistance to this idea from some of the smaller archives.

Timorese Resistance Archive and Museum
Opened in 2005, the Timorese Resistance Archive and Museum (AMRT) is located near the current (temporary) National Parliament building and the National University. The building houses a selection of Falintil weapons, radios and other equipment along with informational posters and displays of resistance documents (copies). The archival centrepiece of the AMRT is a large collection of documents gathered from resistance figures and supporters inside East Timor from 2002 to the present. Many of the collected documents are currently held in Lisbon at the Mario Soares Foundation (FMS) which has digitised the materials. With the exception of some politically sensitive materials, the digitised copies are available internationally on the internet through the AMRT website (managed by FMS) and a dedicated standalone computer in the Museum building in Dili. Aware of some questions in Dili about the ownership and management of the AMRT, along with some disquiet about documents being kept in Lisbon, a Timorese representative board of management is under construction. Also under construction is an imminent expansion of the existing building to add secure, archival standard storage and work areas and commercial seminar, bookshop and cafe facilities to assist AMRT funding for the longer term.

There’s more, much more, to say about these and other archival matters inside Timor-Leste today. Keep an eye on the ‘Timorese Archives’ section of this blog over the coming month.

Aug 12, 2009

U.S. Bares ‘Alien Files’ Kept on Immigrants

By JANIE LORBER

WASHINGTON — Immigration files containing a wealth of information collected by American border agents, some of it dating from the late 19th century, will be opened to the public soon and permanently preserved, providing intriguing nuggets about such famous immigrants or visitors as Alfred Hitchcock and Salvador Dalí.

But to millions of Americans, the real treasure will be clues about their own families’ histories in the photographs, letters, interrogation transcripts and recordings that reflect the intense scrutiny faced by those trying to enter the United States during an era when it waged two world wars and adopted increasingly restrictive immigration policies.

Under an agreement signed this year, the files, on some 53 million people, will be gradually turned over by the Department of Homeland Security to the National Archives and Records Administration, beginning in 2010. The material, accounting for what officials describe as the largest addition of individual immigration records in the archives’ history, will be indexed and made available to anyone.

At present, members of the public typically gain access to the documents, known as the Alien Files, by submitting a Freedom of Information Act request. But that is a cumbersome process that can take months to produce documents — and even then only photocopies, not originals — and, says Jeanie Low, a private consultant to family historians, deters many amateur genealogists unfamiliar with navigating government bureaucracy.

That is how Thelma Lai Chang obtained the 103-page file detailing immigration officials’ interviews with her father, who immigrated from China as a 12-year-old in 1922. Under the Chinese Exclusion Act, most Chinese were then barred from entering the United States, and her father used a fake identity, claiming to be the son of a family already in the country.

“I cried because these are real documents,” said Ms. Chang, who keeps a copy of her father’s Alien File in her desk drawer at her San Francisco home. “All these years my dad used to talk about how he came, and this is proof to me of what he went through. I mean, all these questions for a little kid.”

The decision to preserve the files is a victory for historical and immigrant groups that had been concerned because federal regulations permitted the government to destroy them once they were 75 years old.

The files contain a trove of information for historians of all fields. The file on Dalí, for example, the Spanish Surrealist who fled to the United States at the onset of World War II, contains more than 40 pages of travel documents.

But the material will be particularly significant to the descendants of persecuted immigrants like Jews who fled Europe before World War II.

“For so many of us, this is all that exists,” said Rodger Rosenberg, whose great-grandparents escaped pogroms in Eastern Europe at the turn of the century. “So much was lost.”

The public demand for access to government records like these has been fueled by Web sites, including Ancestry.com and Footnote.com, that have made it easier for people to do research even if they have no formal genealogical background.

“Before, it was just microfilm, constantly microfilm, going through hours of microfilm,” said Adele Macher of Baltimore, who has been researching her family’s Italian roots for 17 years. Once started, the research becomes almost an addiction, Mrs. Macher said as she pored over a copy of her great-aunt’s Alien File, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

“This is like really putting a puzzle together,” she said, “and every piece that you find you want to find the next piece and the next piece and the next piece.”

Perhaps most exciting to researchers is that the files, which they will be able to see at the regional archives in San Bruno, Calif., and Kansas City, Mo., contain the original documents. Some include artifacts like wallets, 45-r.p.m. records and detailed maps that prospective immigrants drew by hand at the border to prove claims about where they came from.

“The bottom line is that you want as many original documents as possible,” said Schelly Talalay Dardashti, who writes Tracing the Tribe, a Jewish genealogy blog. “Each time something is written down, there is a chance of something getting screwed up. Each time a document is transcribed, mistakes will be made.”

Still, for many among a generation of immigrants who dodged the Chinese Exclusion Act by inventing their heritage or spinning elaborate tales of lost documentation, the accessibility is alarming. The exclusion act was repealed in 1943, but fears of deportation ran rampant in the 1950s, when, in the wake of the Chinese Revolution, McCarthyism tore Chinese immigrant families and communities apart.

Scarred by a period of what they recall as institutionalized racism, many aging immigrants refuse to discuss the Alien Files. They are afraid, they say, that lies told by young immigrants so many years ago and recorded in the files then could result in deportation now.

But officials of the Homeland Security Department say the files will be used for historical purposes, not law enforcement. Further, records will not be released until the immigrant in question has died or turned 100, and the names of the living will be redacted.

The files and immigration agents “have always been seen as the enemy,” said Jennie Lew, spokeswoman for a coalition that pushed for the new agreement. “We’re trying to make this the silver lining of years of discrimination.”