The Community Archival Collections and Heritage Exhibitions (CACHE) cluster is a GCRC Research Cluster headed by Dr. Henry Yu (ACRE) and Dr. Jennifer Douglas (UBC iSchool).
CACHE aims to make archiving practices more accessible, sustainable, and equitable– particularly for persistently marginalized communities, whose collections have been historically ignored and/or neglected by mainstream museums and archives. It is composed of memory keepers and institutions who are united through the shared goal of championing equitable and socially just community archival practices. As this work needs to be grounded on trust, accountability, and equitable collaboration, CACHE aims to intentionally build relationships between these different groups so that we can collectively innovate and diversify archival practice. CACHE members (i.e. Museums, archives, community organizations) have come together to write a Terms of Reference document to guide our work using these values.
CACHE upholds “for our communities, by our communities” as a guiding principle in the planning and operations of community engaged research. CACHE centres community members and organizations as key agents in knowledge preservation and activation of Community Archival Collections through Heritage Exhibitions to highlight (hi)stories that are significant to Asian Canadian communities.
The creation of CACHE responds to histories of knowledge extraction by academic institutions that have treated racialized communities as objects of intellectual fascination and domination rather than as producers and holders of knowledge in their own right.
Objectives
CACHE supports and advocates for existing Community Archival Collections to grow connected, engaged, equitable, collaborative, and sustainable partnerships across the Lower Mainland.
The task of sustaining and resourcing institutional, ongoing, and tangible commitments to preserve the records of historically, systemically, and persistently marginalized communities is key to the immediate and long term success of CACHE. It is equally important to form ethical and responsive relationships with community partners based on trust and accountability.
- Connect community members of institutional archives, community archival collections, and heritage exhibitions, across the Lower Mainland to collectively invest in shaping equitable archival systems.
- Articulate the need for diversity of archival practice in working with communities.
- Assess the community archiving and collections landscape and explore the role of CACHE within the context of our shared strategic priorities.
- Advocate for community archival collections to be reflected in institutional spaces.
- Outline the infrastructure for an operating model that supports the vision and purpose of a equity-focused and dispersed-framework of archival capacity in institutions and communities.
- Develop a high-level implementation roadmap that reflects key milestones, timelines, and resource requirements in creating an operating model/infrastructure.
- Activate community archival collections with heritage exhibitions situated across the Lower Mainland.
- Build a community of practice through events, publicly relevant programming and mentorship programs.
- Bring together community engaged approaches in museum and archival collecting.
Events
Past and upcoming CACHE events are listed below. Outside of the scheduled events, CACHE members also regularly meet every 2 months to discuss strategic priorities, emerging needs, and opportunities for collaboration.
2025
This workshop centred the voices, perspectives, and priorities of community organizations with collections to identify CACHE’s next steps.
This event was led by iSchool student Lily Liu to train volunteers from the Wongs’ Benevolent Association to care for the Wongs’ heritage collection, with special emphasis on the techniques needed to care for the 100+ year old manuscripts and records.
This workshop focussed on exploring the possibilities of developing a tangible tool to support community organizations on managing, preserving, and making informed decisions regarding their collections.
Led by Thami Jothilingam, this workshop shared important information on funding applications with an emphasis on breaking down the grant writing experience to make it more accessible for community organizations.
Hosted by CACHE and iSchool Masters of Archival Studies students Lily Liu and Philip Cheung in partnership with the Wongs’ Benevolent Association (WBA) of Canada, Jeffrey Wong and Aynsley Wong led community members on a behind-the-scenes tour of the WBA. This workshop described and introduced to the audience the collaboration between CACHE and the Wongs’ Benevolent Association while highlighting the value of supporting, preserving, and platforming community collections. Joined by numerous organizations and clan associations, this event served as a catalyst to further gather and grow our community.
2024
In October 2024 ACRE collaborated with the Museum of Vancouver and City of Vancouver to offer a day of tours. These tours had the goal of demystifying collections and archives, specifically for community members, students, and community archivist audiences. Further the programming helped to define, describe and introduce to the audience the distinction between museum collections and city archives. Organizations in attendance included Burnaby Village Museum, City of Vancouver, Chinatown Foundation, Chinatown Storytelling Centre, Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia, Chinese Canadian Military Museum, Hogan's Alley Society, Museum of Vancouver, Sun Yat Sen Garden Centre for Asian Canadian Research and Engagement Rare Books and Special Collections, Unity Centre Association for Black Cultures, Wong's Benevolent Association, hua foundation.
Approach and operating principles
CACHE’s approach to engagement includes ensuring that our principles and operations reflect the collective values of building mutual trust with members and the institutions members represent. In addition, the cluster reflects on the historically extractive practices inflicted on racialized communities by knowledge institutions and push for social and systemic change through the cluster’s work.
The following guiding principles shape the work of CACHE:
1. Strengthen relationships between mainstream archival institutions, community archival
collections, and community creators.
2. Support community members to collect, preserve, and care for their own family and community
belongings and collect.
- Build capacity for culturally sensitive care of community materials in mainstream archival
institutions.
3. Help existing institutional archives to evaluate collections of historically marginalized communities, and identify those that should be preserved institutionally as significant to our collective heritage in British Columbia and Canada.
4. Advocate in solidarity with community archival collections to:
- Support the development of relationships, infrastructures, resources, and policies to build a community of practice.
- Support community-engaged curation and participation in temporary/rotating exhibitions.
Administrative support
The individuals and organizations below have collaborated to develop and articulate the values, goals, and operating principles of CACHE.
Community partners
- Aynsley Wong, Director, Wong's Benevolent Association
- Jeffrey Wong, Vice President, Wong's Benevolent Association
- Catherine Clement, Independent Curator
- Viviane Gosselin, Director of Collections and Exhibitions, Museum of Vancouver
- Denise Fong, Curator of Urban Cultures, Museum of Vancouver
- Heather Gordon, City Archivist, City of Vancouver
- June Chow, Independent Archivist
- Melissa Lee, CEO, Chinese Canadian Museum
- Sharanjit Kaur Sandhra, Independent Public Historian
UBC affiliates
- Dr. Henry Yu, Co-Director, UBC Centre for Asian Canadian Research and Engagement
- Dr. JP Catungal, Co-Director, UBC Centre for Asian Canadian Research and Engagement
- Jennifer Lu, Community Engagement Manager, UBC Centre for Asian Canadian Research and Engagement
- Joanna Yang, Program Development Manager, UBC Centre for Asian Canadian Research and Engagement
- Shirley Ting, Administrative Coordinator, UBC Centre for Asian Canadian Research and Engagement
- Dr. Laura Ishiguro, Director, UBC Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies
- Szu Shen, Program Manager, UBC Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies
- Dr. Jennifer Douglas, Associate Professor, UBC School of Information
- Shirin Eshghi Furuzawa, Head, UBA Asian Studies Library
- Clare Malek, Archivist, UBC Rare Books and Special Collections
- Krisztina Laszlo, Archivist, UBC Rare Books and Special Collections