azalea camacho

I have been in my field for over 20 years, and I currently serve as the Head of Special Collections and Archives at California State University, Los Angeles, where I have worked for about 12 years. My journey in this field began somewhat unexpectedly. I was originally a communications major for my undergrad, thinking I would go into that field, but right after I graduated, I got a job at UCLA in their Southern Regional Library facility digitizing materials. It was my first experience working in a library, and I started to learn more about the field and discovered there was another route beyond being a librarian, which was archival studies. I was able to tie this into my communications background and my desire to be a journalist because I wanted to tell stories, and archives tell stories of people that no longer exist or communities that are often forgotten or not written about. I was always interested in history, art history, museums, and this was a way to combine my interest in uncovering and telling stories with my interest in art and museum work in one interdisciplinary field. When I first came into this work, I wanted to work with old, interesting collections, rare books, and unique materials and preserve them, but when I started to work at Cal State LA is when I found the true purpose of my work, which was the impact I could have on students, especially first-generation students, which was my experience too since I went to the CSU system. The students inspired me to create the Student Archivist program, which I started in 2015, and I think that is one of my greatest accomplishments because it has really informed the way that I approach my work and brought purpose to what I do. I thought this was something you do on your own, but through my different positions, I have been able to bring awareness to the profession, and there is interest in students to learn more, and I am able to mentor them, which is something I did not have. I did not know what the pathway was or what that looked like for me. These spaces can be very intimidating to students or the community in general, so my goal is to demystify it and make it more attainable as a potential career field and as a space where people can do research in these collections, not just scholars, but for everybody.