Records of the A/P/A Voices: A COVID-19 Public Memory Project
Call Number
Date
Creator
Extent
Extent
Language of Materials
Abstract
The A/P/A Voices: A COVID-19 Public Memory Project is a documentation project focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically the ways the pandemic impacted Asian/Pacific/American (A/P/A) communities in New York City and nationally. The core principles guiding the project include intersectionality and cross-racial solidarity with other communities of color who suffer the effects of structural racism and state violence. The Records of the A/P/A Voices: A COVID-19 Public Memory Project (dated 2019-2024) consists of materials created and collected by the A/P/A Institute at New York University, in collaboration with Tomie Arai, Lena Sze, Vivian Truong, and Diane Wong. Materials include oral history interviews, zines, poetry, fliers, brochures, photographs, and short videos. The collection also includes a copy of Bittersweet: A Pandemic Sketchbook, a comic by Nuyên Khôi Nguyễn, and ephemera documenting the activities of Khmer Girls in Action (KGA).
Historical Note
The A/P/A Voices: A COVID-19 Public Memory Project is a documentation project focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically the ways the pandemic impacted Asian/Pacific/American (A/P/A) communities in New York City and nationally. The project was developed by the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University, in collaboration with Tomie Arai, Lena Sze, Vivian Truong, and Diane Wong. The project's goal was to account for a gap in documentation about the experiences of A/P/A communities in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a historical pattern where the experiences of A/P/A individuals and communities were often un- or under-documented. The core principles guiding the project include intersectionality and cross-racial solidarity with other communities of color who suffer the effects of structural racism and state violence. The killings of George Floyd, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and many other Black people by police, and subsequent protests in response to these events, were significant and an explicit context of the project.
Arrangement
The collection is arranged into a single file listing in alphabetical order by name or organization.
Scope and Contents
The Records of the A/P/A Voices: A COVID-19 Public Memory Project (dated 2019-2024) consists of materials created and collected by the A/P/A Institute at New York University, in collaboration with Tomie Arai, Lena Sze, Vivian Truong, and Diane Wong. The interviews and supplementary materials found in the collection document the experiences of Asian/Pacific/American (A/P/A) community members as subjects of their own stories and offer opportunities for parallels and possibilities for solidarity across communities. Other subject areas include the increased anti-Asian violence and xenophobia of the pandemic, and the ways COVID-19 disproportionately impacted Pacific Islander communities, as well as Asian immigrant services and healthcare workers. The presence of materials connecting growing anti-Asian fears during the COVID-19 pandemic to the Black Lives Matter movement also highlights the ways racial discrimination united these communities.
Materials in the collection include oral history interviews and transcripts; artistic works, zines, and poetry; fliers and brochures; and photographs and short videos. Not all oral histories are accompanied by digital ephemera and not all ephemera relates to a particular interview.
The collection also contains physical materials including a copy of Bittersweet: A Pandemic Sketchbook (a comic) by Nuyên Khôi Nguyễn, and ephemera documenting the activities of Khmer Girls in Action (KGA).
When available, biographical information about project participants has been included in the inventory. A brief description of what each participant contributed to the project has also been noted in the inventory, when information is available.
Subjects
Organizations
Conditions Governing Access
Access varies across the collection for the oral history interviews and the conditions governing access to those materials are documented at the level of the individual narrators. Other non-oral history interview materials are open without restrictions.
Conditions Governing Use
The materials in this collection are protected by copyright and/or related rights, which are held by individual donors. You are free to use materials in the collection in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date; Records of the A/P/A Voices A COVID-19 Public Memory Project; TAM 837; box number; folder number or item identifier; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated by the Asian/Pacific/American Institute in May 2024; the accession number associated with this gift is 2024.035. Physical materials were donated by Khmer Girls in Action and Nuyên Khôi Nguyễn to A/P/A Voices coordinators and transferred to Tamiment in August 2024; the accession numbers associated with these gifts are 2025.008 and 2025.009, respectively.
Born-Digital Access Policies and Procedures
An access terminal for born-digital materials in the collection is available by appointment for reading room viewing and listening only. Researchers may view an item's original container and/or carrier, but the physical carriers themselves are not available for use because of preservation concerns.
About this Guide
Processing Information
At the time of accessioning, directories for collection material (oral history interviews, supplementary digital ephemera, interview transcripts, and field notes) were copied from their temporary donation directory to a digital workspace dedicated to accessioning and processing. Materials were described on the collection-level. Physical materials were rehoused in archival folders and a box; incorporated into the collection-level description; and inventoried on the folder-level.
New York University Libraries follow professional standards and best practices when imaging, ingesting, and processing born-digital material in order to maintain the integrity and authenticity of the content. Born-digital files were transferred to NYU and placed in the preservation repository. Born-digital files were forensically imaged, analyzed, and arranged using Forensic Toolkit; and the electronic records were intellectually incorporated into the finding aid.
The collection was processed and described by an archivist in March 2025. Paper materials were kept in their archival folders and placed into a shared legal manuscript box. The collection, which is predominately digital, was then arranged into a single file listing in alphabetical order by name and organization. Due to the collaborative nature of this project and diverse range of participants, when available, biographical information and descriptions about each participant's donation was noted in the inventory.
