Welcome Letitia Lavoie – Spring 2016 Intern

We’re excited to have Letitia Lavoie as our Spring 2016 Intern! Letitia will be working mainly with the CLEAR (Center for Labor Education & Research) Collection – helping to perform quality control checks on recently digitized footage and then assisting with the cataloging of these videos. She will be periodically sharing about her research and experiences here at the archive in future blog posts, so stay tuned for those! We asked her to kick off her blog writing with a brief introduction, please take a look below…

Letitia Lavoie, ‘Ulu’ulu Intern

As a student here at UHWO, I spend countless hours in the Library doing homework and, before starting my senior practicum here, I could only imagine what it would be like to be a part of something so great that future generations will have a chance to see real footage of the past instead of only reading about it. It is like going back in time and being there but most of all it is capturing the emotions and the energy that keeps you wanting to know more and see more. I am truly blessed to become one of the newest members in helping to preserve Hawai‘i’s moving image history.  The ‘Ulu‘ulu: The Henry Ku‘ualoha Giugni Moving Image Archive of Hawai‘i has one of the most dedicated teams of professional people that I get to work with. In my first week, the staff here has made me feel welcomed as if I have been here forever.

I am a senior with plans to graduate in May of 2016 as a Social Science Major with a concentration in Sociology and a Certificate in Democratic Principles and Social Justice, which brings me to the Archive. Along with working with the staff, I will be researching Hawai‘i’s Sugar Strike in the “Rice and Roses” collection which has been recently digitized. I am excited to learn about and watch footage on Hawai‘i’s labor strikes that will allow me to have a glimpse of history and also examine the differences and similarities pertaining to the plantation workers’ demands.

What I hope to gain is a richer knowledge from the training that I will be getting. I wish to spread the news to other students about how they can access help for their research papers by filling out a request form and then working with Shavonn, the Reference Archivist, to find the videos and resources they might need.