People of Color and activists are bothersome. It would be easier for the mainstream if they did not exist, if they did not have to know of the load we carry.

People of color or any version of "the other," when they have injustice aimed at them, which unfortunately is not that infrequently, tend to speak out. Each "other" is not "other" alone. The battle of one is the battle of all. So if farm workers' babies are still dying from pesticides being sprayed in the fields or if both the poor and gay men are dying of AIDS because no one has enough of a vested interest to further AIDS research, it's the same battle. And we have to know that. If one dies, we all die. We have to carry each other's loads. We can't be pleased with what we have unless we're willing for everyone to have the same things. The more people willing to carry each other's loads, the more we equal things out.

Kathy Vargas, A Working Artists Space, San Antonio

Collecting institutions are faced with a difficult challenge in identifying objects or archives "worthy" of preserving. At the Japanese American National Museum, we have actively acquired objects, photographs, works of art, and papers that the community once thought were unimportant or disposable. Now those very same objects are a source of vital information.

For instance, family photographs from the 1930s yield much critical information about the existence and experience of pre-World War II Japanese America. In another case, works of art by a "crazy" uncle who never made money from his art were saved by one member of his family. This body of work revealed an accomplished and complex painter; now fifty years after he made the art, it looks remarkably fresh and exciting. In the present, we can never fully anticipate the significance of an object or archive for the future. Therefore, at the Japanese American National Museum, we collect broadly and deeply.

Karin Higa, Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles

During the past 18 months I've been scouring various archives around the country, in search of evidence from which I hope to construct a play about the lives of lesbian and gay people in the 20s & 30s. My research has taken me to archives at Stanford University, Harvard Medical School, Radcliffe College, the New York Medical Academy, the New York Public Library, and not coincidentally, the Kinsey Institute in Bloomington, Indiana. At Kinsey, I discovered an enormous photo collection by one of the participants in the study, accompanied by an extensive diary, that documented the sexual affairs of a middle aged, white gay male civil servant (and his friends) in New York City over a fifty year period. This collection contains a double record: this amateur photographer's images of sexual partners illustrate an object choice that shifts with the decades; collegiate Blondes in the 30s, Blacks in the 40s, Latinos in the 50s & 60s. So this collection presents evidence of the amateur photographer himself as an object of study, as well as providing visual documentation of pre-Stonewall Black & Latino gay male subcultures, as well as raising a number of questions. Do the images capture the hidden histories of a multi-cultural New York City gay life or a history of power relations between diverse groups of gay men? Are they a peek into a personal fetish, or a window into rarely seen queer communities of color, or both at the same time?

Brian Freeman, Artist, San Francisco

In our communities, we often see plaques saying "So and So Lived Here." These are often artists. Artists add value to a community just by being there. 106th Street is now the Arts District of East Harlem. Artists in general add value, pride and a model of aspiration. Particularly in economically stressed communities, arts buildings anchor communities. The murals on 104th Street have been preserved as historically important.

AIDS has strangely offered us opportunities. Such as being memorialized

New York City Councilman Philip Reed

Ethnically focused organizations are forced to house excellence, aspirations and history.

Kinshasha Holman Conwill, Arts Consultant, New York City

Artists in Cleveland are geographically challenged. Not because Cleveland isn’t a good art townCleveland boasts several significant art museums and one of the best art schools in the country. But the perception is that one has to go to New York to buy the latest and greatest art, that the artists who are big in New York are somehow more talented than artists in Cleveland. Even though this is questionable, the dearth of patrons means the number of galleries and venues to show work in Cleveland is far behind the number of talented artists who live in the area. It also means that artists have to leave their hometown to get their work seen. This is what geographically challenged artists have in common with artists with AIDS; they do not have the energy and resources available to them that are necessary for their work to reach the public, much less endure.

Crystal Polis, Artists Archive of the Western Reserve, Cleveland