Research Library

It wasn't like I imagined. It was a little weird.

And so I set off!

Yesterday I finally went to the research library, Lauren, my librarian friend in Pasadena (Maryland), recommended I go too. I have some specific questions about the area in the early 50s and before, plus I want to know about any stories of Roma in Jessup in the 1920s and earlier. Or Roma in Anne Arundel County at all.

My new writing-meeting partner Desiree can’t wait to hear my results. It’s to help me with a story I am working on. About “the woman in the river”. I am currently SO
OBSESSED with my family stories and trying to embroider them into my own creative tale that I am writing, I don’t even want to talk about it. Like it’s too good and feels like sacred moth dust, or butterfly wings, not meant for too much handling, at this point and time. I’m in the early stages of story creation.

photo from Hanover Bridge link below

The Search

I’m been wanting to go to this library for a long time, I don’t know why I put it off. I finally went. The drive there felt fun, exciting, as I took a non highway route, straight through Baltimore city, from my house to Glen Burnie. Did you know you can do this? I went over Hanover Bridge into Brooklyn (Maryland) and thought damn, how these names keep repeating, like family names being named for each other over and over again. Hanover (Germany), my great grandmothers birth place. And Brooklyn (New York), my father’s.

However I found the research weird. Exhausting. A good introduction! Overwhelming.

Maybe I have watched too many movies. I expected to be spirit led right up to a file, and open it, and wala! - my story revealed.

However, even with the volunteer librarian’s help we could find no stories of Roma, at all, in Anne Arundel County. She did help me with research categories like “ethnic” - the other groups of farm pickers, besides of course the Polish, which has been more documented, and African American and White folks. I know there was many more different groups around my mother’s farm.

And most hilarious of all, she recommended me to someone who knew alot of information about the area. I said “Is it X X” (My Aunt). Yes! I laughed. Of course, it was. My family is the best source of information of my own family history. I’m blessed with that. But I wanted to see more, what’s out there.

I’m a good reader. And I know how to skim too, looking straight down the page, taking in things. I went over a few files of information. A preliminary sketch. Scanned a few books. Have read the ones written on Pasadena already.

But there was something about - I don’t know - an aspect of genology I’ve never liked, and a part of the library, I’ve always found confusing and overwhelming as a child. My best friend got boys to help us the day we had an assignment on locating things in the library. It feels too much like grammar and math. (Subjects I’m not good at). Is it an emotional overwhelm? Is it still, a kind of gate keeping of information? Although I expect to dig deeper here. Does it have to do with how I was a 7th grade drop out of school (although I did go to a bit of college at 15 and then again at 30), the way I used to feel uncomfortable on college campuses, that’s changed now. With experience on campus’s with my books, and activism, I no longer feel uncomfortable there. But is this a remnant? What is this?

Weird Conversation

At the end of my research, photos taken, things to look at, springing off topics and into new topics, the fun way research can go. And being pleased with being in a physical space for it. The conversation went weird.

Another person doing genealogy research there, I, and the librarian got talking. (She seemed to want to connect researchers to each other). My comrade in research, sparkly eyed and obsessed: asked me if I had used A.I. ?

I had a honest conversation with them how I don’t like A.I. and my fears for it. It’s nice to be in person to talk with strangers. But the (very helpful and friendly) librarian herself, was so pro A.I. I said “YOU, the volunteer librarian of the old research library, I do not expect this from you.” And the conversation was polite and civil. But dear readers, the world is going to hell in a hand basket.

There was no information at all in the library about Roma. I think that information is in the Baltimore libraries. And this is just the start of my research.

There’s a lot of pain in Archives

I’ve learned it’s not romantic, it is exhausting, and you do need to know how to look for what you are looking for. That its a lot of work. And I don’t want to get too lost in this kind of thing. But I do want to keep looking.

However a story I read in the old newspaper there, about an institutionalized special needs young man being abused is haunting me. It was a super upsetting detailed sad story. That they could write of his abuse for a year but not one helped him? I think the archives include a lot of pain. And a lot of proper words from the top word-sters. Maybe this is the part that feels not for me, somehow. Or maybe it’s my sensitivity being overwhelmed in papers. It’s an exhausting place and not a place you can be unskilled in or find things without effort. I say it again: It’s not a movie. (I guess I had this whole romantic movie in my head. And everyone I told my tale did had as well.)

Gather Your Stories

But the positive thing I learned, besides how little can be written of what you really want to know, is that there has always been these people making a difference: these people just like you and I and many others: “ordinary people” who care, who are interested, who gather up stories. School teachers who give their children assignments. People who go out and gather up as many stories as possible on a topic, and self publish it into a pamphlet. I saw that when I was working at the Book Thing too.

If you work at it, and look for stories and ask everyone you can think of to ask, and edit up a collection, you will be able to publish something no one else has. Because life is full of stories! But actually so much less than you think is published. It is up to us, and good on US, for trying to pursue information and the tales of people, the primary sources, as my friend Noemi Martinez/Hermana Resist once taught me, just like zinesters.

The world we have known is disappearing. And there will always be people who care, as long as there are people, about the stories of things behind other things. So be encouraged to write and share your tale, sub stackers.

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Mystery

Well thats what I think. that was my impression of my weird day. And maybe it’s just the county. It’s a little weird out there. Maybe there’s something sweet in Baltimore research libraries I need to find next. Or maybe its just the part of me that is not formally educated that has a hard time in librarians, while at the same time LOVING THEM, (its a weird feeling, I can’t explain.) I’ve always had a hard time with formal research. I never can seem to find what I’m looking for. But what I seek usually is the things very much less talked about and known.

There’s also a part of me that’s concerned if the research is a way of slacking off the writing. I do feel it could be a danger.

Well thats my report, if anyone cares. And I do need I need to stick with this a bit! The mystery of “the woman in the water” may never be revealed. Or not until the end of my book writing. And I did enjoy thumbing through real old newspaper and mimeographed hand written pages. But next time I’m bringing a snack, and a drink. And know to brace myself some, for the work.