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Carlota,, 1978

 File — Box: 18, Folder: 1

Scope and Content

From the Collection: Margaret Randall's life and consequently, her writings, focus on themes of politics, social revolution, art, feminism, and lesbianism. Most of Randall's writings focus on Latin America and the United States. The years she spent in Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua figure prominently in her works. Randall uses mediums of photography, oral history, poetry, essay, translation, and narrative to bring her issues to light.

The Margaret Randall Papers are divided into eight series.

Immigration Case: This series contains legal documents, press, general support and correspondence relating to Randall's immigration case. The legal documents include case preparation materials, correspondence, transcripts, briefs, motions and memoranda. The press materials are arranged chronologically from 1985 to 1990 and include articles and editorials in newspapers and magazines from around the world, both in support of and against Randall. The general support materials include information on and advertisements for benefits and appearances relating to Randall's case, defense committee work and correspondence, donation lists, and other forms of organized support.

Correspondence: This series contains hand-written, typed, and e-mailed letters, cards, and postcards that Randall received from 240 people internationally. The correspondence, from friends, colleagues, editors/publishers, and fans is of a personal, political, and professional nature. The correspondence includes some letters written by Randall. The series also contains press clippings, writing drafts, and art that these people sent to Randall. The series is arranged alphabetically and ranges in date from 1962-2000.

Published Manuscripts: contains 17 of Randall's published books. These books are arranged alphabetically and they range in date from 1983 to 1997. This series includes a copy of the publication, book reviews, correspondence with publishers, edited page proofs, manuscript drafts, publicity, and miscellaneous documents for each publication. These works are separated from those in the publications series because they highlight the writing process from the early stages of conception through the delivery of the manuscript into publication.

The Publicity series contains posters, flyers, pamphlets, and press clippings. These materials publicize events including Randall's speaking engagements, booksignings, poetry readings, benefit performances, conferences, and her Cross Canada Tour. Furthermore, this series consists of materials that publicize Randall's books, photography, and teaching courses. The materials in this series are arranged by event and range in date from 1963-1994.

Publications - Fiction: contains Randall's published works of fiction.

Publications - Non-Fiction: contains Randall's works of non-fiction, including photography and poetry, which includes Randall's poetry translations, from 1961-2000. Each of these genres makes up a sub-series of this series, and within each sub-series, Randall's works are arranged according to publication type including anthologies, her own books, and journals. This series contains significant runs of the journals, Revolución y Cultura (Cuba) and Ventana (Nicaragua). This series contains significant works not only of Randall, but also of her contemporaries. In the contents list, specific titles by Randall in journals and compilations are noted in parentheses following the publication title.

The Miscellaneous series contains biographical information, correspondence, interviews given by Randall, publicity, reviews of her work, and non-fiction and poetry publications not written by Randall, but deemed closely related to her work. The materials in this series date from 1956-1998.

The Oversize series contains published manuscripts, publicity, publications, and miscellaneous materials. These materials overlap the previous series and range in date from 1961-1999.

Finally, this collection contains one oversized folder. Its contents include an Elaine de Kooning portrait of Randall, a map of Nicaragua, and a publicity poster for the Break the Silence Mural Project.

The materials in this collection are in English, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Finnish, German, and Hebrew.

An addition to the collection was processed in October 2003. The addition contains 34 video tapes covering various aspects of Margaret Randall's life from the mid-1980's to 1998. The videos are organized into the following overlapping series: Biographical; Immigration Case; Poetry Readings; Women's Studies; and Miscellaneous.

The Biographical series contains a set of interviews with Margaret Randall about her life, along with a set of ten minute tapes of various clips and footage from the film, The Unapologetic Life of Margaret Randall.

Immigration Case includes interviews with Margaret Randall on various news shows; footage of receptions and fund-raisers for the court case; and interviews with various friends, colleagues, artists and writers who supported Randall's case.

The Poetry Reading series consists of video recordings of various poetry readings given by Randall and her colleagues for different occasions.

The Women's Studies series is divided into four subseries: United States, Cuba, Nicaragua, and CostaRica/Honduras, covering a variety of topics such as women's political activism, personal narratives and cross-cultural relationships among groups of women. The videos include footage of a women's trip to Cuba organized by Randall, the Women's Observer Mission to the Elections in Nicaragua; interviews leading to her book, When I Look in the Mirror and See You.

The Miscellaneous series contains two videos, one of a workshop on censorship given by Randall and the other chronicling a Puerto Rican cultural center.

Additional materials relating to Randall's immigration case were added to the collection in December 2004, A majority of the documents (correspondence and clippings) were added to existing folders. Additionally, folders 18 and 19 were added to Box 2.

Addition Collection: processed in 2020 basically parallels the original accession. Series include: clippings; correspondence; film script and interviews for Randall documentary; writings and materials tied to publications of books, journals and notes and essays for the New Mexico Mercury.

Dates

  • 1978

Language of Materials

From the Collection: English Spanish Dutch Italian German Finnish Hebrew.

Access Restrictions

The collection is open for research.

Box 29 has been microfilmed. Access is via microfilm (CSWR Mfilm MSS 663 Box 29).

16 boxes containing personal journals (unprocessed) restricted until 2035. Permission to view journals required from Margeret Randall. These boxes are stored in CSWR vault.

Extent

From the Collection: 32 boxes (23.85 cu. ft.) + 1 oversized folder

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