In September 2025, Harriet Hellman contacted the Music Library to inquire about donating old sheet music that had been passed down through the family of her late husband, Samuel. In Harriet’s telling he had wanted to send it to �춹��Ƶ because he had apparently read a story a decade or so ago in the New York Times about donating to the QC library (Note: I cannot find evidence of such an article). Normally the Music Library doesn’t accept sheet music donations, but Harriet was sure that these materials might be of historical interest, as the pieces were all about a century old and still in decent shape for research. In October, I scheduled a trip out to Southampton to view the materials at Harriet’s community medical practice, though did not get to meet her, as she was had to go upstate at the time. I assessed the materials and, though a small portion was in irreparably poor shape, ended up taking the vast majority of the items back to the Music Library.

Items from the Hellman Collection

When I was finally able to inventory the items and take a longer look at what we had acquired, it became clear that Harriet was right. The pieces covered a span from the 1890s through the 1940s, with many published just before WWI. These were largely piano and vocal tunes that, though relatively obscure today, were popular when the sheets were published: late-period ragtime and cakewalk, Tin Pan Alley hits, vaudeville numbers, and patriotic war jingles. While cataloging and accessioning these items, I found that for some of these items we may be the only institution that holds a cataloged copy of a particular score edition. Often the same piano/vocal score would be published with alternate covers featuring different performers known for renditions of the respective tune, as well as advertisements for other songs in the publishers’ respective catalogs.

Something I must note is that this collection contains a significant amount of racist material, including photos, cartoons, and song lyrics. American popular culture is replete with racism, among other forms of offense and structural oppression, and it would be ahistorical to obscure this aspect of the collection or to have rejected the materials because of what they contain and how that may reflect back on us now. For example, pre-jazz forms developed and nurtured by Black artists, such as the rag, were turned on their head in the hands of white songwriters churning out content for an expanding white audience. Paradoxically, then, this collection may be of interest both for how it reflects popular musical tastes of the time, as well as how these songs were presented and disseminated to the purchasing public in the era before sound recordings became widespread consumer commodities. Eventually, we would like to digitize this collection to make it more accessible and preserve the more fragile items within it. For now, the Hellman Sheet Music is housed in the Music Library’s Rare Materials Collection and anyone interested in exploring should contact us: musiclibrary@qc.cuny.edu

By: Annie Tummino, Head of Special Collections & Archives

Thanks to generous funding from the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO), 295 public domain items from the James J. Periconi Collection of Italian-language American imprints are . Housed in the Rosenthal Library’s Special Collections and Archives, the collection offers insight into what Italian immigrants to the United States were reading, writing, and thinking about at the end of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, as they fled poverty, social turmoil, and natural disasters in their home country. For some of these items, �춹��Ƶ holds the only copy listed in WorldCat, a global catalog of library material. The collection is composed primarily of books, periodicals, and pamphlets, though there are also musical scores, posters, and circulars. Political tracts run the gamut from anarchist and socialist to anti and pro-fascist. Overall, the collection provides a broad and representative sample of a once thriving Italian-language publishing industry that flourished in the United States.

We hope you enjoy ! For more information, email qc.archives@qc.cuny.edu.

Item from the collection: Il Proletario [The Worker]. Chicago: Industrial Workers of the World, 1923-1924.

By: HebatAllah Basala, �춹��Ƶ Undergraduate Student

My archival research began with a question that was deeply personal to me. In a previous senior seminar course, I conducted archival research on Edwards Said and his significance in shaping modern Arab intellectual and cultural identity. As an Arab student, that project made me more aware of questions surrounding representation, historical memory, and whose voices are represented in institutional spaces. Entering the Queen’s College Archives, I wanted to explore a related question closer to home: If Arab students and other underrepresented communities have long been present on campus, how have they been represented or omitted within the history of �춹��Ƶ itself? More specifically, I wanted to trace how demographic shifts at �춹��Ƶ influenced campus culture, curriculum, and institutional priorities over time.

1941 white student organizations

Over the course of approximately 10 hours of research conducted in the �춹��Ƶ Archives, I examined , , Phoenix , , student handbooks, and administrative records spanning from the 1940s through the 1980s. Working directly with original archive materials gave the research a uniquely immersive quality. Personally, the tactile nature of the research made the past feel alive and present in the moment. This was my favorite part of my research in the archives, as I felt privileged enough to be able to handle these delicate documents that provide such important insights and are a representation of previous students who attended this college.

1968 Demands

One of the most significant discoveries was the dramatic demographic and political transformation visible through the decades. The 1941 yearbook portrayed an overwhelmingly white student body, faculty, administration, and campus leadership. By contrast, materials from the 1970s and 1980s; revealed a campus in transition, one that is shaped by the implementation of open admissions across CUNY, the activism of SEEK students, and the growing presence of Black, Puerto Rican, Caribbean, and immigrant student organizations. Student newspapers documented protests against apartheid, debates over Israel and Jewish identity, activism surrounding affirmative action, and increasing demands for institutional representation in faculty. These records showed that changing demographics did not only diversify the campus numerically, but they also fundamentally altered the political and intellectual life of �춹��Ƶ.

Seek memo and critique of admin

However, perhaps the most meaningful realization of my research was not what I found in the archives, but what appeared absent from them. As I continued my work, I began questioning the archives itself. Although archives are often treated as neutral factual documents of history, I came to understand that they are curated spaces. Someone decides what is preserved, what is categorized as historically valuable, and what is ultimately excluded. This realization especially was appearant as I examined archival materials such as the 1968 student demands document and the Campus Views section of the Phoenix student newspaper, both of which highlighted how student perspectives were document and preserved within the institutional record. In this way, archival research, began to feel surprisingly similar to present day social media, where both our systems of selective preservation and visibility that shape public narratives through what they choose to amplify and display to the general public.

This realization transformed my project. What began as an investigation into demographic and curricular change became a broader reflection on historical memory and narrative construction. I left the archives not with a definite conclusion, but with more questions than when I entered: Which communities remain underrepresented in institutional memory? Which voices had been omitted from Queen’s College historical narrative? And what responsibilities do researchers have in identifying those silences?

Diverse Commencement

Fortunately, this project has made me want to continue researching beyond the scope of this course. The archive did not simply provide answers. On the contrary, it revealed the politics behind who and what gets remembered, and who does not.

By: Tyler Rivera, �춹��Ƶ Undergraduate Student

My decision to research WWII-era Queens in the �춹��Ƶ Special Collections and Archives was due to both the ingrained cultural mythos surrounding the time and my volunteer experience with the Elmhurst History and Cemeteries Preservation Society. Having used the finding aids to request texts, I spent 14 hours sitting in the archival office. The research naturally fell into searching through the , the , and the “In Their Shoes” Oral History by the with their shared focus of the late 1930s and 1940s. Their shared connection of the war hid a variety of perspectives I am happy to have read.

Dr. Shaftel

Touching genuine, albeit delicate artifacts demystifies history which in this case were sketches, ship newsletters, digitized newspapers, mail and transcriptions, allowing for a sense of tangible humanity that classes and secondary reading materials always lack. My exposure to the period is reduced to mostly books and films, and the generation that saw it has left us. In this way they still speak, and to hear them all I needed to do was follow the Archive’s handling protocol and gently coax 80-year-old paper. In the WWII Collection’s artwork of R.W. Hill (obscure; he was at least a military serviceman) you can see the pressure of the pencil in his political cartoons, plane sketches, and figures (presumably of friends). His drawings show his personal priorities: that of victory, service, and home. I enclose the drawing, “The Miner’s Dream of Home” to support that assumption, which shows a reclined soldier pining for his girlfriend. I can only imagine Mr. Hill identifying himself with his sketched figure whilst stationed abroad. Occurrences of Oscar H. Shaftel exceed his collection in the Archives. He is called both a ‘Doctor’ and ‘Corporal’ in The Crown Newspaper and both ‘Soldier’ and ‘Private’ in his letters. A person by the name of Emmanuel Peabody Halpern (‘IO’) called him “Oskie”. I was able to find quotes from Dr. Shaftel within the newspaper, keeping me from speaking of him apophatically, which was something I was afraid of due to a lack of his own writing in his collection. An article titled “Revenge as War Aim Not Adequate, Corp. Shaftel Says” records him imploring the student body to seek not revenge but rather intellectual and communal preservation. A digital clipping of this attestation is included in this post.

Miner’s Dream of Home

The most touching of the “In Their Shoes” Oral History entries, which collates the written testimony of the Asian American community during the war, is the transcript of Larry Kern. He details how his American father and Japanese mother met, fell in love, and surmounted obstacles that tried to counter that love. The most captivating fact is the assertion that Mr. Kern’s father successfully petitioned Eleanor Roosevelt and, consequently, members of Congress into passing the McCarran-Walters Act, legalizing their union.

In combining every account, there is a consistent plea for persistence amid strife and a calling for rationalism over emotionalism. Like our predecessors, we may be greatly scandalized by the many geopolitical issues that have captured our campus, but we cannot forget the fellowship in being �춹��Ƶ students.

By: Q. Joan Xu, Data Services and Business Librarian

In May 2026, we celebrate Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month in honor of AANHPI communities’ contributions to American society.

We commemorate two key milestones in the history of Asian Americans. May 7, 1843, marked the arrival of the nation’s first Japanese immigrants. On May 10, 1869, the transcontinental railroad’s completion marked the pivotal role of Chinese workers in its construction. Since then, Asian Americans have continued to contribute to American society through their diligent work, rich cultures, and significant achievements.

According to the , in 2024, the estimated number of Asian alone-or-in-combination residents in the United States was 26.8 million, and 57.7% of those aged 25 and older had a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Image credit: .

The chart shows the U.S. employer and nonemployer businesses and receipts by AANHPI.

In �춹��Ƶ Library, we select featured library collections and open resources to celebrate the AANHPI Heritage Month. Our ���ܾ����’s page features selected resources that highlight AANHPI communities’ experiences, cultures, and achievements.

New York: Random House, 2022
2023 Newbery Honor Book 
“Eleven-year-old Maizy Chen visits her estranged grandparents, who own and run a Chinese restaurant in Last Chance, Minnesota. As her visit lengthens, she makes unexpected discoveries about her family’s history and herself.”

New York: Nancy Paulsen Books, 2024
“There are so many ways to say ‘I love you’ without saying a word! One little girl sees the love in her family in the way they nurture one another through stories, food, and time together. With great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, and siblings around, there are so many ways for love to shine through.”

The exhibition “explores the overlooked history of a trailblazing Filipino community in California from the 1910s to the 1970s through twenty-six steamer trunks found in 2005, three of which are on display in the gallery…Featuring over fifty artifacts from the trunks, along with objects loaned from the Filipino American community in Stockton, this exhibition helps us remember the people whose labor contributed to the growth of California’s agricultural industry and paved the way for future generations of Filipino immigrants.”

: “The National Archives holds a wealth of material documenting the Asian and Pacific Islander experience, and it highlights these resources online, in programs, and through traditional and social media.”

“Astronaut Ellison Onizuka’s first space shuttle flight was on Discovery in January 1985. A year later, on January 28, 1986, he was aboard Challenger when it exploded shortly after liftoff, killing all aboard. .”

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings – & : “The Asian Pacific America Series is a musical exploration of multiple generations of diverse experiences. The series includes a broad range of styles, from traditional to popular, highlighting how music connects people to shared senses of history, community, and place. Certain recordings in the series reach toward the formation of a pan-Asian American political identity, while others reflect interethnic experiments in jazz, expressions of faith, contemporary songcraft, and beyond. “