Celebrating Asian American Neighborhood History for California Archives Month: Collections Highlights from the Presidio Research Center

This October, we are celebrating California Archives Month and SBTHP's 17th annual Asian American Neighborhood Festival by highlighting collections created by and/or about Asian American communities.  

As the archival and research library unit of the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation (SBTHP), the Presidio Research Center was established in 1986 to steward the research and documentary universe of the work of SBTHP. Over the last 40 years, the PRC has continued this work of collecting materials related to the following areas: 

• Materials related to the communities and structures within the Presidio footprint throughout time; 

• Materials related to historic preservation in Santa Barbara City and County; 

• Materials created by SBTHP in the course of our work 

In this post, we will highlight several collections focused on Santa Barbara's Asian American communities and organizations. 

Fuentes Family Collection 

A selection of event FCA event programs from 1939-1982. Photo by Dez Alaniz

A typed history of the Filipino Community in Santa Barbara written by Jose P. Fuentes. Photo by Dez Alaniz

This collection includes correspondence, newspaper articles, photos and materials related to the Fuentes family and the role of José Fuentes in establishing the Santa Barbara Filipino Community Association (FCA). The FCA was established by a small group of Filipino immigrants in the 1950s as a social club, eventually purchasing the building at 425 State Street that still serves as the organization’s headquarters.  The materials in this collection include family photos as well as organizational records for the FCA such as banquet programs and meeting minutes that document the early work of the FCA.  The FCA is still active in Santa Barbara (you can sign up for their mailing list here) and you can stop by their table at the Asian American Neighborhood Festival this Sunday. 

Xiaojian Zhao Research Papers 

This collection was assembled throughout the career of retired UCSB professor, Dr. Xiaojian Zhao and contains materials related to Chinese and Chinese-American communities in Santa Barbara and California in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Building on a rich career that involved research, teaching, and exhibit curation,  this collection includes research materials and notes, as well as copies of legal documents and immigration records. Taken as a whole, this collection contains a mix of secondary materials and original research documenting the contributions and experiences of Santa Barbara’s Chinese-American communities in the 1900s. 

Jimmy’s Oriental Gardens Collection  

 This handwritten menu (translated from English) was taped in the Jimmy's Oriental Gardens kitchen across from the cooking range for the reference of chefs. This and many other items were added to this collection when the restaurant closed in 2007. Photo by Dez Alaniz

A selection of postcards sent to Jimmy's staff from long-time patrons. Over four dozen postcards were archived from display in Jimmy's in 2007. Photo by Dez Alaniz

This collection consists of materials related to the business operations of Jimmy’s Oriental Gardens, primarily during the period of 1941-1946 when owner James Chung moved the business from Cabrillo Street to the 100 block of Canon Perdido Street, where the family would continue to operate the restaurant until 2007. Materials like supply order invoices and business licenses may not sound like exciting reading, however researchers can use these types of items to better understand where different supplies were ordered from, how restaurant menus changed over time, and even what kinds of permits and licenses were required to operate in the early and mid 1940s. 

Oral Histories 

A selection of the cassette tapes containing oral history interviews with community members from the Walter Douglas Collection. Photo by Celina Garcia

The Presidio Research Center holds over 75 unique oral history interviews, conducted between the 1980s to the present with, longtime SBTHP volunteers and members, and community members throughout Santa Barbara. These interviews are organized into several different collections, including the Walter Douglas Collection (MS-15), institutional oral histories (OH-02), and the Filipino Community Oral Histories Collection (OH-06) to name a few. The latter collection, initiated in 2022, formed the basis of the original exhibit Manongs on the Central Coast: Forming Communities Across Generations which debuted at Casa de la Guerra in 2024. Additional interviews in the collections include oral histories with members of the Chung family, and interviews recorded as part of a documentary project about Japanese-Americans in Santa Barbara (OH-03).  

The collections mentioned in this brief post are a small sliver of the treasures maintained by the Presidio Research Center. Whatever your research interests may be, you can always review our catalogs of reference materials and archival collections online, and request an appointment to view materials on-site.