Monthly Archives: November 2021

My Life Story: 1991

Things to know up front:

You can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. Click the back arrow key to return to the post.

Every chapter in My Life Story includes information about me, my work, my family and my friends. It also includes information about events that took place locally and nationally, etc. that I thought important enough to include. You’ll also find that I’ve included films, musicians and recordings/videos, in addition to books that were released in a given year.

While I have included many personal photos, most of the graphic content included below is borrowed from the Internet. I do not claim to own this material. I am just adding it for educational purposes. If the owners of any of the content in the “My Life Story” series want their stuff removed, I am happy to oblige. My email address is jrdiaz@arizona.edu. Thanks!

1991 was an interesting year. I started out the year alone as Brent and I had just split up the previous month. Getting through the holidays was difficult. On the bright side, however, I was promoted to Associate Librarian, effective January 1, 1991, and I got to create another Martin Luther King, Jr. exhibit. I also got to travel to Chicago again for yet another  ALA conference. This time I took the train. It sure was an interesting ride, with lots of scenery along the way, some of it not so pretty, in all honesty. The last leg of the trip was through Gary, Indiana and south Chicago, and it all looked like one big industrial wasteland. I believe I went with Karen, Linda and Barb this time around.

While there, I turned 32. I also met a guy named Tom at a GLBT social gathering,  and we hit it off. I really liked him. He was quite liberal and a very good conversationalist. However, he lived in Connecticut, several hundred miles away. Once the conference ended, we agreed to stay in touch and to see each other whenever possible, and we got along great for a while, visiting each other whenever we could, but then I got restless, and he turned out to not be the kind of guy I wanted to be with after all. We spent time together in February and April, and in May we split up. I think I was on the rebound, and Tom was the first guy after my breakup with Brent to show any interest in me. I was lonely and thought we could make things work, but they didn’t after all.

In late January I was traveling again, and this time I flew with my friend Karen to Long Beach, CA to give a presentation on diversity at the Freshman Year Experience Conference. We did alright, but I didn’t save any of my notes or other written material. All I have are some photos we took and an abstract from the program. We had a lot of fun, and got to go to Hollywood and walk around a bit. Later in the month, I took a train to Springfield, Massachusetts to visit Tom. It was a fun trip. The train went through upstate New York, and I got to see a lot of beautiful country side. Tom picked me up in Springfield and we drove to Storrs, Connecticut where he lived. He was a librarian and had a job as a cataloger at the University of Connecticut. It was fun exploring the area. We went to Hartford and Mystic Seaport, visited antique stores and flea markets, and even drove up to Rhode Island.

I got an AIDS test in February and tested negative. Thank goodness. I had been very careful the last several years (Brent and I had an open relationship), but I still was sexually active, and there was a time or two when I took some risks that I should not have taken. I was so nervous when I took the test. I worried that I would hurt myself if I had tested positive. I didn’t want to have to die the way so many people around me had died, from a disease that was unstoppable and merciless. I swore after I had tested negative that I would never do anything risky again, and while I can’t say I’ve always been faithful to that promise, I never did get HIV, even while sexually active. I’ve been very fortunate.

In March, I had another book review published. The book was titled, “Latino Librariaship: A Handbook for Professionals” and was edited by Sal Guerena,  an archivist from Santa Barbara, California and former REFORMA president. The review appeared in Preview Magazine.

In the Spring I applied for a new job, that of “diversity librarian” at the University of Michigan. I had to give a presentation and meet with lots of different groups, and I was a nervous wreck. My presentation was well received, however, but in the end the job went to someone else. I was really disappointed, but decided to continue job hunting. I wanted so badly to come back West. Nothing materialized, however, so I stayed at Michigan the entire year, and continued to work at the Undergraduate Library. Things got better by the Fall, as my supervisor, “the southern belle from hell,” had moved on to the Library School, where she was pursuing a PhD. I was given more responsibility as manager of the student reference assistant program, and I was pretty happy with the work. I continued doing instruction and reference, and also continued on the Diversity Council, helping to coordinate the annual diversity film festival series and doing more exhibits. This all kept me pretty busy.

In May, I went to see Tom again. This time, we met up in Boston. I flew there from Detroit, and Tom and I rented a hotel room in Cambridge, very close to the Harvard campus. I had a blast visiting the record stores and used bookstores, but Tom wanted to do other things, like check out the various monuments and other historical sites. This is where we broke up. I decided it was time to move on, and I told him I no longer wanted to pursue a relationship with him. He got very angry, and things got a little ugly, but we got through it and decided to go our separate ways. I was relieved. I’ve had to learn that long distance relationships, at least for me, do not work.

In late June, I got to go to Atlanta Georgia for the first time to attend the ALA Annual Conference. While there, I went to the Martin Luther King Jr memorial and ate Krispy Kreme doughnuts for the very first time. I also found some gay bars and had a good time dancing and meeting new people. I did have one committee assignment as a member of ACRL’s University Library Sections Organization and Bylaws committee, but not much work came from it. I was free to go to whichever programs I chose, and eventually settled on getting more involved with REFORMA, that National Association for Library Services to the Spanish Speaking.

A major change occurred in the Library administration at Michigan during the summer. Carla Stoffle, who was a big supporter of diversity and who had worked hard to retain me (it was she who had me placed in the Residency program), took a job as director of the University of Arizona Libraries. When I went home at Christmastime later in the year, I took my friend Richard Elias with me  to one of her holiday gatherings.  Little did I know that I’d soon be working for her as her assistant, but I’m jumping ahead in my story, so that’s all I’ll say about it at this point.

My friend Roberto was also back in the picture by the time summer arrived. He and I went to see Madonna’s movie, Truth or Dare, at least seven times. We had a blast and were inseparable for a while there. We went out a lot and saw live bands together.  It was a fun summer. I was in love again, but it was all a lost cause, as Roberto started dating other girls around this time.  Ruth Patino was one such individual. She was very nice, and loved ranchera music like I did,  but I was quite jealous of her. I was glad when she went back home to Oakland after her graduation. She turned me on to Alejandro Fernandez and later sent me a couple of tapes by Lucha Villa, which I still have.

Another student I met while spending time with Roberto was a young woman from Texas named Lucy. She had studied graphic design, and had just graduated. We  enjoyed dancing to reggae music together and we dated for a while. (Roberto was busy with Ruth). She also left Ann Arbor at some point in the summer, and we tried to stay in touch, but I drifted away. She was the last woman that I tried to make a go of things with. I think I gave up completely after that.

There were other people who I would hang out with this particular year, including Mike Robbins, LeAnne Martin, Rhett Stuart, Judy Sorensen, Mary Lynn Morris, and Vivian Sykes. I had some great times with them and we all enjoyed going out to dinner, partying at the bars and going to the movies together. Some of the movies I saw included “The Five Heartbeats”, “The Commitments”, “What About Bob?”, “My Own Private Idaho”, “Paris Is Burning”, “Thelma and Louise” and others. I also watched a lot of television. My favorite shows included “In Living Color”, “The Nat King Cole Show”, “Are You Being Served?” and “Married with Children”. This was the year I immersed myself in the movies of Bette Davis. God, I loved seeing her in all those different roles, from Jezebel to Mr. Skeffington, to Now, Voyager, to the Virgin Queen and many others.  She is my all-time favorite actress.

Roberto moved in with me in the Fall, but things didn’t work out. We had some conflicts over the rent, which he didn’t want to pay, so I asked him to leave. He accused me of spreading lies about our friendship, saying that there was talk in the Medical school about a student who was in a relationship with a librarian at the Undergraduate Library (thanks a lot, LeAnne…)…We stopped being friends after that. I also stopped hanging out with my other Latino student friends as a result, since he was very popular, and they all sided with him when they found out we had a falling out.  

There were some very good albums that were released this particular year. One of my favorites was Joni Mitchell’s “Night Ride Home”. It included some great tunes, including the title cut, “Coming in from the Cold”, and “Cherokee Louise”, among others. The first Dylan Bootleg series was released this year too as was Natalie Cole’s “Unforgettable, With Love”. In the realm of country music, Vince Gill, Colin Raye, and Sammy Kershaw all released some of their best work, and I bought their recordings, watched their videos on television, and even went out to the bars out on Michigan Avenue outside Ypsilanti to listen to country music and gawk at all the fine looking men in their tight levis and cowboy shirts. I was a total mess. I also got to see a few local groups live. Jeanne and the Dreams were great, as was the jazz group, “Oasis”. I also saw the Chenille Sisters and the great Buffy Sainte Marie again. I think Brent came with me. He didn’t care for the show, but I loved it. Buffy played some of her newest material from her masterpiece, “Coincidence and Likely Stories”. What a powerful album!

In late September, tragedy hit my family back home. My niece Belisa’s little girl, Brisette, was struck and killed by a car. She was only three years old. I wish I could’ve come home for the funeral, but I couldn’t afford another trip, and I had already purchased tickets to come home for Christmas. I felt very sad about that. My dad was especially heartbroken, because he loved that little girl. She was born just a month or so before my mom died in 1988.

I spent the last few months of the year writing a chapter on buidlng diverse library collections for a book titled “Cultural Diversity in Libraries”. I also continued to manage the reference assistants program, and continued to participate in the work of the Diversity Council. We had more training in the Fall, and planned more film festivals and MLK Day events and exhibits.  I also got to hear Angela Davis, Gloria Anzaldua and Rodolfo Acuna speak. There was always something interesting happening on campus. I was very fortunate, in hindsight to be able to experience seeing all these wonderful people. The PC (political correctness) wars were also raging all over the country’s college campuses at this time, and in November, a big conference on political correctness was held on the Michigan campus. I still have the immense set of readings that were distributed right before it took place.

I got to go see my very first University of Michigan football game in the Fall. Barb Hoppe, my colleague from the Undergraduate Library, took me with her and wow, it was fun. The stadium is huge and holds over 100, 000 people. Michigan played Indiana that day, and won, of course. I’m not much of a sports fan, but I did have an enjoyable time.

Periodically, I’d drive my little beat up Toyota into Detroit, and either go barhopping, or go shopping at the record stores and thrift shops scattered throughout the suburbs. One day, I was driving along an unfamiliar road, just after having purchased a couple of religious relics at a thrift store in one of the suburbs, when lo and behold I hit a railroad crossing barrier. I hadn’t seen any lights flashing or heard anything, and just slammed right into it. The thing flew up and stayed there and my car stalled right on the tracks. Luckily, I got it started just in time to move it away from the tracks before the train came roaring through. I could’ve easily been killed. It literally missed me by seconds and was a very close call indeed. I still have those relics, and I’ve told people that they saved my life that day. One was a little bust of the Virgin Mary and another was a last rites kit, used by priests when conducting the last rites ceremony for the dying.

At Christmastime, I flew back home to Tucson. As I noted earlier, Carla Stoffle had become director of the UA Libraries over the summer, and when I was there for Christmas, I contacted her to say hello. She invited me to a holiday gathering at her home, and I took my friend Richard with me. A reference position had opened up in the Library, and she encouraged me to apply for it, which I did. I was filled with excitement and anticipation in the following months, as the possibility of finally getting back home was about to become a reality. Unlike the previous year, when I spent Christmas by myself, I had a great Christmas this time around. I was at home with my family, bought presents for everyone, and was very hopeful about the future!

I got promoted!
The library purchased a new exhibit case and this was the first one that it housed. Most of the books on Martin Luther King, Jr in the case were from my own personal collection.
The Ann Arbor train station.
I can’t believe how inexpensive trips were back then.
This was my third trip to Chicago. I never get tired of visiting.
Union Station, Chicago.
I stayed at the Bismark Hotel again.
The train in downtown Chicago is called the “L”. It’s noisy as heck when you’re anywhere near it.
This famous record store no longer exists. I spent hundreds of dollars in this place on my various trips. It eventually became Tower Records and then closed.
The Wrigley Building. I love this part of the city.
Brent’s mom was a very nice lady. She and her daughter Theresa were very sad that we had split up, and they continued to send me cards and letters over the next couple of years.
Mrs Gloria Bates, Brent’s mom, treated my like her own son.
A birthday card from my friend Emily, Richard’s wife.
I had been to Long Beach way back in 1966, when our family visited my brother Charles when he was in the Navy. This time around, the purpose of the trip was to attend the Freshman Year Experience Conference.
Long Beach, CA.
My good friend Karen and I talked about the Library’s diversity efforts. This was my first professional presentation. I was very nervous.
I needed a haircut. Oh well.
Karen and I had a lot of fun on this trip.
We didn’t get to tour the Queen Mary, but I saw it on a later trip several years later, however.
One of Karen’s friends moved to LA and when we were there, she came by and took us to Hollywood. It was not what I thought it would be, but interesting nevertheless.
Seeing all the footprints and handprints of various movie stars here at Grauman’s Chinese theater was one of the highlights of our visit.
Movie star wannabes.
One of my favorite Joni Mitchell albums. Released on February 19, 1991. See song and review below.
From Rolling Stone magazine.
My next trip was to Storrs, Connecticut to see my friend Tom. He picked me up at the train station in Springfield and we drove to Storrs from there. I started on on February 21, 1991 and took about a week off to be with Tom.
The woods outside of Storrs.
Tom took me all over the place, including to Hartford. We also made it up to Providence, Rhode Island at some point. It was a fun trip.
Providence, Rhode Island
This album was great. It was released on 03-05-91. Vince Gill had been a session musician and sang harmonies on Emmylou Harris’s album. Angel Band. His voice just makes me melt. What a talented man.
Released on 3-26.91.
This is one of Dylan’s earliest compositions. It hadn’t appeared on any of his albums until this first Bootleg Series was released. Willie Nelson later recorded the song for the soundtrack to “Brokeback Mountain”.
The Chenille Sisters were a local trio who modeled their singing after the Boswell Sisters, who were famous in the 1930s. I saw these women in concert a couple of times. The one on the far left worked at the Graduate Library.
This movie premiered on March 29, 1991. I loved it.
Tom visited me in early April. This was taken at the Renaissance Center in Detroit.
The Detroit River is in the background.
Tom took lots of pictures. Here’s one of me in my apartment.
The Residency group. Gene Alloway, Karen Downing, Bob Diaz, Elizabeth Robinson, David Flaxbart, Jay Nagarashi, Roger Brisson and one other person whose name escapes me, unfortunately. This was a great group of colleagues. They all went on to have amazing careers.
A card from my colleague, Darlene Nichols, congratulating me on the presentation I gave as part of a job interview that I had for the diversity librarian job at Michigan.

Diversity in Libraries / Presentation, 1991. In April, I applied for a job as the University of Michigan’s diversity librarian, and gave a presentation on April 21 about my thoughts on diversity at the time. The presentation and the question and answer session that followed were very well received, but in the end, the job went to someone else.

In early May, I flew to Boston to see Tom again. This time around, things didn’t turn out so well and we ended up going our separate ways.
Boston has an amazing skyline.
Cambridge, home of Harvard University.
The Widener Undergraduate Library. The general public was not allowed in.
North Hall, where the hotel I stayed in used to stand, at 1651 Massachusetts Ave.
It wasn’t too expensive. A hotel in Cambridge probably costs three times this amount now.
This movie premiered on May 10, 1991. I went with my friend Roberto to see it seven times during the month of June. I became a big Madonna fan at this point, and even though her music was played all the time at the Nectarine Ballroom, I started to buy all of her albums at this point. I was a sick puppy, for sure.
This scene presented one of the most somber moments in the film.
I thought the movie was very, very campy and funny as could be. So did this critic.
Roberto disappeared for a year, but by late Spring was back in my life for another few months. We were inseparable for a while, but by October, we had a major falling out and I never saw him again.
A letter from my buddy Richard. He had a difficult job, but pulled through in the end.
What a whacky movie! It premiered on May 17, 1991.
This was a local band. Jeanne, the lead singer, had a great voice. The group liked to do a lot of soul classics, including “Take Me To the River”, which I just loved.
This is Jeanne and the Dreams, many years later.
Premiered on 5-30-91. I saw this with my friend LeAnne. She loved the ending. Later that night, I went to see Truth or Dare again with Roberto. Two different movies in one day…
This was released on June 11, 1991. It’s a beautiful record.
What a lovely voice!
Another great album by Bonnie Raitt, released on June 25, 1991.
Dang, what a song!
This was also released on June 25, 1991. In my opinion, this was one of the last great albums Aretha recorded. I didn’t care much for anything that came later.
Love this.
Doing time at the reference desk, Summer, 1991.
The Crowne Plaza Atlanta, shown on the map with the red location symbol, used to be called Hotel Penta, which is where I stayed on this particular trip. I did a lot of walking at this conference…
Over time, the skyline and the downtown area have all changed a lot. There are now a lot more buildings and attractions.
Georgia World Congress Center main entrance and sign at Twilight with traffic streaks.
My friend Karen Beavers and I made our way through some of the poorer neighborhoods to visit this center. It was quite an experience.
This eternal flame is located near the entrance to the Martin Luther King Center.
I walked for what seemed like two miles back and forth to have my very first Krispy Kreme doughnut experience.
This gay bar, located a few blocks north of where I was staying, no longer exists. Little did I know when I went there that it was home to the local gay hustler scene. It is said to have been the oldest gay bar in Atlanta, but was eventually demolished sometime in the 1990’s.
This was a big shopping mall that I went to with some friends.
I had dinner here with my fellow Michigan residents. It was a big crowd of people, and a fun place to eat.
Jesse Jackson spoke at this conference and there were other wonderful speakers too. The article below gives an idea of how amazing the conference was this time around.
I found this on the Internet. It’s a great synopsis of the Atlanta conference.
The annual street fair was a lot of fun. It usually rained, however, at this time of year.
Released on 8-14-91
This is Lucy. We dated for a short while. Another long distance effort that didn’t last…
Released on 8/23/91. Almodovar was on a roll.
Cynthia Miranda and Vivian Sykes.
Released on 08-27-91, this was Colin Raye’s debut album. What a fine looking man…
This epitomizes the sound of country music of the time. There were lots of swinging dance tunes being recorded.
Dr. Frances Kendall worked with the University of Michigan Library Diversity Committee and staff several times while I was at Michigan. I first met her in 1988. She returned again in 1991 to conduct more workshops on diversity and racism for members of the Diversity Council and the Library staff. She is still active as a consultant.
Lucy Cohen, Dorothy Shields, Elaine Jordan, and Ann Ridout, all members of the Library Diversity Council.
Hattie Summerhill and I at a Diversity Council meeting.
Buffy Sainte Marie appearaed at the Ark on September 6, 1991. This time around she played songs from her upcoming cd, Coincidence and Likely Stories. She was absolutely amazing.
Meanwhile, back in Tucson….My dad and a few of his grandchildren. Brissette is the one standing on his lap. Also included are Jose, Edessa, Estrella, Raymond, Jacky, and Chito.
Brissette, my niece Belisa’s little girl, and Jose’, my brother Fred’s son. Jose’ was born in May, 1988 and Brissette in September, 1988.
This tragedy impacted our family severely. I never got to meet Brissette, but I understand she was a beautiful little girl. My dad was very fond of her. She was my niece Belisa’s fourth child.
Premiered on 9/29/91. Some people hated this movie. I loved it.
Gloria Anzaldua spoke on campus on 10/3/91. She was not a great speaker, but her work has had a huge impact on feminist Chicana studies.
Sammy Kershaw’s debut recording was his best. I love this album. It was released on 10-08-9
His voice sounds just like George Jones’s.
Angela Davis also spoke on campus, on October 17, 1991. This was the third time I’d heard her speak. She is incredilbly eloquent and a wonderful speaker. I could hear her again and again.
Being silly with my good friend Karen.
I found these religious relics in suburban Detroit one day. I’d almost been struck by a train that day, after having just purchased these.
Last rites kit.
Katalin Berdy was a very nice woman. She led the Hispanic Student Services office for the University, and I worked on a couple of committees with her.
My good friend Barb Hoppe took me to my first and only Michigan football game in October. It was a chilly morning, but what fun!
This is my friend Ruth, who turned me on to Alejandro Fernandez and sent me tapes of Lucha Villa’s music. She had been Roberto’s girlfriend for a while over the summer, but we stayed in touch even after she had left Michigan that Fall.
A postcard from Ruth.
Linda’s follow-up to Canciones de Mi Padre is filled with classic huapangos and rancheras. It’s my favorite of the two. Released in November 1991.
Premiered November 15, 1991.
My niece Michelle had a baby. He’s about to turn 30 this year (2021). Time sure flies!
I turned in the manuscript for my chapter in December 1991. The book did not get published until 1994. It took a while.

During the last couple of months of 1991, I focused a lot of attention and effort on a book chapter for an upcoming publication titled, “Cultural Diversity in Libraries”. I turned in my manuscript in mid-December. The chapter I wrote was “Collection Development in Multicultural Studies”. Here is a copy of the chapter. Collection Development in Multicultural Studies, book chapter in Cultural Diversity in Libraries, edited by Don Riggs and Patricia Tarin, Neal-Schuman Publishers, 1994.

My friend Tim was better at letter writing than I was. We eventually lost touch. We’d been friends since our college days in the early 80s.
I made it back home for vacation and spent a couple of weeks there, hanging out with friends and family. I had a great time.
Carla Stoffle became dean of the UA Library sometime during the summer of 1991. When I went home for Christmas, I looked her up to say hello, and she invited me to a Christmas gathering at her home. She also encouraged me to apply for an position in the Library that was opening soon. I did, and lo and behold, was offered the job in the Spring of 1992.
CHristmas, 1991, with my brothers Carlos, Rudy, Freddie, and my dad.
My buddy Richard and I spent a good amount of time together while I was home. This is a photo of him and his wife Emily. They lived in Benson at the time. Benson is southeast of Tucson, about a 40 minute ride on the freeway. Richard was overseeing some major housing projects in the region.
It’s not the most progressive place in Arizona. Richard and Emily hated it there, but that’s where Richard’s work took him at the time.
I rented a car one day and went to see Richard in Benson. We drove all over the place, and visited Gleeson, a ghost town in the Dragoon Mountains area. This was Apache country at one point.
I bought a little pipe made out of rattlesnake hide at this tiny shop. I kept it for years.
A Christmas card from my colleague Jill Bickers.