Explore the Archives
A Journal of the Plague Year Arizona Collection Australia Boston Bronx Community College New York Brooklyn College New York Canada Las Americas Lockdown Staten Island New Orleans Oral Histories Philippines Sacramento Community Based Organizations Southwest Stories Teaching the Pandemic The City College of New York

Collected Item: “James Rayroux's JOTPY Portfolio”

Give your story a title.

James Rayroux's JOTPY Portfolio

What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?

Portfolio Collection

Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.

--Reflections on the Pandemic Archive--

Looking back over my experience with the “Journal of the Plague Year” COVID-19 archive, my prevailing emotion is gratitude. This opportunity granted me experience that few historians earn, and the remote, asynchronous work schedule allowed me to collaborate with my colleagues in ways that maximized our respective contributions. The breadth and depth of our individual experiences and perspectives tremendously improved our collective process and products.

I spent enough time in the Arizona State Archives last year to recognize such collections as historical treasure chests, but I have now participated in processing an archive’s content and navigating the ethical dilemmas those submissions sometimes create. Archivists and curators are the history profession’s truly unsung heroes, and their work facilitates society’s perception of itself.

My background in police work and public safety drew me to the archive’s existing Law Enforcement collection. In taking on that subset, I succeeded in reshaping the collection’s parameters to now include stories about police and law enforcement. I wanted to diversify the collection to encompass perspective of both the police and the public with whom they interact and serve. While some overlap exists between the Law Enforcement and Social Justice collections, each remains distinct. Through my contacts and writing, I promoted a Call for Submissions to an international audience of law enforcement professionals to reduce their relative silence within the archive.

Within the archive’s content, I recognized that one’s location might shape their pandemic experience, and I created and designed an Arizona-based exhibit to explore that. Further research and discussion with my mentors and colleagues ensured the exhibit illustrated these differences without excluding visitors whose diverse experiences could further enrich the archived and exhibited content. I am proud of my “Arizona’s COVID-19 Pandemics” exhibit, particularly because of its compressed, one-month incubation period. Beyond displaying images, data, and stories representative of the diverse pandemic experiences within the state, the ACP exhibit offers visitors numerous levels of interaction and engagement to became active participants and create their own exhibit experience. Visitors can complete opinion surveys, add a story to the archive, explore additional content related to the displayed pieces, view ever-changing results from pre-defined archival content searches, conduct their own archival search, view collective visitor survey results, and apply to join the staff. The exhibit’s searches will include the archive’s future submissions, which reshapes both the exhibit and the experience visitors may have with it.

A more detailed explanation of my ACP exhibit may be reviewed here: https://covid-19archive.org/s/archive/item/43037

Because of Dr. Kathleen Kole de Peralta and Dr. Mark Tebeau, I stand prepared to join research, curation, and exhibition teams and immediately contribute to their work products.

Despite my gratitude for this experience and the opportunities it presented, I look forward to the day COVID-19 is no longer part of humanity’s daily vernacular.

James Rayroux
22 April 2021

Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your story. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?

HST580, Arizona State University, portfolio, collection, work, intern, internship, JOTPY, James Rayroux, LEO, Rural Arizona, Arizona, United States, rural, reflection

Enter a URL associated with this object, if relevant.

https://www.police1.com/coronavirus-covid-19/articles/no-one-else-can-tell-your-story-7LsGkxpVTGXnv2Di/

Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)

James Rayroux

Give this story a date.

2021-04-21
Click here to view the corresponding item.