HomeMy WebLinkAbout10/7/2026 Item 4a, Sine
Otta, Kaitlin
Elizabeth Sine <elizabeth.sine@gmail.com>
Sent:Wednesday,
To:Advisory Bodies
Subject:Public Comment re: DEI Height Impact Grant Recommendations
For Agenda of: 10/7/2026
Item Number: 4a
Dear SLO City Council,
I am a historian, teach in the History Department at Cal Poly, and am also a co-director of the people's
history project Our Roots/Our Routes. I am writing to express appreciation and support for the HRC's
funding recommendations for the DEI High Impact Grant.
In particular I want to express support for the "Building Belonging through the Chicano SLO Archive"
project that is led by the collaboration of Our Roots/Our Routes and Latino Outreach Council. The
Chicano SLO Archive under the leadership of community member Pedro Arroyo has already begun to
make a significant impact in opening up public dialogue about local regional history in ways that re-
center a populations that has all to long been marginalized from popular narratives and public memory
about the Central Coast, despite that populations vitally important and ongoing contributions to the
region. The project goes beyond "adding to" what we know about the local region's past and invites all
members of the public into an active and collaborative process of meaning making and community
building that is inclusive, integrative, and that properly considers Chicanx history as a constitutive part of
all of our history.
Building an inclusive and democratic future that is enriched by the contributions of all of our community
members and in which all can thrive requires exactly the kind of work in the present that Pedro Arroyo,
Our Roots/Our Routes, and Latino Outreach Council are proposing through the Chicano SLO Archive. It
requires attending to the gaps and silences of the archives we inherit as well as the distortions and blind
spots in public historical memory. It requires building up local archives and expanding the scope of
who's records are included and preserved, and also expanding the range of who gets access to the role
of interpreting what the archives tell us about who we are collectively as a local community, city, and
region, where we've been, and what we might become.
This thoughtful and intentionally designed project plan, which builds upon decades of historical,
archiving, and community building work, and helps to bring the fruits of that labor to their full fruition,
deserves your support and financial backing. We are grateful that the HRC sees the value of the project
and is recommending $20,000, which is needed to carry this work forward.
I would also like to add my support for the HRC's recommendations for R.A.C.E. Matters/NAACP's
Ubuntu project. R.A.C.E. Matters' long running track record of working to foster belonging and inclusivity
in the City of SLO, and that of the NAACP as well, is vital to all of us. The programs that these
organizations promise to carry out with the funds that HRC is recommending are important to sustaining
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their efforts to make this a city and region that support all residents' ability to exist, participate,
celebrate, congregate, and to be safe, healthy, and well.
Once again, thank you to the HRC for its recommendations, and SLO City Council I urge you to support
these recommendations and to help ensure that both the Chicano SLO Archive and Ubuntu projects
have the funds they need to make these essential contributions to our local community and the future of
SLO city.
Thank you,
Elizabeth Sine
Elizabeth
History Department, Cal Poly SLO
Co-Director, Our Roots/Our Routes
Volunteer/Humanities Advisor, R.A.C.E. Matters SLO
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