I have a headache

But I want to write some sad news I received today all within a 3 hour block of time. My long time friend Lillian West whose daughter Bertae West has been battling with a rare disease for the past year or so passed away last Friday. August 17, 2007. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.
I met Bertae when she was a child. She was always so sweet. I met her after I met Lill through Carmen and Anna Maria who were the first chicana lesbian couple I met through my wonderful teacher and mentor Professor Klausner way back in 1981. We worked together on the first Women of Color Califia in Los Angeles.
and speaking of women of color a long time butch activist and so much more Yolanda Vargas Retter passed away Saturday August 18, 2007. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.
I will paste some information about her so you'll know who she is too. On Sunday after the last Sparks home game we (Bridgette, me, Ginger and Leslie) were talking and laughing and commenting about Yolanda's endless conversation about butches and femmes. That means she was in our midst. I mourn the death of these two friends and everything they mean to me. Spoken and unspoken.
Saturday August 18, 2007, the Los Angeles lesbian community lost a longtime uber-activist, intellectual and gad-fly extraordinaire Yolanda Vargas Retter, a preeminent Latina lesbian-feminist, community scholar and librarian who died in her Van Nuys home of cancer. Born December 4, 1947 in the United States, her mother was Peruvian and her father American. She was raised first in El Salvador and then in Connecticut.

She is survived by her partner of 13 years Leslie Stampler who said, “She would want to be remembered for how she lived, not how she died.” Leslie said a memorial will take place in 6 to 8 weeks. I will send an email when I receive information.

Most recently, Yolanda worked as archivist for the UCLA Chicano Studies Resource Center. She also volunteered as the chief coordinator of the Lesbian Legacy Collection at ONE Gay and Lesbian Archives at the University of Southern Californiawhere she built an extensive collection of Los Angeles lesbian history.

She also devoted time, energy and vision to the West Hollywood-based June Mazer Lesbian Archives. In the 90s Yolanda was the librarian overseeing the Chicano Resources Center at the Los Angeles County Public Library community library inEast Los Angeles. Yolanda also ran Lesbian Central in the late 80s at the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Centerwhen it was located on Highland Avenue.

She was a passionate advocate for lesbians as well as the need to expand community history to include and celebrate women of color. She never tired of a life-long passion for ensuring that less-empowered communities not themselves exclude as they fought oppression.

As community historian and scholar Stuart Timmons relates, Yolanda wrote more than
a dozen articles and co-authored at least four books on LGBT topics. To quote Stuart Timmons:

“She called herself a lesbian history and visibility activist and preferred the term herstorian.” Her dissertation (Universityof New Mexico) was called “On the Side of the Angels: Lesbian Activism in Los Angeles 1970 – 1990.”

“As an Internet author Yolanda created web sites for LA lesbian history, for lesbians of color, and other projects. I believe due to her health these may not be posted, but were important at a critical time. In its day, her lesbian site was rated among the top 5% by Lycos. Yolanda was an exemplary resource manager, especially for disenfranchised people.”

“One of the most important parts of Yolanda’s work was her relentless insistence that people of color, especially lesbians, speak for themselves. This used to be a somewhat controversial idea, but has become broadly accepted. On the Internet, in her work as a librarian (both at USC and UCLA), as a historian, and over and over and over again in individual circumstances, she really dedicated herself to preserving otherwise overlooked history, and in the most authentic possible context.

“Yolanda was a very strong personality, unafraid to ruffle feathers, but she earned very wide respect in the community.”

Yolanda’s uncle was Alberto Vargas, the famous pin-up artist, and her grandfather was a Peruvian photographer of note. She held a Master’s degree in Social Work and a Master’s as well in Library Science. She held a PhD in American Studies.