Rice University took a significant step toward expanding its documentation of Houston’s diverse communities June 1, hosting a ceremony to formally establish an Indian American Community Archives initiative within the Houston Asian American Archive.
Held in Woodson Research Center, the event brought together university leaders and community partners to sign a memorandum of understanding between Rice and the Foundation for India Studies, signaling a shared commitment to building future collections that reflect the experiences of Indian Americans in Houston. Community members were present, including foundation president Krishna Vavilala and Consul General of India D.C. Manjunath.
The initiative aims at creating a physical archive at Rice for public use and establishes a formal partnership and intention to grow such a collection over time, through community collaboration, oral histories and donated materials.
“We’re honored today to be getting together and setting intentions formally to really start building in the area of telling the stories of the Indian community in Houston,” said Amanda Focke, head of special collections at Rice’s Fondren Library.
Focke emphasized the importance of oral histories and ephemeral items such as community event flyers in addition to formal archives in shaping a more complete public record.
“Oral histories and ephemera are so important because they tell stories that might not be anywhere else, and they fill in gaps in the history,” she said. “It’s important that that history be available publicly, because how else will people write new stories?”
The Houston Asian American Archive, co-founded by Anne Chao and Tani Barlow, has grown over more than a decade into a wide-ranging collection representing communities across the region.
“Houston is the seventh-largest city for Asian Americans in this country, but in this region there was no repository of Asian American stories, so we began building one,” Chao said. “Our goal is to be pan-Asian — not just East Asian but also Southeast Asian and South Asian.”
Chao noted that the new partnership will help deepen representation of Indian and broader South Asian communities within the archive. “We are trying to collect a really meaningful cross-section of the South Asian community,” she said, adding that support from the Foundation for India Studies “would be a great boost to our collection.”
The June 1 ceremony marks an early but meaningful step in that effort, laying the groundwork for future collecting, preservation and access. As materials are gathered in the years ahead, organizers say the archive will serve as a resource for researchers, students and community members seeking to better understand the history and contributions of Indian Americans in Houston and beyond.