Marcia Schwemer and Jeri Deitrick

Kymn Goldstein interviews Marcia Schwemer and Jeri Deitrick, a couple who have volunteered at the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives since 1989 and 1993. Schwemer volunteered for Connexxus / Centro de Mujeres, and when it closed she began working at the Mazer, where she joined the board as treasurer. Deitrick first visited during a Pride festival and came back once the two started dating. They describe the early room, where the Dykes group met after leaving Connexxus, and volunteer Jo Duffy, who took the bus in from the Valley to sort and label material for the subject files.

Deitrick started the ACT UP Women’s Caucus in Los Angeles after a national caucus demonstration in Chicago. The caucus met in a room near the pool in West Hollywood Park, while the full ACT UP group of about a hundred people met at Plummer Park.

Schwemer talks about the lesbian pulps in the collection, including those Jinx Beers donated, and her years at women’s music festivals. Deitrick says anyone who thinks she is the only lesbian alive will find out otherwise at the Mazer. They remember hauling boxes up the stairs before there was an elevator, the years the board shrank, and the controversy about the potential move to USC. Asked why lesbians need their own archive, Deitrick describes a lesbian collection at ONE Archives that wasn’t prioritized after the woman who built it died. Schwemer discusses the Mazer’s dances, among them the Dykeutante Ball. At the end, Deitrick asks everyone to fight to keep the Mazer open, and Schwemer says she is glad young people and paid staff are now doing the work.