Ocho y Media Collection

Scope and Contents

The collection includes a wide variety of materials, including zines (published and unpublished), flyers and advertisements, articles, mailers, booklets, photographs, stickers, original art and sketches, a diary, a self-abortion care guide, two scrapbooks with photographs and other materials, and other ephemera. Specifically, the collection includes copies of Ocho y Media's zines and other materials relating to events and actions the group organized, such as open houses and a domestic violence awareness event with The Clothesline Project. Other zines in this collection have content on sexual and reproductive health, domestic violence, third wave feminism, queerness, labor rights and unions, race and racism, romantic relationships, punk and other music subcultures, and other related topics.

Karen Craig, Leilani Clark, Britton Neubacher, Eve Novak, and Torie Quiñones, all members of Ocho y Media, donated the materials to the collection. Donors included personal collections of zines that cover subjects including sexual and reproductive health, labor rights, violence against women, queerness, body image, romantic relationships, personal feelings on third wave feminism, punk music, and more. The collection is useful to researchers interested in third wave feminist groups/collectives, riot grrrl, feminist punk, student organizing, and similar subjects. It is arranged in five series in alphabetical order by the creator or donor of each group of material. Materials date from 1979 to 1999, with the bulk of material dating from the 1990s.

Arrangement

Collection is arranged into five series.

Series 1: Leilani Clark, undated

Series 2: Karen Craig, 1993-1996, undated

Series 3: Britton Neubacher, 1979-1999, undated

Series 4: Eve Novak, 1993-1998, undated

Series 5: Torie Quinonez, 1990s

Biographical / Historical

Ocho y Media was a third wave feminist "women's discussion circle and action group" based in San Diego, California in the mid-1990s. The collective met on Mondays at 8:30 pm, the inspiration for their name, which means eight thirty in Spanish, and planned several feminist events in and around San Diego. They held events at the Ché Café, a cooperative café and event/community space on the University of San Diego California campus (still operating as of 2023). These events included domestic violence awareness projects. The group also published at least two volumes of a zine, Ocho y Media.

Zines, a shortened form of Fanzines, derived from magazines, are short, lower end publications often with political or social messages. They often contain poetry, narrative writing, personal statements, missions and manifestos, collaged art, or community knowledge. Zine culture expanded in the late 1980s and early 1990s during the underground feminist punk riot grrrl movement. Typically costing between one and five US dollars, these small, low budget publications helped create solidarity across social and political movements and offered creators emotional and artistic outlets.

This collection is related to the riot grrrl movement, a punk feminist underground music scene that championed women's independence and power. Started in 1991 with the establishment of bands like Bikini Kill and Team Dresch, the riot grrrl movement encouraged women to start music groups, organize and support each other, and fight for feminist causes. Although it was originally a West coast-based movement, riot grrrl spread in part through the production of zines and the interconnectedness of the groups (like Ocho y Media) that created them.

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Lucy R. Lippard Papers, 1930s-2007, AAA.lipplucy

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Jacqueline Skiles Papers, 1963-1980, AAA.skiljacq

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Womanspace Gallery records, 1970-1974, AAA.womagall

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Smith College

Sophia Smith Zine Collection https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/2/resources/749

Duke University

Sarah Wood zine collection https://archives.lib.duke.edu/catalog/woodsarah

MOVE with New York University (NYU)

The Riot Grrrl Collection https://guides.nyu.edu/riot-grrrl/finding-aids

Barnard College

The Zine Library https://zines.barnard.edu/

The People's Archive at the District of Columbia Public Library

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