Hood historian archiving and planning the history of Los Angeles

For more than a decade, the work of the qione Holmes, also known as Hood Historian, such as the Memory Bank in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. He is a self -studied archive, born and responded in Long Beach, whose passion was built with the participation of the history of Southern California through the lens of a “black man of cover” a real society on Instagram. Participants include archive pictures that reach a return to the thirties of the twentieth century, as they represent pictures of the city or the construction of some of them from the current day, showing the amount of things that change. Others include videos from local news from the seventies, eighties and nineties. Holmes always clarifies them with his warm informal style – often raises a question: “Have you gone to this high school? Do you remember this ceremony?” It is clear that this is a person who lived a similar life for you and shares your memories. In one of the posts – a likable video camera clip from 1993, where a man named Emilio was raising the sellers of the harassment street like the police at the time – followers revealed that Emilio was her father and that he had found success in the years since then. . In another publication, Holmes shared pictures of three young people radiating arguments such as haloos in front of the wonderful brothers Barber and beauty number 2 in WhatsApp in 1969, and they get the indigenous population in the comments. For Holmes, the registry sharing revolves around the communication-create the moment of remembering, reflection or confession. With his words: “We are history.”

Julisa James: Where did you grow up and what led you to history in the first place?

Keon Holmes: I was born in Long Beach. I grew up in Long Beach. I went to school in Long Beach. When I was young, a man named Hill Hoser was on Kect. In his program, “Visiting … with Huell Howser”, he used to go to places around Los Angeles, then he had another presentation entitled “Gold’s Gold”, and he was talking to people about the history of this store or this house. Watching PBS as a child made me interested in history, then go to a library and look at some books on local history. I am talking about primary school.

JJ: What was it about knowing the history of the place that really directed you? What did you like it?

QH: We date. We are part of it. Although I was in Long Beach, we had the same story for people in Los Angeles: “Oh, my grandfather or my father came to here from the south to work,” isn’t it? We did the same. So when I see old pictures of La, I see for me alive; I see Auckland, San Francisco. We all have a similar story. The thing is that we do not see much online, on social media. We do not see things that we can attach to, those of us who grew up in the streets, which originated directly in the middle of the neighborhood. I wanted to be a history man on Instagram.

JJ: I really built a community online – a deep society. As I said earlier, people wanted to see this date, which is a very specific type of the history of Los Angeles that does not always appear in history books. Talk to me about that.

QH: People get in the comments section. People get their story. I give others a voice because they are the ones who can tell you the details of the old man Johnson who lived in 130 and Vermont. Not so long ago, I posted a post about the postman that was a video that I held on the Internet – it was an exhibition on PBS about life and times that followed the riots 1992. The man’s daughter would say, “Hey, this is my father!” This is what I am talking about. Her vision of that? I love things like that because I became the mediator. My page is not the biggest history page, but it is not dedicated to that. I want people who live in Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, Long Beach, Gardina/Harbor Gate, Englo, Valley … I just want something for us.

JJ: Talk to me about the reason for choosing the “Hood Historian” handle.

QH: I did this in 2011, before Instagram, close to the death of Nate Dogg. I used the name because it is right. This is me. I live in the cap, and I am historian. I am just an ordinary man. I know that I am.

JJ: It is real, and I feel that it brings people who are supposed to be there.

QH: [I want to show people that] There is nothing wrong with interrogating things: Why were these houses this style? Why in the seventies of the last century did they do all this terrible redesign? It is okay to be a black man from the cap to old things, do you know? There are similar people to think on my page.

JJ: Work like you feels more and more over time, because things change very quickly. All these neighborhoods in Los Angeles – you see one week, then in the next week you don’t see it.

QH: Say the owner of the building that your aunt lived since 1980, the new owner comes, and he wants to expel everyone and reshape the building. Things change. And nothing lasts forever. It is my duty to show how things were.

JJ: Through your work, what did you learn more about Los Angeles?

QH: Each neighborhood has its own characteristics. This restaurant is known, and they are known for this store, shopping center, or this type of house or those apartments. But although everywhere is different, we have similarities.