Remembering Las Hermanas: Collective care in lesbian feminist memory work

This article examines Las Hermanas Women's Cultural Center and Coffeehouse, a 1970s lesbian of color feminist space in San Diego, as a site of radical care, collective memory, and archival refusal. Drawing on oral histories, logbook entries, and feminist newspapers, I argue that Las Hermanas functioned as a lesbian brown commons: a place where care, anonymity, and collective labor forged political resistance. Grounded in queer of color critique, affect theory, and feminist historiography, I argue that the community's fragmentary archive and strategic opacity reflect a method of historiographical resistance. Rather than reading archival gaps as absence, I interpret them as intentional refusals that safeguard community and shape an alternative lesbian public history. This article contributes to queer historiography and feminist archival studies by theorizing care and refusal as foundational to lesbian of color memory work.