@Bookish_Tejana’s Twitter Takeover

Arizona Historical Society’s “Twitter Takeover,” on 18 May 2021

The goal of this public history digital initiative is to engage with new audiences and bring new followers, potential new members, museum patrons, and archive visitors to the Arizona Historical Society.

I had such a wonderful experience taking over the Arizona Historical Society’s Twitter page for a day to share my research and talk about the article I co-authored with Dr. Grace Peña Delgado, “Beyond Border Spectacle: Everyday Meaning and Oral History in Chinese Mexican Tucson,” in the Special Anniversary Issue of the Journal of Arizona History published Winter 2021.

In this Twitter Takeover, I share the story of Mary Malaby, a Tucson resident of Chinese and Mexican descent, whose great-grandfathers—Lee Goon and Jesus Valencia—had an unusual business friendship that unintentionally united the Lee-Valencia families by blood for generations. Over generations, Goon and Valencia’s families navigated life, love, belonging, and exclusion at the Arizona-Sonora borderlands in ways that showed how legal restrictions and racial discrimination influenced individual choices, but they did not define them.

Follow Mary Malaby’s family story below! Don’t forget to follow me (@Bookish_Tejana) and the Arizona Historical Society (@AZHistSociety) on Twitter!