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Nicaragua Information Center Records
BANC MSS 92/807 cz  
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Table of contents What's This?
  • Access
  • Acquisition Information
  • Organizational History--Nicaragua Information Center
  • Organizational History--Subsidiary Organizations
  • General
  • Preferred Citation
  • Processing Information
  • Scope and Content
  • Separated Materials
  • Conditions Governing Use

  • Contributing Institution: The Bancroft Library
    Title: Nicaragua Information Center Records
    Creator: Nicaragua Information Center
    Identifier/Call Number: BANC MSS 92/807 cz
    Physical Description: 37 linear feet (27 cartons and 1 oversize box)
    Date (inclusive): 1980-1991
    Physical Location: For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.
    Language of Material: Spanish; Castilian , English , Spanish; Castilian , English .

    Access

    Collection is open for research.

    Acquisition Information

    The Records of the Nicaragua Information Center were given to The Bancroft Library on October 12, 1992 by Rick Lewis. Additions were given to The Bancroft Library by Rick Lewis in 2001.

    Organizational History--Nicaragua Information Center

    Between 1980 and 1991, the Nicaragua Information Center played a leading role in coordinating activities in support of the Sandinista government and the people of Nicaragua and in opposing the policies of the United States government, which supported the Contra insurgency. During the 1980s, Nicaragua support work was a key focus of progressive political activity in the Bay Area and throughout the United States. The Nicaragua Information Center began as a student organization at the University of California, Berkeley. The organization moved off campus in 1981, and eventually grew large enough to support a full-time paid staff of five, in addition to many volunteers. NIC published Nicaraguan Perspectives, an important national magazine on Nicaragua between 1980 and 1991. NIC also formed the Berkeley-Leon Sister City Association in 1985. The Center provided alternative information about Nicaragua, coordinated opposition to U.S. policy in the Bay Area and much of the west, and played an active role both in raising material support for Nicaragua and facilitating travel by individuals to and from Nicaragua. In addition, the Nicaragua Information Center served as the Pacific Southwest Regional Coordinator for the Nicaragua Network from 1983 through 1992. In this role, NIC played an influential role in developing and coordinating national policy for the movement in support of the Sandinista regime. This included anti-Contra aid agitation and person-to-person exchanges. Through delegations and work brigades, the Center helped hundreds of people travel to Nicaragua. Working with various coalitions, the Nicaragua Information Center played a central role in the political struggle against aid to the Nicaraguan Contras and raising material support for Nicaragua. The elections in Nicaragua in 1990 brought about a transfer of power from the Sandinistas to a more conservative regime. This shift had a dramatic impact on the Nicaragua support movement, severely reducing financial support for organizations such as the Nicaragua Information Center which had been identified with the Sandinista movement. In June 1991, the Nicaragua Information Center closed its doors. While NIC continued to operate on a reduced level after this date, its lack of office space and funding have made its resources unavailable to the public.

    Organizational History--Subsidiary Organizations

    The Berkeley-Leon Sister City Association (BLSCA) was formed in 1984 after Mayor Gus Newport traveled to Nicaragua and declared a sister city relationship with this university town. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, substantial work was done to expand this relationship, including numerous tours of Nicaraguans to Berkeley and delegations from Berkeley to Leon. In addition, tens of thousands of dollars in aid was raised and sent to Leon. This relationship is well documented in the files, including flyers for events, background on material aid efforts, and documentation on the tours and delegations. Efforts continued at a reduced level through the mid-1990s. The last events took place in 1996 and the BLSCA ceased to operate in 1998.
    During the 1908s, the Nicaragua Information Center was the most active Nicaragua support committee in California. Because of that, the organization was asked to coordinate activities in a five-state region (California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and Hawaii). In this capacity, a representative attended regular national meetings of the Nicaragua Network and communicated with local committees in the region. At the height of Nicaragua solidarity work, there were more than 60 committees in this region. During this time, the Pacific Southwest Region (PSW) organized numerous regional tours of Nicaraguan speakers, coordinated material aid campaigns, and published a regional newsletter.
    Within a year of the defeat of the Sandinistas in the 1990 election, committee support plummeted to a couple dozen committees. In late 1991, NIC facilitated the transfer of the coordination of PSW regional activities to the Latin America Support Committee (LASC) in Fresno. LASC had been an active committee for 12 years and agreed to take up a scaled-down role, primarily written communications and tour coordination. By the end of 1993, LASC was unable to continue this role and about a dozen active committees and coordination of regional activities was returned to the National Office in Washington, D.C. Occasional regional meetings were held, and LASC continued to put out occasional mailings.

    General

    Source for organizational history is Rick Lewis of the Nicaragua Information Network and donor of this collection. His written historical information is included in the Bancroft collection file for this collection.

    Preferred Citation

    [Identification of item], Nicaragua Information Center records, BANC MSS 92/807 cz, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

    Processing Information

    Materials received in 1992 were minimally processed in 1996. Materials were left in original folders provided by the organization and titles in finding aid were transcribed by Bancroft staff from original folders. In 2023, Bancroft staff reviewed and edited the finding aid and did some physical work on the folders after inaccuracies were reported by researchers. In addition, in 2023, additions received in 2001 and 2006 were integrated into the finding aid. Audiovisual and multimedia materials received in 2006, once cataloged separately under the title Nicaragua Information Center Audiovisual Collection and given the call numbers Motion Picture 1104 D and BANC KIT 7, were integrated into this collection during the course of processing in 2023.

    Scope and Content

    The records of the Nicaragua Information Center span the decade of its operation, beginning in 1980 through its closure in 1991. They consist primarily of NIC's operational, working files, including information about other organizations and political events of the decade, and its resource library, which was available for public use.
    The Nicaragua Information Center strove to collect and make available to the public information about Nicaragua by monitoring both the mainstream media and less accessible, alternative sources of information, including publications from Nicaragua and other countries. The Center hoped to empower activists interested in supporting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua by providing access to facts and perspectives on the situation in that country which could be used to counter the negative picture painted by the U.S. government and its Contra allies. The focal point of the Center's outreach to the public was the Clippings File, organized by subject. Since the emphasis was upon facilitating quick access to information, thereby fostering effective action, inconsistency and redundancy were acceptable, and even desirable, in the organization of the Center's files and Library.
    With only a small paid staff and heavy reliance on volunteer activists, as well as changing personnel and an increasingly broad scope of responsibility, changes in filing practices and strategies are obvious throughout. The organization of the collection attempts to preserve the internal structure of the Center's files. Unfiled documents, as well as documents collected by individuals active at the Center but organized outside the Center's own filing system have been integrated, with the ideal of preserving the integrity of that structure whenever possible. Duplicate materials have been minimized, although information about a given topic or event will often be found in more than one location within the collection.
    Series 1 of the Nicaragua Information Center's files was organized in congruence with the Center's committee structure. Since many activities of the Center were not generated by standing committees, but rather by ad hoc events committees, or through the Coordinating Committee, there is only a relatively small amount of material found here. More information about activities and events NIC coordinated or in which its members participated is filed in an Events section, which forms Series 2.
    NIC was governed by its coordinator, other paid staff, and its coordinating committee. The files of these administrative entities form the hub of Series 3: Internal Organization. Included here are office manuals, orientation information and other reference works including speeches, analytical papers and correspondence with other organizations, as well as records of the coordinator and coordinating committee. The dominance of the central administrative structure in the Center's existence is evident in the expansion of these files in preference to Events and Other Organizations files. During the early years, these records reflect the ongoing effort to keep abreast of changes in U.C. Berkeley campus regulations, and to supply documentation to justify NIC's status as a student organization. Fundraising, another major focus, is amply documented, underscoring the Center's energetic pursuit of foundation grants.
    Series 4: Other Organizations, consists of printed material and correspondence from many organizations involved both in Latin America support work and a wide variety of other political and social causes. The central importance of the Nicaraguan issue to the political left in the United States led to its inclusion with many other causes in broad coalition approaches. The Nicaragua Information Center was intersted in staying informed about and involved with other causes and organizatrions on the political left; activists around other issues were eager to link their causes to the prominent struggle being waged in defense of the Nicaraguan Revolution.
    Series 5: Clippings File, a collection of articles, pamphlets, and other miscellaneous publications, formed the heart of the Library that the Nicaragua Information Center maintained for the use of activists and scholars. Its holdings, in both English and Spanish, provided a concentration of material on many aspects of Central American economics, culture, history, and politics, including many obscure pamphlets and other documents from Niaragua. In addition, there are many issues of Nicaraguan newspapers, some magazines, and a large number of unsorted clippings. Although many of the clippings are taken from more obscure newspapers and journals, the Center regularly clipped from the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, San Jose Mercury News, Bay Guardian, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal, and the major national news magazines. Insofar as was possible, unsorted materials have been integrated into the collection in proximity to material with related subject matter.
    Series 6 consists of additions to the collection received in 2001. These materials include the materials of two subsidiary organizations: the Berkeley-Leon Sister City Association (BLSCA) and the Pacific Southwest Region of the Nicaragua Network.
    Series 7 consists of additions to the collection received in 2006 and is made up of all audiovisual and multimedia materials.

    Separated Materials

    Selected printed materials have been transferred to the book collection of The Bancroft Library.

    Conditions Governing Use

    Some materials in these collections may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). In addition, the reproduction of some materials may be restricted by terms of University of California gift or purchase agreements, donor restrictions, privacy and publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For additional information about the University of California, Berkeley Library's permissions policy please see: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/about/permissions-policies