“Lolo” is the first is an anthology of archival books which together form a biographical sketch of my Great-Grandfather, Salvador “Lolo” Gonzales . I began researching Papa Lolo as way to better understand my own relationship to Americanness, Whiteness, and my family. Each book is a stand-alone body of work, using individual archives—both public and private—which speak to different moments and facets of his life.

Salvador “Lolo” Gonzales, the first of his family born in the United States, was a semi-professional baseball player. This was long ago. Before he moved to California’s Central Valley. Before he met my great-grandmother. Before me or my father or his father before him. Papa Lolo died when I was young and no one mentioned much about his life before moving to the Valley. I first learned about his baseball career several years ago while searching his name in an online newspaper database. I was searching for some sense of where I came from. Some sense of who I was, trying to make sense of the Whiteness that I was born into. I was hoping to find some answer, some revelation. Instead, I found dozens of mentions of his name in the sports pages of the local paper. I lay each clipping out in chronological order and begin to remove the surrounding articles and advertisements. A hollow rhythm starts to form. An emptiness in the removal. There was a thrill, still, in finding his name, over and over, and tracking his short career. I wonder how he felt, seeing his name in the paper? I try to picture him talking with the local reporters post-game. I wonder what he dreamed then, for what his life might become?