A government building with a large dome illuminated in purple, pink, blue, and yellow lights at night.

San Francisco, California, USA

Days 1-2: Arrivals & Pride in the City

This program kicks off in San Francisco during Pride weekend, celebrating queer joy, history, and community from the moment you arrive. We’ll start with an orientation to the city, then move right into Pride energy, joining community events and watching the parades. Throughout the weekend, we’ll weave in historical context on Pride and Bay Area LGBTQ+ movements.

Street scene in San Francisco with a large vertical sign reading 'CASTRO' and a pride flag. Trees line the street, with a steep hill and buildings in the background under a clear blue sky.

Day 3: Queer Resistance and Memory

We spend the day in the Castro and nearby historic sites to explore how queer history is preserved, narrated, and sometimes contested. Using museums, walking tours, and street-level history, students ask who gets remembered, how movements build power, and what stories are missing. This connects to course themes on migration, neighborhood formation, and political organizing.

Close-up of a multicolored textured crosswalk in an urban setting with blurred pedestrians and storefronts in the background.

Day 4: Legacies and Joy as Resistance

We spend this day connecting what we have seen in San Francisco to the people and movements that built it. Students look at how protest, memorials, archives, and public celebrations all work together to keep queer histories alive. We close with reflection on what stories we will carry forward as we travel south.

Los Angeles, California, USA

Aerial view of Los Angeles skyline with palm trees in the foreground and clear blue sky.

Day 5: Queer Spaces, Real and Imagined

We arrive in Los Angeles and trace some of California’s early LGBTQ+ organizing, from sites like the Black Cat to spaces connected to the Mattachine story. Students explore why LA was such an important pre-Stonewall landscape, what it means to visit places that have changed or disappeared, and how nightlife and commercial districts like West Hollywood shape queer visibility. We end the day connecting what we saw to questions of who gets to take up space.

The logo for ONE Archives featuring the word 'ONE' in rainbow colors and 'Archives' in black.

Day 6: Archiving Queer Life

This day is about what gets saved and who does the saving. We visit the ONE Archives to work directly with materials like letters, flyers, and zines, then use them to practice reading and interpreting queer primary sources, just like in the course assignments. Students think about absence too, asking what the closet, surveillance, or erasure kept out of the archive. We close in a public LA space to connect art, protest, and civic life.

Empty sandy beach with colorful lifeguard stand, ocean waves, and seagulls, during sunrise or sunset.

Day 7: Community, Coast, and Closing

We spend the final day in LA with local LGBTQ+ community partners, then head to the beach to slow down, reflect, and share takeaways. Students connect their field notes, site presentations, and archive finds to the bigger course questions, and think about how to bring these stories back to their own campuses.