Miki Yamada Foster and Trevor Hailey

“I had to imagine the personal life of Trevor Haley because despite the countless letters and newspaper articles she received the archive only gives a glimmer of the long life she lived. It’s evident that Trevor, like me, loves maps and history and the way they connect to social bodies. Trevor spent hundreds of pages and countless hours walking the same city block testifying her love of San Francisco and the Castro community. Through her stories the Castro became something with more life and more complexity then I ever could have imagined.”

-Miki Yamada Foster

Miki Yamada Foster is an Oakland based digital media artist. She graduated with an MFA in Digital Arts/New Media from the University of California Santa Cruz in 2009. Her current work explores queer craft, maps and technologies of orientation. She weaves audio and video narratives through craftwork and new/old networks of public display.

Trevor Hailey was born in 1941 as Evelyn Fondren of Jackson, Mississipi. Trevor referred to her story of coming to San Francisco as “classic”. She came to San Francisco as a Navy nurse in 1972, just as the gay community began to settle the Castro District. In the late 1980s Trevor created “Cruisin’ the Castro”, a walking tour that educated visitors about the history and politics of the Castro. Between 1989 and 2005 Trevor took thousands of people on her tour through the Castro and garnered popularity around the world for the wisdom and wit she possessed in telling her community’s story.

From Trevor Hailey’s Archive

Trevor Maps the Castro and Disorientating the Castro
Mixed media, single channel video
2010