Photo by Carlos Puma.
Candice Mays is the project director for Mapping Black California. Her work and storytelling explore Black migration west and Black presence in non-inclusive spaces. Mays mines narrative from data on all things historical, Californian, and Black. Before joining us for the program “How Does the Inland Empire Strike Back Against Hate?”—presented in partnership with California Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, United We Stand, UCR ARTS, and UCR College of Humanities and Social Sciences—Mays sat down with us in the green room to chat about her favorite Disney character, the burros in Reche Canyon, and her childhood hero.
Do you have any summer plans?
I’m going to Disneyland on Friday. That was like the main summer plan. Now I’m going to Hawai‘i in August. That just kind of popped up so I’m excited.
Who’s your favorite Disney character?
Off the top of my head? Ursula [from The Little Mermaid]. She was kind of glamorous. She kind of, like, laid in her lair, had jewels and a fabulous dress. Ursula’s it. I watched the [live action] remake and, she’s singing, and I was like, “I forgot how much I like her.”
What are you reading right now?
I’m reading The Sellout by Paul Beatty. It’s about a fictional town in South Los Angeles called Dickens. It’s about this young man who was born and raised there by social scientists who would practice social science theories on him. He’s kind of messed up because of it. And, as part of gentrification, Dickens has been erased from the map. It no longer exists. At this point, I believe it’s about trying to put this town back on the map. It goes in a lot of different directions. I think the main thing is about identity in place and who are you if your place is erased.
What’s the best food for this time of year?
I love corn. If I’m at a fair or anything like that, I don’t care if it’s just butter and salt—I’m like the corn kid.
If you were a meme, what would you be?
The little boy getting interviewed and starts crying. Sometimes it’s really real, and sometimes I’m just being dramatic because no one answered the phone.
For someone who’s visiting Riverside for the first time, what would you recommend they check out?
The burros in Reche Canyon. The Spanish brought them and then left them, and there were no predators there, so they thrived there.
Who was your childhood hero?
My dad. He’s always there, reliable. I never had any doubt. He’s like that for everyone, so everyone thought he was their best friend.
Who is a person alive or dead that you would want to have dinner with?
Eartha Kitt. She’s a glamorous person who lived a very big life. I just want to hear her stories.
How does data lend itself to storytelling?
Maps and data visualizations are alternative forms of storytelling. It’s important to have the narrative component to humanize the project. From someone who works with data and then is connecting it to stories, a lot of times it’s easy to forget that, like during COVID, for example, the number gets so big, it’s easy to forget that each one of those digits adds up to that larger number in persons. I remember at one point there was a data point that for every person that dies from COVID, nine people are directly impacted by that death. So then there’s that number and multiply it by this many more people and then with all of those numbers, how do you humanize the numbers? Find five of those people and tell their stories. And then just imagine that there’s X million more stories out there like these five.