Yolanda Retter Vargas served as the Librarian and Archivist for the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center from 2003-2007. At UCLA, she helped double the CSRC’s archives and special collections and started the LGBTQ and Mujeres Initiative, which continues today.

She was born in 1947 to a Peruvian mother and American father. Though born in Connecticut, she spent her younger years in El Salvador. She went to undergraduate at Pitzer College and graduated with a B.A. in Sociology. From there she went on to receive a Masters in Social Work and a Masters in Library Science at UCLA, and a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

Retter was a major force in the early Los Angeles lesbian movement. She played a huge role in the founding of several lesbian organizations, such as Lesbians Latina Americanas (1974), Lesbianas Latinas (1980), and Lesbianas Unidas. She was also a fierce advocate for lesbians of color, working with the prisons and social service organizations to provide support for the LGBTQ community. She co-edited and contributed to a number of books on LBGTQ culture and history.

Yolanda Retter (1947-2007) was a librarian and archivist at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Library and an activist dedicated to providing a voice to lesbian and minority issues and preserving their history. Retter was a champion for social justice and organizing, helping to support the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center; she organized numerous repositories on lesbian history around the city; she built the Lesbian History Project website. During her time as librarian at the CSRC Library, she increased the amount of material on the subject of Chicana/os and Queer Studies. Retter authored and edited three books on the rights of the LGBTQ in the United States, including the Lambda Literary award-winning Queers in Space: Communities, Public Places, Sites of Resistance. She was the Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social historian.