(FORMERLY THE CALIFORNIA STORY FUND)

This ongoing story-gathering effort to document community life in California coincides, at times, with thematic initiatives conducted by California Humanities. For more information, click HERE.

GRANTS AWARDED IN SUMMER 2016

AFTER THE FALL: A STORY OF TWO RURAL COMMUNITIES RECOVERING FROM THE COLLAPSE OF THE LOGGING ERA
The Watershed Research and Training Center, Hayfork
Project Director: Piper McDaniel
Almost a quarter of a century after the “timber wars” of the 1990s, this project will explore how two towns in California’s North Coast region, Hayfork and Orleans, are addressing the continuing environmental, economic, and social hardships impacting their communities.  Stories of residents will be collected and shared through a physical exhibition and a website that will include recorded and transcribed interviews, photography, and interpretive text.  The project will encourage public examination and dialogue about the impact of national-level land management and policy decisions on rural communities, and the challenge of fostering environmental conservation and economic stability. $10,000

THE ASIAN AMERICAN MOVEMENT IN LOS ANGELES 1968-83
Friends of the Chinese American Museum (FCAM), Los Angeles
Project Director: Steven Wong
A new exhibition to be displayed at the Chinese American Museum from November 2016 through June 2017 will survey the constellation of individuals, institutions, and campaigns that informed the rise of Asian American identity and the rise of Asian American social and civil rights movements in Los Angeles during the formative years of the late 1960s through mid-1980s. Incorporating photographs, slides, videos, oral histories, artifacts, and interactive elements, the exhibit will be augmented with an illustrated brochure and a series of free public programs–conducted in partnership with local organizations–to provide opportunities for public discussion and engagement. $10,000

DELICIOUS REVOLUTION: CALIFORNIA AT THE HEART OF THE FOOD MOVEMENT
Institute for Food and Development Policy, Food First, Oakland
Project Director: Chelsea Wills
Like many cultural movements, the world’s current interest in good, sustainable, local food can trace many of its roots to the fertile and shifting landscape of California. Delicious Revolution, an existing radio show and podcast about food, will devote an entire season of interviews to the visionary chefs, gardeners, farmers, organizers, artists, and scientists from all parts of the state who have given rise and help shape the “food movement” and food culture over the last 50 years.  The project will encompass 8 hour-long in-depth interviews with influential thinkers and doers, a synthesis episode, and a public event in Oakland to be recorded live; all will be archived online. $9,997.05

THE DAGUHOY LODGE: RECLAIMING CALIFORNIA STORIES IN STOCKTON’S LITTLE MANILA
Little Manila Foundation, Stockton
Project Director: Dillon Delvo
Working in collaboration with the preservation staff of the Oakland Museum of California and project historians, the Little Manila Foundation will document a new chapter in the Filipino immigration story.  Objects from 26 trunks recently discovered at Stockton’s Daguhoy Lodge, a fraternal organization, community center and residential hall – carefully tailored suits and pants, shoes, personal letters, photographs, and other personal mementos – will bring these men’s immigration stories to life through the means of exhibits (online and physical) and a short film documentary, before being archived. $10,000

EVERYONE DESERVES A HOME
Delivering Innovation in Supportive Housing (DISH)/a project of Tides, San Francisco
Project Director: Ariel Fortune
Photos and audio recorded stories to be collected from formerly homeless San Francisco residents now living in permanent supportive housing will be collected and shared through a multimedia exhibit that will be installed at the city’s Main Library and the headquarters of tech firm Twitter.  The project aims to bridge the gap between public perceptions of the homeless and the rich and compelling stories these San Franciscans have to share, bringing residents together in dialogue to understand the strength and resiliency of this population and reflect on the value and meaning of home and community for all the people of the city. $9,998.92

FOLLOW THE FLUME: STORIES OF THE LUMBER TRADE THAT SHAPED CALIFORNIA’S CENTRAL VALLEY
Fresno County Library, Fresno
Project Director: Krista Riggs
A series of interactive programs, exhibits, and presentations in fall 2016 will reach beyond library walls to engage the community with the story of the Kings River, Sanger, and Pine Ridge Flumes, as well as the San Joaquin and Eastern Railroad, which carried lumber down from the High Sierras, and their impact on the subsequent development of the Central Valley.  Public programs designed for all ages will include historic storytelling, a steam train excursion, a hike to historic landmarks, an interactive driving tour, and collaborative exhibits, all to be offered by artists, naturalists, scholars, and park rangers. The project will build connections between the library and local museums, historical societies, and Native American tribes. $10,000

FOUND IN TRANSLATION – THE RESURGENCE OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION IN CALIFORNIA
San Francisco Public Press, San Francisco
Project Director: Michael Stoll
Aiming to broaden and inform ongoing public discussions about education, immigration, and human rights, this project will document the ways in which contemporary bilingual programs are affecting students of diverse cultural and economic backgrounds across the state, focusing first on current efforts to expand language education in San Francisco’s public schools, then turning to examine the effects of similar language education programs elsewhere in California. Stories gathered from students, parents, teachers, and school administrators, along with the insights of scholars and researchers, will be shared through print and online publications and provide the basis for a live community forum and discussion on the topic. $10,000

HARLEM OF THE WEST WEBSITE
Swell Cinema, Berkeley
Project Director: Elizabeth Pepin Silva
San Francisco’s Fillmore District was once a thriving, integrated neighborhood and a center of the city’s African American cultural life. But by the 1960s, the community virtually vanished due to one of the largest redevelopment projects in the country. The history of this iconic neighborhood will be documented through a robust website, featuring both previously collected and new interviews, photos, audio recordings, and other materials, that will enable the community to tell its own story. The project will increase public understanding of how redevelopment ended one of the most diverse and vibrant entertainment districts west of the Mississippi and what values are at stake when neighborhoods face change. $10,000

INDIGENOUS VOICES OF SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO: THE ACJACHEMEN (JUANEÑO) INDIAN COMMUNITY
Orange County Public Libraries, Santa Ana
Project Director: Jon Gilliom
Conducted in partnership with Mission San Juan Capistrano, the City of San Juan Capistrano, Orange County Department of Education, and California Audiovisual Preservation Project, this project will highlight the culture, tradition, and contemporary life of the Acjachemen (Juaneño) community. Interviews with tribal members will provide material for 10 digital videos to be archived and made available on the library’s OC Stories website. The project, which will also encompass cultural performance and public presentations, will create an enduring resource to the tribe as well as for students, educators, tourists, and community members interested in the history and continuing presence of south Orange County’s indigenous peoples. $10,000

LEGENDS OF COURAGE
Lavender Library, Archives & Cultural Exchange (LLACE), Sacramento
Project Director: Dawn Deason
A 30-minute documentary film will provide the means to preserve and share stories of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) trailblazers who sought to claim basic civil rights and contribute to the creation of a more inclusive Sacramento. Interviews with important leaders, including pioneering attorney and LGBT activist Rosemary Metrailer, will be presented against the backdrop of Sacramento’s social and political life, from the 1980s to the recent Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage. The project will document the resiliency, pathos, and determination of the region’s LGBT pioneers, and illuminate a largely unknown history of LGBT activism in the Sacramento community. $10,000

LONELY AS GOD
Northern California Resource Center (NCRC), Fort Jones
Project Director: Sasha Flamm
A feature-length documentary “portrait” of a place will examine the challenges facing Happy Camp, a Klamath River community which exemplifies many of the issues currently facing rural California. Centered on documenting the experience of a group of contemporary gold miners, “The New 49’ers,” who struggle to make a living as they search for gold, the project will also incorporate interviews with other local residents, business people, ex-loggers, and tribal members, along with historical commentary and archival material. The filmmakers will also offer a documentary filmmaking workshop to local youth. The film will be screened at local museums, festivals, and other venues in summer 2017. $9,904.40

STORIES OF THE 1/2% – RECONNECTING VETERANS TO THEMSELVES AND DIVERSE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA COMMUNITIES
Mindful Warrior Project, a project of Community Partners, Los Angeles
Project Director: Gail Soffer
This project will enable a group of Southern California veterans to give voice to and share their stories with others, finding compassion and support in the process, and deepening public understanding of veterans’ experiences. Oral histories will be incorporated into a dramatic performance, performed by professional actors (veterans) or by the veterans themselves, followed by an interactive discussion with the audience, which will be amplified via live-stream and/or video-recording. The project aims to encourage other veterans to embrace and share their experiences as well as to help bridge the gap between the 1/2% of the population who currently serve in the military and the rest of us. $10,000

MONTEREY JAZZ FESTIVAL 60TH ANNIVERSARY DOCUMENTARY PROJECT
Monterey Jazz Festival, Monterey
Project Director: Tim Jackson
Working in partnership with jazz historians, faculty, and students at CSU Monterey Bay, as well as archival collections, the Monterey Jazz Festival (MJF) will document the stories of the patrons, musicians, and students who have shaped the culture of jazz in California through this Festival. The project will document the development of West Coast jazz, explore the loyal jazz community convened by MJF each year, explore the culture of festivals, and assess the impact and legacy of West Coast jazz on the nation. Video stories will be presented at the 2017 Festival, shared with the community, and made available to jazz aficionados throughout the world through the MJF website. $10,000

SPEAKING STORY: AMPLIFYING LATIN@ VOICES IN REPRODUCTIVE NARRATIVES
California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, Los Angeles
Project Director: Rocio Garcia
Speaking Story aims to represent the multiplicity of meanings, experiences, and realities that encompass Latinas’ reproductive lives in California, and to explore the impact of factors including immigration, race, environmental pollutants, social and economic inequalities, young parenting, healthcare access, incarceration, geography, infertility, and various forms of violence. Employing story-collection methods to provide holistic narratives of Latinas and their families, the project will collect 40 reproductive justice stories, launch a website to archive and collect stories, organize a statewide social media “Speak Out”, and host two spoken word events in 2018 to broaden community understanding and awareness. $10,000

STORY OF US: COMMUNITY STORY PROJECT OF REFUGEES FROM BURMA IN SAN DIEGO
Karen Organization of San Diego, San Diego
Project Director: Nao Kabashima
This intergenerational project will engage refugee youth in collecting stories from community elders about their culture, heritage, and their journey to America, as well as their new life in San Diego. The project will enhance the general public’s understanding of the unique culture and history of the Karen and other minority groups from Burma, one of the newest refugee populations in California, and help them navigate the transition to their new home. The stories collected by the young researchers will be edited, published in print and electronic formats (in English, Karen, and Burmese), and shared with the broader San Diego community through interactive presentations. $7,700

TEARS OF WAR: THE MANY FACES OF REFUGEE WOMEN IN CALIFORNIA
Women’s Museum of California, San Diego
Project Director: Anne Hoiberg
The stories of 20 refugee women from San Diego’s City Heights neighborhood will provide material for a publication, a play, and a film that will document their experiences of journeying “from harm to home.” Through programs to be hosted by libraries, high schools, colleges, universities, and museums, San Diegans from “other villages” will have the opportunity to hear these compelling stories of war and resettlement and learn more about their new neighbors. The project aims to promote greater awareness of the refugee experience in order to increase compassion, empathy, and understanding, and promote appreciation of the values, resilience, and strengths these new Californians bring to our state. $10,000

TRANSFORMING THE SCRAP HEAP: FOLK ART AND CREATIVE REUSE IN WHITTIER’S HISTORY
Catalyst Network of Communities, Long Beach
Project Director: Megan Hobza
Since its beginnings as the Tongva village of Ajaarvongna, Whittier’s folk artists have creatively reused materials from the scrap heap. Now, a 1,000-square-foot mural and self-guiding audio tour and cloud-based oral storytelling installation in Uptown Whittier’s small business district will make visible (and audible) a little-known element of local history and culture and document the rich tradition of creative reuse by artisans from the many cultures that have contributed to shaping this diverse community. A launch celebration will introduce the project to the public and provide an opportunity to view the mural, hear the stories, and meet the makers of the project. $10,000

THE WOMEN ON THE MOTHER ROAD IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: ROUTE 66 ORAL HISTORY PROJECT AND PUBLIC SCREENING AND DISCUSSION PROGRAM
Cinefemme, Sausalito
Project Director: Katrina Parks
The narrative of the American West has primarily focused on men and largely overlooked the experiences of women and girls. By sharing oral histories collected from women of many different cultural backgrounds who lived, worked, and traveled on Route 66, this project will contribute to a more inclusive understanding of the history of this iconic highway. An online exhibition and screening and discussion programs that will take place in communities along Route 66, from the Mojave Desert to Los Angeles, will interweave videotaped stories with commentary by scholars and experts to connect individual experiences to the wider history of California, the West, and the nation. $9,996

WORDSUNCAGED: LETTERS FROM A LANCASTER PRISON
CSU Los Angeles Auxiliary Services, Inc., Los Angeles,
Project Director: Bidhan Chandra Roy
This project will enable a group of men sentenced to life or life without the possibility of parole (L.W.O.P), who are participants in two educational programs at Lancaster State Prison, to reflect on and share their experience with the broader public through stories. The project will produce a print and digital book, an installation and public event in downtown LA, post-event exhibitions at CSULA library and Sherman E. Burroughs High School in Ridgecrest, a digital archive at the CSULA library, and a website. The project aims add these voices to narrative about life in our state, and contribute to the public conversation about incarceration. $10,000

GRANTS AWARDED IN WINTER 2015

AGAINST ALL ODDS: NATIVE CALIFORNIAN STORIES OF ENDURANCE AND CONTINUANCE
California State University, East Bay Foundation, Hayward
Project Director: Henry Gilbert and Marjorie Rhodes-Ousley
An exhibit exploring the story of five generations of a 60 member Ohlone/Miwok family that continues to live within and near their now heavily-urbanized ancestral homelands in the San Francisco Bay Area will raise awareness of the ongoing presence of Native peoples in California and document a powerful story of cultural resilience and survival. This campus-based project will engage students in oral history work and development of a multimedia exhibit. An online archive, publications, and public programs will offer additional learning experiences for the community at large. $10,000

BEACH FLATS 
Community Agroecology Network, Santa Cruz
Project Director: Michelle Aguilar
Nestled within a concrete jungle adjacent to the historic Santa Cruz boardwalk, the Beach Flats Community Garden has provided an oasis for a dedicated group of gardeners, mostly Latinos, for the past 20 years. This oral history project aims to produce an archival website and documentary film to share the stories of the gardeners, now facing eviction, and provide a lens for exploring topics of concern to Californians today: gentrification, food security, and land use conflicts. The film will be screened in various community settings in Santa Cruz, distributed to schools and libraries, and disseminated through online and digital media channels; accompanying lesson plans will be developed to support classroom use. $10,000

CALIFORNIA MUSLIM VETS
Islamic Scholarship Fund, Berkeley
Project Director: David Washburn
Four short documentaries will provide four California Muslim American veterans opportunities to reflect on and share their personal stories as well as to explore the particular complexities and challenges faced by each. The documentaries will be presented through a series of screenings and discussions hosted by community partners in Northern and Southern California and distributed online. Aiming to dispel misconceptions and stereotyping by sharing first person accounts, the project will promote greater understanding of California’s Muslim community. $10,000

CHINESE WHISPERS: GOLDEN GATE
Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco
Project Director: Rene Yung
Integrating oral history, archival research, and storytelling with visual, sound, and performance art, this multimedia project will juxtapose stories of 19th and 20th century Chinese settlers alongside those of recent migrants to the Bay Area.  By sharing memories and experiences that are seldom voiced and little known, the project will provide an opportunity for audiences to deepen their understanding of the commonalities of the immigrant experience, both past and present. In addition to live performances and discussions in San Francisco, a DVD and materials to support classroom and community-based screenings and dialogues will be produced. $10,000

DREAMER STORIES: LANDSCAPES IN THE MIST 
Mid-Peninsula Community Media Center, Palo Alto
Project Director: Elliot Margolies
Storytelling salons hosted by local public libraries will provide an opportunity for residents of Palo Alto and Redwood City to hear from a group of young California DREAMers – children who accompanied their parents to the US without legal authorization. To help build bridges of understanding as well as to infuse historical and sociological insights into discussion of a hotly contested political topic, media professionals and humanities experts will facilitate community conversations following the storytelling sessions. The live events will be recorded for broadcast and online distribution through a variety of channels to extend the reach and impact of the project on wider audiences. $10,000

FLOWER FARMS OF SAN DIEGUITO
San Dieguito Heritage Museum, Encinitas
Project Director: Jeff Charles
The once-thriving floraculture industry in North San Diego County has all but disappeared as farms and fields have been transformed into suburban housing tracts. With support from CSU San Marcos scholars, the museum will produce and present a multi-media exhibit from oral histories to be collected from the laborers, growers, plant scientists, and other local residents who made this region the “Flower Capital of the World” in its heyday. The exhibit will be complemented by a public lecture series, a symposium, and the development of a hybrid STEM-humanities curriculum unit for local elementary schools. $10,000

FROM OUR PERSPECTIVES: UNTOLD STORIES OF LGBTQ YOUTH IN THE LOS ANGELES FOSTER CARE SYSTEM
University Corporation, California State University Northridge, Northridge
Project Directors: Moshoula Capous Desyllas and Sarah E. Mountz
As much as 20% of the young people in LA County’s foster care system identify as LGBTQ; most are youth of color. Many of them experience special challenges and suffer discrimination and even violence as a result of their sexual orientation or gender identity. This project will provide 30 foster system “alumni” an opportunity to create photo essays documenting their lives before, during, and after foster care. These first-voice pieces, along with contextual material, will provide content for a series of online and physical exhibits and public discussions designed to raise public consciousness and understanding of their experience and inform policy and professional practice. $10,000

GAY LADIES’ LANE
San Francisco Film Society, San Francisco
Project Director: Deborah Craig
A feature-length documentary will share the stories of California lesbians who are finding ways to grow old gracefully and even joyously, whether they are aging in place, going “back to the land” in rural California, relocating to a gay-specific or gay-friendly retirement community, or joining the legions of aging seniors living “on the road” in RVs. Through community screenings and discussions, and an interactive website, the project hopes to counter dominant narratives and stereotypes about gay people, elders, and women, and to offer Californians of all ages and orientations new insights and new ways of thinking about aging. $10,000

HALO-HALO–MIXED TOGETHER STORIES FROM SAN DIEGO’S FILIPINO AMERICAN COMMUNITY
Asian Story Theater, San Diego
Project Director: Kent Brisby
Using the popular traditional multilayered Filipino dessert as a metaphor, the project will explore the diversity of experiences within San Diego’s Filipino American community. A full-scale multimedia theatrical production will be developed from archival research and interviews conducted with community members, with support from scholars and community researchers. The project will provide a means to preserve and share a history that is little known, both within the community as well as outside, and promote greater understanding of the Filipino presence in California, past and present. $10,000

IRAN/AMERICA: STORIES OF THE JOURNEY TO CALIFORNIA 
University Corporation at Monterey Bay, Seaside
Project Director: Naseem Badiey
California is home to a diverse group of over one million Iranian immigrants who have arrived since the 1979 Revolution, but their stories and experiences are little known outside the community. This oral history project will create a website to house interview clips and short-format documentaries developed through the grant that will also provide a means to store and make accessible user-generated content from the community. Aiming to expand awareness of the diversity of this immigrant community among the general public, the project will explore the commonalities and differences individuals and families have faced as they negotiate identity, maintain continuity with cultural and social traditions, and adapt to life in a new home. $10,000

KEEP ON PUSHIN’
West of West Center for Narrative History of the Central Valley, Inc., Fresno
Project Director: Ernest Lowe
While the story of the white Dust Bowl exodus to California is well-known, the parallel journey of Black sharecroppers during the 1940s and 50s is less so. This project will create a multi-media exhibition documenting this strand of California’s migration history, focusing on Teviston, a Black Okie town in Tulare County. In addition to oral histories, the exhibit will include historical and contemporary photographs, video documentaries, music, and artifacts.  The exhibit and accompanying public programs will travel to campus and community venues in the Central Valley and Bay Area. An associated website will provide a space for community members to share related stories and images. $10,000

LOS ANGELES REVIVAL: AN ORAL HISTORY ARCHIVING PROJECT EXPLORING CHANGES TO DOWNTOWN LA
Heyday, Berkeley
Project Director: Jeremy Rosenberg
This oral history project will provide denizens of LA’s rapidly changing downtown with space to reflect on the economic, demographic, and cultural changes taking place alongside the physical transformation of the city. A series of interviews, public forums, and community conversations organized in collaboration with and hosted by local partners will engage people from many walks of life and different points of view in reflection and discussion about the city’s past, present, and future. A website and publication will provide additional ways to preserve and share these stories and related research with wider audiences. $10,000

MAPPING INDIGENOUS LA: DIGITAL STORYTELLING AS PLACEMAKING
Regents of the University of California, Los Angeles
Project Director: Maylei Blackwell
Los Angeles has the largest indigenous population of any US city. This university-community collaboration will explore the relationships between the Tongva and Tataviam communities, the first peoples of LA, and other indigenous groups from North America, Latin America, and Oceania who now make the city home. The digital storytelling project will link audio and video recordings from interviews to on online map accessible through a smart phone “ap”; public exhibitions, a radio documentary, and a K-12 curriculum will further extend the project’s reach and impact. In addition to promoting connections between and raising awareness of the presence of indigenous peoples in the city, the project hopes to spark new research. $10,000

MONTEREY: PROFILES IN COURAGE AND COMPASSION
Go For Broke National Education Center, Torrance
Project Director: Barbara Watanabe
In partnership with the Monterey Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League and students from local colleges, project staff will research the little-known story of a group of local citizens who organized to publically welcome Japanese American internees back to the community in 1945. Research and interviews with these “upstanders” and their descendents (John Steinbeck was among the group) will be woven into a short documentary geared for community and educational use. The project aims to stimulate reflection and dialogue about a moment in history when, as now, security concerns test adherence to democratic principles and human ties. $10,000

MUJERES DE MAIZ: 20 YEARS OF ARTIVISM AND HERSTORY EN L.A.
Self-Help Graphics, Los Angeles
Project Director: Michelle Lopez
A comprehensive retrospective interpretive exhibit at the Vincent Price Art Museum will document the work of this vibrant grassroots collective of East Los Angeles-based women artists of color, and explore the ways in which it has helped shape and been shaped by movements for cultural identity, social change, wellness, and individual and community empowerment. Academic and independent scholars will serve as curators and history consultants in developing the exhibit and public programs, which will include panel discussions, intergenerational platicas (talks), oral history presentations, and a poetry reading. $10,000

NIGHT MARKET
Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre, Los Angeles
Project Director: Heidi Duckler
This innovative arts-humanities project will explore the immigrant experience in Los Angeles through the stories of the people who live and work near LA’s Central Wholesale Market. UCLA humanities faculty and students and Company members will interview Market tenants, mostly newcomers from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.  Their stories will provide source material for a new site-specific work of dance.  Performances and talk-backs will help make visible this vibrant but largely unknown community, and promote greater understanding and interaction between the vendors, their neighbors, and the wider Los Angeles community. $10,000

THE NEGRO MOTORIST GREEN BOOK: DOCUMENTING STORIES AND SITES OF SANCTUARY IN LOS ANGELES
Pasadena Arts Council, Pasadena
Project Director: Candacy Taylor
During the era of Jim Crow, many African Americans relied on this “Bible of Black Travel” to navigate safe passage and find sustenance and respite while on the road. This oral history project will identify and interview individuals who are connected to historic sites of refuge in Los Angeles – hotels, motels, restaurants, gas stations, and other businesses. Stories will be presented through public programs, an interactive website, and provide material for a book and exhibit that will document a little known chapter in California history and provide opportunities to re-examine America’s troubled history of race relations. $10,000

OUT ON THE LEFT COAST: SAN DIEGO LGBT HISTORY
San Diego State University Research Foundation, San Diego
Project Directors: Anna Culbertson, Melissa Lamont
An online interactive website will document the emergence of LGBT social movements in the San Diego region, using the annual San Diego Pride cerebration as a focal point. Oral histories, photographs, video and digitized graphics from T-shirts, buttons, posters, and banners from the collection of the Lambda Archives at SDSU as well as new interviews will provide content for the website, which will be supplemented with contextual material to be contributed by project scholars. The online resource will be launched with a public lecture series that will coincide with San Diego Pride in June 2017. $10,000

THE PLUMMER PROJECT 
La Habra High School Theater Guild, La Habra
Project Director: Brian Johnson
An original immersive theater experience will bring to light a little-known episode in Orange County history, the censorship of “Pastoral California”, a WPA-era mural depicting life in the Rancho era.  In collaboration with CSU Fullerton’s Center for Oral and Public History, high school faculty and students will conduct archival research and interviews, which will be developed into a site-specific performance piece, focusing on the stories of key characters in this dramatic episode. Post-play discussions will raise awareness of local history and provide opportunities for dialogue about current community relations.  Recordings of interviews as well as the performances and discussions will be archived on a website. $9,000

WATTS 65: UNCOVERING HIDDEN HISTORIES
Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles
Project Director: Yusef Omowole
Working in partnership with community elders, scholars, and educators, the Library will conduct a year-long project to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1965 Watts rebellion.  In addition to collecting stories from eye-witnesses and other community members, the project will develop a virtual exhibit housing archival material as well as new stories, and produce resources for educators. The website will be launched with a public forum which will explore the relationship of this historical moment to the present, as the city, the state, and the nation continue to grapple with racism and racialized conflict. $10,000

GRANTS AWARDED IN SUMMER 2015

THE 1947 PARTITION ARCHIVE: CALIFORNIA STORY SCHOLARS PROGRAM 
The 1947 Partition Archive, Berkeley
Project Director: Guneeta Singh Bhalla
Oral histories from Central Valley residents who witnessed the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent – which produced the largest movement of people in the 20th century — will bring to light untold stories of survival, displacement, resettlement, and cultural integration within the contemporary California landscape.  Screenings and discussion of these stories at museums and community organizations in the region will provide opportunities for community reflection and dialogue; the stories will reach a global audience via an interactive, map-based online exhibit. By sharing these stories, the project aims to foster greater public understanding and empathy. $10,000

AMERICAN BAGHDAD
Media Arts Center San Diego, San Diego
Project Director: Ron Najor
El Cajon, a city in eastern San Diego County, has one of the highest concentrations of Iraqi refugees in America. A majority of these new residents are Chaldeans, members of a distinct cultural group, who fled religious persecution and violence after the war began in 2003. Through in-depth interviews with individuals who represent different dimensions of the larger community experience, the project will explore and document the challenges and opportunities these refugees face as they seek to make a home in California. The short video pieces to be produced will be broadcast, made available online, and presented at screening and discussion events throughout the region. $10,000

BEYOND THE FIELDS: UNTOLD STORIES OF CIVIL RIGHTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN CALIFORNIA’S CENTRAL VALLEY
Kern Community College, Bakersfield
Project Director: Oliver Rosales
This year (2015) marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of the Delano Grape Strike (1965-1970). A new oral history project will shed new light on this historic period by documenting a lesser-known story: how the farm labor organizing movement gave rise to civil rights and social justice activism beyond the fields of Kern County.  A collaborative effort involving Bakersfield College and CSU Bakersfield, the project will identify key participants, record oral histories, contextualize and share them through a website, and develop public programs and opportunities for community engagement and learning. $10,000

BOARDING SCHOOL STORIES
Cante Sica Foundation, Los Angeles
Project Director: Jonathan Skurnik
By collecting and sharing stories of Native elders who attended Indian Boarding Schools, this project will provide opportunities for Native and non-Native audience alike to understand the complex history and legacy of these institutions.  By training a group of Southern California Native youth in oral history and documentary methods to conduct these interviews, the project will help develop a new generation of public historians and strengthen intergenerational bonds within the Native community.  In collaboration with the Autry National Center, the oral histories will be archived and made available online, accompanied with contextual materials.  Exhibits and public programs that result from the work will support community engagement, reflection, and dialogue. $10,000

DEMOCRACY IN THE FIELDS
Center for Community Advocacy, Salinas
Project Director: Miriam Pawel
A recently rediscovered trove of photographs by Mimi Plumb will be the focus of a new, interactive, bilingual, multi-media website that will share stories about the farm workers who joined Cesar Chavez’s movement forty years ago in the Salinas Valley. Designed to expand as people find and identify friends and relatives in the photographs and add their own recollections, the website will also include archival material and oral histories already conducted. The project will culminate with a public forum at the National Steinbeck Center that will offer the community an additional story-sharing opportunity. This project will recover a rapidly disappearing piece of California history and document its enduring legacy. $10,000

DOCKS TO DELTA: LISTENING TO THE LANDSCAPE ALONG THE CAPITOL CORRIDOR TRAIN LINE
California Institute for Rural Studies, Davis
Project Director: Idli Carlisle-Cummins
Part live performance and part permanent, easily-accessible, free audio tour, this project will explore the history of the landscape between San Jose and Auburn travelled by thousands of commuters each day, inviting listeners to expand their understanding of this region and explore topics that are the subject of contemporary policy debates. The project will launch with a live story-based performance on the train during the two-hour program en route to Sacramento, and discussion sessions on the return trip to Oakland. After the event, stories will be made available as podcasts that can be accessed via smart phone app or computer by travelers and others interested in the past, present, and future of California and regional history. $10,000

MEMORIES TO LIGHT: ASIAN AMERICAN HOME MOVIES FROM THE CENTRAL VALLEY
Center for Asian American Media, San Francisco
Project Director: Stephen Gong
Home movies are now recognized as an important source of historical and cultural knowledge.  By collecting, preserving and sharing home movies created by Asian American residents of the Central Valley, this project will share authentic stories and images documenting  everyday life that will counterbalance stereotypic (or absent) representations of Asian Americans often seen in conventional media.  Humanities advisors will help viewers make connections between the deeply personal and familial experiences portrayed by these amateur filmmakers to larger communal and social histories through the means of direct public programming and an interpretive website and online archive. $10,000

MIHISTORIA: SHARING STORIES OF LATINA FARMWORKERS
Chicana/Latina Foundation, Burlingame
Project Director: Albertina Zarazua Padilla
Seeking to promote understanding of the experiences of women whose labor puts food on our tables, and broaden knowledge of the diversity of backgrounds and experiences of California  farm workers today, this project will record and share stories from women farm workers in the Central Valley and the Central Coast.  Stories elicited through workshops, supplemented with visual and contextual material, will be presented on a bilingual website and broadcast on Radio Bilingue.  A public program in the Bay Area will launch the site and provide opportunities to strengthen connections between the campesinas and the urban communities their labor helps sustain. $10,000

NORTH BAY DREAMERS
Graton Day Labor Center, Graton
Project Director: Christopher Kerosky
This multimedia project will provide the means for some of the many thousands of undocumented young people in the North Bay Area who have obtained legal status under the DREAM Act/DACA law, known as DREAMers, to share their stories and aspirations with the broader community.  Through a collaboration involving many community partners, the project will produce a website, social media platforms, video profiles, and a half-hour documentary that will be broadcast on public television and screened in local schools, museums, businesses, and government offices.  These stories will add a human dimension to academic and policy debates about immigration reform, and promote thoughtful public engagement with a complex and contested issue. $10,000

ON THE MAP: YOUTH TELL STORIES FROM A CHANGING CALIFORNIA
National Alliance for Media Arts + Culture, Oakland
Project Director: Nicole Newnham
A team of filmmakers and scholars will work with schools and youth development organizations, enabling young people in 20 underserved communities across the state to explore and document compelling contemporary stories that affect them, ranging from the tech industry’s displacement of youth and their families from San Francisco’s mission district to the effect of the drought on a community in the Inland empire. Stories uncovered through these investigations will be incorporated into a online digital map accessible through the project website, “Map My World.” Tools will be developed to support community-based as well as online screenings and discussions about these stories and the issues they raise. $10,000

AN ORAL HISTORY OF MEXICAN AMERICANS IN SOUTH COLTON 1890-1960
California State University, San Bernardino
Project Director: Tom Rivera
This oral history project aims to produce a record of life in a segregated Mexican American community in the Inland Empire, from the 1890’s to 1960 when the civil rights era initiated a gradual process of its integration into the surrounding city of Colton. Interviews with current residents and descendents of earlier residents will yield a richly textured description of life in this “parallel” community and document a story about which little has been written.  Recordings, transcripts and photos produced by the project will be archived and shared through virtual and real-time public programs, exhibits, and forums geared for local residents, students, and scholars of California and Latino history. $10,000

RUN DRY
Media Arts Center San Diego, San Diego
Project Director: Kristine Diekman
California has been experiencing a prolonged and historic drought, but nowhere are its effects and the resulting competition for water more apparent than in Tulare County, where some economically disadvantaged individuals and families are currently living without running water. Hoping to raise awareness of the complexity and history of issues related to water use in California’s Central Valley, the project will use video, photographic, and interviews to document the experience of those affected, and share their stories online through interactive digital technology, to be made available free for educational purposes by community members, students, scholars, policy makers, and the broader public. $10,000

SAIGU REMEMBERED
Santa Monica College, Santa Monica
Project Director: Sang Chi
This campus-based project will engage students, faculty, and community members in making a documentary about the Korean American community’s experience of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Emphasis will be placed on examining the impact on second- and third-generation Korean Americans, including interviews with the family and friends of Eddie Lee, a SMC student who was the only Korean American killed during the civil unrest. Through oral histories, interviews and archival research to be conducted with the aid of journalists and community leaders, the project will develop material for a long-form documentary that will be widely disseminated through locally hosted screenings, regional film festivals, and community based organizations. $10,000

SAWTELLE JAPANESE AMERICAN HISTORY: A MINECRAFT-MACHINIMA DOCUMENTARY
GameTrain Learning, Inc., Redondo Beach
Project Director: Randall Fujimoto
Using contemporary digital tools, middle and school students will work with academic scholars and community historians to create a 20-minute machinima (animated film) documentary about Sawtelle, a historic Japanese American neighborhood in Los Angeles.  Using archival photographs, video footage, with “narration” provided by previously collected oral history recordings, the project will employ  animation to recreate a 3D virtual environment of the community in its heyday, the 1930s-70s. Public presentations and a website will enable access by K-12 and college students, current and former residents, and educators, researchers, and individuals and organizations interested in Japanese American and Los Angeles history. $10,000

VETERANOS OF POMONA: LOCAL STORIES OF LATINOS IN THE MILITARY
Pomona College, Claremont
Project Director: Tomás Summers Sandoval
This youth-centered, community history project, a partnership between Pomona College (Claremont) and dA Center for the Arts (Pomona), will bring to light and share the stories of Pomona’s Latina/Latino military veterans and their families. Intensive training will enable local youth to conduct 30 oral histories, spanning the period of the Vietnam War to the present. The oral histories will anchor an interdisciplinary museum exhibit incorporating video, audio, and visual materials–including works of visual and performance art inspired by the stories—that will connect these young people and the community at large to their collective past. $10,000

THE WOMEN OF EL TORO
California State University, Fullerton, Auxiliary Services Corporation, Fullerton
Project Director: Xtine Burrough
A collaboration between Cal State Fullerton (CSUF), the Center for Oral Public History at CSUF, and the Orange County Great Park, this project will raise awareness of women’s roles in the military and enrich visitor’s appreciation of the history and landscape of the park, site of the former El Toro Marine Corps Air station.  The project will develop a free, interactive smartphone/tablet application that will enable visitors to hear recorded oral histories shared by women veterans and military wives who lived and worked on base from World War II until its closure in 1999, and contribute their own stories and reflections about military experience, family lore, or their experience of this changing landscape. $10,000

YOUNG CITY AT WAR: STORIES FROM WEST HOLLYWOOD DURING THE AIDS EPIDEMIC
Lavender Effect/Community Partners, Los Angeles
Project Director: Andy Sacher
Aiming to launch on December 1, National AIDS Awareness Day, this new media oral history project will bring attention to the dramatic and poignant story of West Hollywood’s response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in its early days. Through in-depth interviews with individuals from LGBTQ and allied communities who were participants and/or witnesses to that turbulent period, an important chapter of community history will be preserved and made available online for current residents, LGBTQ youth, and the broader public.  Educational materials (standards-aligned) will be developed to support use by teachers and student organizations at LAUSD middle and high schools. $10,000

ZEN HOSPICE PROJECT STORYTELLING INITIATIVE
Zen Hospice Project, San Francisco
Project Director: Diane Mailey
This expansion of Zen Hospice Project’s ongoing Storytelling Initiative, which records and shares stories from hospice residents, families, caregivers, volunteers, and staff, will further promote healing and transformation among participants, strengthen care-giving, and educate families, caregivers, and broader professional and public audiences about the experiences of death, grieving, and loss. In partnership with StoryCorps Legacy, the project will develop a new series of storytelling and community events, improve production quality, and broaden dissemination of these compelling stories through online distribution, social media, and public radio broadcast. $10,000

GRANTS AWARDED IN WINTER 2014

Big Sur Oral History Project
Henry Miller Memorial Library (HMML), Big Sur
Project Director: Michael Scutari
Big Sur Oral History Project will capture, preserve, and make available an oral history of a unique community in one of the most remarkable landscapes in the world; the stretch of land comprising Big Sur. The Henry Miller Memorial Library (HMML) will digitize existing audio and film recordings (still in many cases on deteriorating media), and record new stories. Materials will be shared with visitors and residents through a publicly accessible archive and listening station. The project will explore contemporary life and how the area’s residents have adapted to their rugged natural surroundings, the conservation ethic, and to the ever increasing amount of visiting public across the past 100 years. $10,000

The Briefing Room
Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito
Project Director: Carrie Hott
The Briefing Room will engage visitors to Headlands Center for the Arts in Golden Gate National Recreation Area with the diversity of experiences of the many peoples who have lived and worked in this place: Native American Coastal Miwok, Spanish and Mexican ranchers, Portuguese immigrant dairy farmers, military personnel, and the California artists, activists, and civil leaders that partnered with the National Park Service to create a thriving international arts center – the site’s current use.  The multi-media storytelling center – comprising digital displays featuring interviews, guides, photographs, and drawings – will reveal and promote understanding of the region’s complex history. $10,000

Cold War Culver City
The Wende Museum, Culver City
Project Director: Donna Stein
The Cold War Culver City project intends to highlight the city’s ‘hidden in plain sight’ Cold War-era history through means of an online exhibit, a portable digital application, and public programming, that will draw upon previously collected material as well as new oral histories. The Wende Museum hopes that by linking the vestigial Cold War landscape to personal and communal narratives, and making the community’s past visible and accessible, it will encourage greater interest in local history and further understanding of the significant role the city played in Cold War politics, culture, and industry. $10,000

Digital Histories – Making a Home: The Power of Place in Asian Pacific American California Neighborhoods
Visual Communications, Los Angeles
Project Director: Janet Chen
Digital Histories will explore the meaning of place within the Asian Pacific American experience in California. Using interviews, storytelling, filmmaking, and writing, a group of Southern California APA seniors will reflect on and represent their unique experiences with particular places that have been important in their lives, examining the relationship between the physical environment and its social context, as well as how place contributes to the formation of personal and collective identity.  Ten original documentary short films will be produced; free public screenings and discussions will occur at film festivals and community centers across the state. $10,000

The Growing Divide: A portrait of the Marijuana Farming Boom in a Rural Community
The Watershed Research and Training Center, Hayfork
Project Director: Piper McDaniel
The Growing Divide will investigate and document the impact of the black market marijuana industry on the rural community of Hayfork, CA, a geographically isolated community in California’s Far North that experienced dramatic changes to its physical and social landscape in the wake of the booming marijuana farming industry. Utilizing photography and interviews with residents, marijuana growers, law enforcement and government officials, this project will produce an interpretive exhibit and online archive depicting a community undergoing rapid environmental and social transition: divided, interdependent, tightly knit, and struggling for definition and stability. $10,000

It’s a Krip-Hop Nation
Watts Village Theater Company, Los Angeles
Project Director: Lynn Manning
It’s a Krip-Hop Nation is a research project and ultimately a theatrical production drawn from the stories and histories of people living in South Los Angeles who have been disabled through accidents, violence, and war. In collaboration with community partner organizations and agencies, Watts Village Theater Company (WVTC) will conduct an oral history project to collect stories from disabled survivors of violence, their family members, and their caregivers.  Professional theatre artists will collaborate in the production of an original stage play depicting the too seldom portrayed lives of people with disabilities, giving special attention to the often-ignored population of disabled people of color. Post play discussions will provide opportunities for community reflection and dialogue. $10,000

Jews and the Development of Los Angeles
KCRW-89.9 FM, Los Angeles
Project Director: Avishay Artsy
This project will focus on the important but little-known role played by Jewish architects, developers, political and social leaders, and philanthropists in shaping the built environment of Los Angeles.  Through one-on-one interviews with key figures in this story, and analysis contributed by historians and other scholars,  Jews and the Development of Los Angeles will explore why the Jewish community, a relatively small segment of LA’s population, has had such a significant impact on the city’s physical form.  The project will result in a series of print articles and radio stories that will be published in The Jewish Journal and broadcast on KCRW, an NPR affiliate in Southern California, as well as presented through public forums. $10,000

The Kumeyaay Nation: Stories of Change
Imperial Valley Desert Museum, El Centro
Project Director: Frank Salazar
This project, an innovative exhibit at the Imperial Valley Desert Museum (IVDM), draws from over seventy hours of interviews with members of the Kumeyaay tribe, which has inhabited the region for over 9,000 years. Under the theme of “shared identity in a changing landscape,” the exhibit will use state-of-the-art museum technologies, exploring how the tribe has adapted to the region’s arid climate, and sharing accounts and stories about life in the desert environment.  The exhibit will provide the means for Kumeyaay perspectives on the environment and culture to be shared with new audiences, and for museum visitors to reflect on their own experience of this landscape. $10,000

Opening the Door: Personal Stories of Groundbreaking Los Angeles Lawyers and Judges
LA Law Library, Los Angeles
Project Director: Linda Heichman
Oral histories of individuals who have overcome significant barriers to achieve success – Los Angeles judges and lawyers who triumphed despite obstacles posed by discrimination related to gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status – will be the basis for an upcoming exhibit and short video created by the LA Law Library. Personal stories, artifacts, and ephemera from the Library’s legal history collection will be shared to help spark an engaged dialogue about past and present impediments to educational and career achievement. Through public programming, Opening the Door aims to engage and inspire local high school and college students to surmount societal obstacles that they, too, may face, and to raise awareness of these issues within the broader community. $9,897

Pursuing Dreams: Stories of Refugee and Immigrant Youth in California
Refugee Transitions, San Francisco
Project Director: Jane Pak
Pursuing Dreams: Stories of Refugee and Immigrant Youth in California will collect and share stories from a group of Bay Area immigrant youth about overcoming odds, survival, resilience, and cross-cultural friendships. Many refugees and immigrants hold memories that are still fresh and raw after having fled war, economic hardships, or violence; lost loved ones; and/or having been resettled after living in refugee camps for many years. The project will help these young Bay Area newcomers develop English language skills as they craft and share their written and visual stories through digital and public programs, and foster greater awareness, appreciation, and a greater understanding of the California immigrant experience. $10,000

Q&A Space Coming Out Stories
API Equality-LA, Los Angeles
Project Director: Shelly Chen
LGBTQ youth, particularly youth of color, often feel isolated and face hostility and even violence.  To respond to these challenges, API Equality-LA will expand its existing online archive of stories from Asian and Pacific Islander LGBT individuals by collecting new stories from parents, family members, and friends of LGBTQ youth. The Q&A project will present and contextualize these stories through the means of an exhibit, an online archive, and public programs to provide the means by which API youth with complex identities can share their stories, towards the goal for fostering greater compassion, understanding and awareness on the part of the entire community. $10,000

Reflections of a Drought
Fresno County Library Jurisdiction, Fresno
Project Director: Jonathan Waltmire
Fresno County Public Library (FCPL), in partnership with The kNOw Youth Media, will produce a documentary exploring the impact of the current drought on Fresno County, the top agricultural producing region in California. Stories from community members who have been affected by the drought will be recorded through video interviews, digital storytelling, and a short documentary film – these materials will be archived and presented online and in real-time public programs in order to promote understanding among local, state, national and international audiences about this contemporary environmental crisis. $8,960

Salmon Wars of the Klamath River Project
Yurok Tribe, Klamath
Project Director: Isaac Kinney
The Yurok Tribe will produce a four part video documentary, Salmon Wars of the Klamath River, that will explore the story of the struggle of the Yurok people in the 1970’s  to preserve their traditional fishing rights and restore the health of the Klamath River.  Highlighting the historic and legal components of Yurok fishing rights, the cultural awakening and resiliency displayed during and after the Salmon Wars, and the status of the current Yurok fishery, the documentary will explore an important California story with national resonance. The video will be shared with tribal members, the local community, and visitors to the tribal visitor center, as well as made available online and screened at film festivals. $10,000

Second Chances
ImaginAction, Sierra Madre
Project Director: Hector Aristizabal
Although LA is home to more refugees who have survived torture in their homelands than any other American city, their stories are seldom heard and their experiences little known.  ImaginAction will collect oral histories from at least 20 torture survivors – mostly from Africa, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union  – now living in the region, and record and present these through texts (online and print), radio, video, and theater performances. Second Chances aims to provide  a window on the experiences of these new Angelinos as they begin their new lives – both the advantages to settling along with the obstacles to social reintegration – and offer opportunities for genuine and thoughtful conversations as well as to promote greater public understanding. $10,000

SF Stories: A Shared Experience
Bay Area Video Coalition, San Francisco
Project Director: Jason Jakaitis
Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) will engage local veterans, their families and veterans’service organizations to develop, produce and share digital stories about veterans’ reintegration process into their home communities, through the personal lens of their families. These stories, combined with commentary and additional content provided by the veteran’s themselves, will be shared online and developed into an hour-long program for broadcast on SF Commons. By providing opportunities for veterans and their families to create and share their unique stories with each other and the public, the project aims to increase self-understanding, communication and a positive self-image through the creative storytelling process. $10,000

We Are SF
Community Initiatives, San Francisco
Project Director: Sh