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Southern California Library for
Social Studies and Research
6120 South Vermont Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90044
NEWS
RELEASE
For Immediate Release, May 14, 2003
Contact: Michele Welsing
Phone: 323-759-6063; FAX: 323-759-2252
Email: archives@socallib.org;
Web: www.socallib.org
Groundbreaking South Los Angeles Project One of Ten Designed to
Strengthen Communities as California Council for the Humanities Launches
Next Phase of California Stories
LOS ANGELES –The diverse and fascinating history of South Los Angeles
is the subject of a new initiative, sponsored by the Southern California
Library for Social Studies and Research (SCL), entitled “From Generation
to Generation: Making a Life in South Los Angeles, 1940–2005.” (See
project website.)
The
groundbreaking project is one of ten in the
Communities Speak program,
launched today by the California Council for the Humanities, under its
California Stories initiative. The project is also supported in part by a
grant from the California Community Foundation.
The Communities Speak projects will engage a broad range of people in
story-based activities designed to strengthen communities. They will take
place in different California communities over the next two to three years
and address a variety of pressing community issues, including affordable
housing, environmental degradation, ethnic and generational tensions, and
longstanding unemployment.
The people of South Los Angeles have created vibrant neighborhoods and have
a long history of banding together to find solutions to pressing concerns.
The South Los Angeles Communities Speak project will tell the real story of
the area’s distinctive neighborhoods and shifting demographics through the
stories of a multi-generational group of residents. Activities will include
public discussions, poetry slams, group exhibits and film showings. In
keeping with the Library’s mission of using history to advance social
justice, the goal of the project is to engage residents of South Los Angeles
in defining and interpreting their own community’s history.
“Ordinary people are the historymakers,” said Alexis Moreno, SCL’s
Program Director who is leading the project. “We think sharing history
across generations can be very empowering. We hope this project will help
people realize their own power in shaping the destiny of their
communities.”
“These Communities Speak projects strengthen their respective communities
by bringing people together across ethnic, cultural and generational lines
to share stories and find common ground for addressing local concerns,”
said Jim Quay, executive director of the California Council for the
Humanities. “Story-sharing on a community-wide level is not just a ‘feel
good’ activity. We have found that when people tell their stories and
other people listen, a trust develops that can change community dynamics and
lay the groundwork for solving pressing issues,” Quay said. “But
typically people don’t have occasions for sharing stories on a
community-wide level despite the need for this in such a highly diverse
state as California. It’s the missing link in community development, and
Communities Speak fills that void.”
The Communities Speak projects will collect stories and engage communities
in a variety of ways, including photographs, town hall meetings, art
exhibits, stage productions and Web sites. “We think that the projects
will contribute to a rich narrative of contemporary California and give
voice to people not now represented in California’s story,” Quay said.
Besides the South Los Angeles project, the Communities Speak projects,
currently in various planning stages, will take place in San Francisco,
Sacramento, San Diego (city and county), Marin County, San
Bernardino/Riverside Counties, Guadalupe (Santa Barbara County), Fresno, and
Stockton.
Communities Speak grants are made possible by funds provided to the Council
from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the James Irvine Foundation,
the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, and the Wells Fargo Foundation. Four
community foundations—California Community Foundation, Marin Community
Foundation, San Francisco Foundation, and Santa Barbara Foundation— are
lending significant support to projects in their areas. Founded in 1915, the
California Community Foundation makes grants to nonprofit organizations
serving the communities of Los Angeles County.
Communities Speak is the second phase of California Stories, the Council’s
multiyear effort to tell the story of today’s California. California
Stories began in 2002 with “Reading the Grapes of Wrath,” an
unprecedented reading and story-sharing program. The Council’s mission is
to enrich California’s cultural life and strengthen communities through
public use of the humanities.
###
Go to project website
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