The California History Center at Cupertino’s De Anza College has been awarded a federal grant to preserve more than 400 oral history interviews conducted over the past 50 years, and to add new voices to tell their stories of Santa Clara Valley.
The $150,000, three-year grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities will be used for “Voices of Silicon Valley,” a project meant to highlight De Anza’s diverse student population and to foster identity and community among the various cultural groups on campus.
According to Humanities Department Chair Lori Clinchard, who serves as faculty director for the California History Center, interviews already on file and waiting to be digitized cover topics like local winemaking, including a 1975 interview with Ridge’s David Bennion; labor unions and cannery workers in Santa Clara County; Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans and Mexican Americans in Santa Clara County; Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers’ struggle; water supply, land conservation and the open space movement; and Filipino and other immigrant experiences in California.
Clinchard, the project lead, worked with Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) Division Dean Elvin Ramos, to apply for the grant.
“The California History Center sits within the SSH division, and Dr. Ramos is integrally involved in all our efforts and programs, helping to reinvigorate the center,” Clinchard said.
She and Lisa Christiansen, the California History Center’s librarian/archivist, will oversee “Voices of Silicon Valley.” In addition to preserving the existing oral histories, the project involves developing workshops on how to access these archives and working with Jamie Pelusi, faculty coordinator for the De Anza Pride Center, on a history of LGBTQ+ students and faculty.
Sociology Department Chair Steve Nava and Tom Izu, executive director emeritus of the California History Center, are set to collaborate on intergenerational interviews with formal and informal community leaders. Asian and Asian American oral histories will be collected by Asian American and Asian Studies Chair Mae Lee and Francesca Caparas, who teaches English, women’s studies and Asian American and Asian studies at De Anza.
Student interns working on the project include Matt Piasecki of the California Youth Leadership Corps, who is helping to gather new oral histories for the pride center project, and Anya Nazarova and Humanities Mellon Scholar Esteban Harkins, who are assisting with the digitization and processing of existing oral histories.
For more information, visit https://www.deanza.edu/humanities/voices.html.
Source: www.mercurynews.com