Library gets grant for oral history project
The Special Collections and Archives Department of the Merrill-Cazier Library has received a $3,000 grant from the Utah Humanities Council and the Utah Division of State History to be used to collect and preserve the oral history of Cache Valley Latinos.
The Latino Voices Project will be the latest in a series of oral history projects that have been conducted by the library’s Northern Utah Speaks program. Randy Williams, the library folklore curator and director of the Latino Voices Project, said the Northern Utah Speaks Program aims at representing the history of northern Utah through the experiences of its residents. The program has conducted oral histories of veterans and Grouse Creek residents in the past, and Williams said collecting oral histories from Latinos, who make up about 10 percent of Utah’s population, is a natural extension of the project.
“It’s a way of telling history from the bottom up,” Williams said.
The grant money will fund the hiring of an assistant director for the Latino Voices Project, who will help recruit members of the community to participate in all aspects of the process. Williams said the position should be filled by the middle of next week.
The ultimate goal is to interview at least 40 people from the Latino community who represent a cross section of ages, occupations and life experiences.
“The bigger the voice, the more you comprehend the story,” Williams said.
Grace Huerta, an associate professor of secondary education, is assisting with the project by doing outreach to the Latino community through her work in an English Second Language teacher training program, as well as recruiting secondary education students to help gather the oral histories.
She said the project has the potential to educate the public about the diversity within the Latino community. Huerta said public perception of the Latino community is based largely around stereotypes of illegal immigration, and the project will serve to expose other facets of the community. She said one family she plans to interview has been in Utah for four generations.
“The value is tremendous because Latinos have lived in this part of the country for hundreds of years. I mean, Utah was part of Mexico. We didn’t come here, the border crossed us,” Huerta said.
Huerta said the value of the oral history project is “infinite,” as it places the experiences of the northern Utah Latino community in a formal historical format, chronicling its contributions, successes, struggles and hopes.
“These are the kinds of narratives that this project will bring to our community’s awareness,” Huerta said. “These are the experiences of the voiceless.”
She said there will also be an added benefit for her secondary education students who conduct interviews. Huerta said they will acquire “funds of knowledge,” a reference to an educational research approach that encourages educators to interact with the families of their students as a means of gaining better insight into their students’ backgrounds, skills, talents and challenges. She said her students will gain such “funds” regarding Latino students through participation in this project, and will be able to incorporate what they learn into their classroom curriculum and teaching philosophy.
“I think that is also of equal value with the stories of the participants,” Huerta said.
Five interviews have already been conducted for the Latino Voices Project. Rubi Rodriguez, a junior majoring in Spanish, said she and four other students conducted the interviews as part of a project for a linguistics class.
She said the interviews included questions she expected about traditions, lifestyle and how the individuals came to Cache Valley. But Rodriguez said her interview, with a woman in her 30s named Elizabeth Rosas, also came with a lot of surprises.
“I kind of took it in a different direction once I got a feel for what she was giving me answers for. I kind of just wanted to see what her life would have been like if she hadn’t done what she did,” Rodriguez said. “Then she just started talking about her dreams, about schooling.”
“It was more like a conversation,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said it was the unexpected answers she got from Rosas that really made the experience interesting. She said she thinks the Latino Voices Project will do a lot to raise awareness and curb stereotypes about the Latino community in Cache Valley.
“I think it’s definitely something that’s going to be long-lasting as part of Cache Valley,” Rodriguez said. “I think someone who really is interested in learning more is going to be able to find out a lot through this.”
The interviews for the Latino Voices Project will be conducted through June and July, and will be uploaded to the library’s digital library by the end of the year, Williams said. Interviews will be conducted in whichever language the person being interviewed is most comfortable speaking and then translated as well.
Williams said community support is essential to the Latino Voices Project. She said those involved are looking for bilingual people who are willing to conduct interviews for $50, as well as suggestions for members of Cache Valley’s Latino community to be interviewed. There will be a mandatory workshop held in May to train people interested in conducting the interviews.
For information about participating in the Latino Voices Project, contact Randy Williams at 797-3493.
-jenbeasley@cc.usu.edu