Grant Award: National Endowment for the Humanities

In what class can you study historical and contemporary issues of immigration, discrimination, community building, activism, and cultural representation all in four weeks? Twenty-five students in the Jan Term class titled Asian-American Voices in Public History recently had this opportunity.

Thanks to a $50,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Saint Mary’s College is embarking on a three-year academic and community engagement public history initiative. The NEH grant will support the Saint Mary’s History Department in developing “Partners in Public History: Training Students and Engaging Communities,” an innovative program that will support teaching, academic research, and public presentations on public history, and foster educational partnerships with diverse organizations and schools across the San Francisco Bay Area.

In addition to the NEH grant, Saint Mary’s “Partners in Public History” program will be supported by philanthropic and College resources. Saint Mary’s is very grateful to the Saul Zaentz Foundation for its $25,000 contribution toward this public/private partnership for this important community cause. 

As a community engagement course, the Jan Term students worked with Professor Aeleah Soine and Assistant Vice Provost Tracy Pascua Dea to collaboratively work with four community organizations on projects such as practicing conversation skills with English language learners; working with a food bank; creating digital timelines of community activism; curating digital archival databases; designing a Chinatown walking tour for youth; and conducting, transcribing, and translating oral histories. This work will continue in the fall as a semester-long course with History Professor Elena Songster.

However, Jan Term provided a unique opportunity for special events, such as guest speakers and the three field trips to the Oakland Museum, Angel Island Immigration Station, and Chinatown/Japantown in San Francisco, which allowed them to observe and interpret how professional exhibits and public commemorations are created and received by the public. The final Jan Term project was the students’ own mini-pop-up exhibit: How Did We Get Here: Untold Stories of Asian America, which gave them a hands-on opportunity to create and share original historical narratives, display artifacts, and design an interactive public history exhibit.

“The students worked extremely hard and were really open to engaging with community partners and the practice of public history, which was not only new and challenging to them, but all of us at Saint Mary's,” said History Professor and Project Director Aeleah Soine. “They were really proud of the final museum exhibit and the great turnout to see their work. The Asian-Pacific Islander faculty and staff knew that our students were calling for more representation of Asian-Americans in our undergraduate curriculum, but I personally did not realize how globally diverse our students' family trees are—even within two generations, and how meaningful it was for students to connect their family and community traditions and stories with broader historical narratives, contemporary issues, and the local communities. For me, it reinforced the importance of historical thinking as a method for community engagement, public memory, and social justice.” 

The History Department will continue to seek out a variety of local community partners, and collaborate with CILSA, the Library, the Saint Mary's College Museum of Art, and our Asian-Pacific Islander faculty and staff.

The next phase in the new program was Contra Costa History Day on March 10. Saint Mary's College hosted 160 school children, grades 4-12, who competed in poster, exhibit, performance, essay-writing, documentary, and website categories under the theme of “Conflict and Compromise.”

“I was introduced to National History Day as a seventh-grader, and volunteered as a student mentor and state competition judge while in graduate school,” said Professor Soine. “I have been waiting a long time to introduce my own students to the fun of History Day, and am so thankful that my department colleagues and students jumped right in with me to create a program that introduces the value of history to students at an early age. In October, we hosted 90 4th and 5th graders from the San Ramon schools to visit the Saint Mary's campus for a research session with our subject-specialist librarian, Sue Birkenseer; independent research time with our undergraduate students and faculty; and lunch in Oliver and Dryden. I suspect the History aisles of the library have never been so full!”

“We are extremely proud to receive this grant, which is aligned with our Liberal Arts, Lasallian, and Catholic mission,” said School of Liberal Arts Dean Sheila Hassell Hughes.“The NEH award also demonstrates the commitment of our stellar History Department faculty to serve the common good by elevating the importance of public history and removing social barriers to history education in our broader community. A strong history education is more relevant today than ever, and this new initiative of public engagement will help to highlight that.”

Saint Mary’s Partners in Public History initiative is among 253 humanities projects nationwide that were funded by the NEH. The NEH Humanities Access program provides grants to enhance humanities programs that benefit youth, communities of color, and economically disadvantaged populations. An independent federal agency, the NEH supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Learn more at neh.gov.