AAPI Voices and Stories: Community-based Digital Storytelling

ASIANetwork has recently been awarded a grant from the Mellon Foundation to conduct a three-year pilot project on Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community-based digital storytelling. Our vision is to reshape the landscape of undergraduate education by incorporating and amplifying the voices of AAPI individuals in our teaching, research, and community engagement. We are also envisioning a new framework in which to carry out work that transcends the boundaries of Asian Studies, Asian American Studies and American Studies. Through our project, we hope to center the voices and agencies of AAPI communities as our partners with the assistance of ASIANetwork member institutions’ faculty and students. For ASIANetwork member institutions, this project will enhance their civic and community engagement activities across regions and enrich pedagogy in undergraduate curriculum. We view our community partners as collaborators and co-educators along with the faculty members.

AAPI Voices and Stories could be represented in many different forms such as oral history, poetic traditions, religious and ritual practices, recipes and culinary practice, song, dance, discussion around objects, and museum exhibits. Our project aims to: (1) strengthen community-academic partnerships that are significant for the community, (2) train and support ASIANetwork member institutions’ faculty and students to undertake community-led AAPI engagement initiatives (3) digitally archive, distribute, and publish stories of the lived experiences of AAPI communities, and (4) produce and disseminate educational materials that can be integrated in college curricula across our network. This is a capacity building project between ASIANetwork, our member institutions, and AAPI communities across the nation.

Each year, ASIANetwork will select two sites, each led by a Site Liaison for a 7-week summer project which includes collection of Voices and Stories and final product preparation. Each site team, consisting of one faculty member (the Site Liaison) and four students, will work with community partners. At each site, a Faculty Associate from another ASIANetwork member institution will join to support the Site Liaison and student participants. Training will be a significant portion of the project.