The Arkansas Chinese Heritage Project

  • ASIANetwork Institution: University of Central Arkansas
  • Community Partner: Chinese Association of Arkansas
  • Year I (2024-25)
  • Project summary: This project is designed to support the Arkansas Chinese Heritage Project, a multi-media oral history archive launched in 2023 by the University of Central Arkansas’ Center for Chinese Language and Culture in collaboration with the Chinese Association of Arkansas. The grant will provide for the current unfulfilled needs of the Arkansas Chinese Heritage Project, namely, cross-training in oral history and digital humanities methods, capacity building for community-led research initiatives, and broader networking with scholars undertaking similar projects throughout ASIANetwork’s member institutions. The team will conduct oral history interviews with Chinese families in the rural Southern state and develop metadata based on this. They will then build a website for the Arkansas Chinese Heritage Project, offering a searchable archive of family histories, an audiovisual library of recorded interviews, and a collection of StoryMaps that integrate individual narratives into a broader history of Chinese grocers in Delta region.
  • Project Poster (April 2024)
  • Project Poster (March 2025)
  • Project Website (Fall 2025) 
Workshop participants learn to operate a digital video camera for oral history interviews.
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Community historian Emerald Dunn and students interview a community member as part of the Arkansas Chinese Heritage Project.
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Community historian Emerald Dunn interviews a Chinese grocery store owner as part of the Arkansas Chinese Heritage Project (University of Central Arkansas).
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