The Library of Congress American Folklife Center is pleased to announce the 2023 recipient cohort of the Community Collections Grants program. Over this year, the awardees will work to complete a range of meaningful research and documentation focused on community cultural traditions in an array of places across the country and U.S. territories. Their documentary work will ultimately be included in the Library’s permanent collections, as part of the American Folklife Center Archives.
This series of grants, part of the Of the People: Widening the Path initiative, is awarded to individuals and organizations working to document cultures and traditions of Black, Indigenous and communities of color historically underrepresented in the United States and in the Library’s collections.
Of the extremely diverse applicants and projects, a mix of individual and organizational applicants have been chosen to receive up to $60,000 each to fund field research within Black, Indigenous, Hispanic or Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.
2023 Recipients
Myron Jackson (U.S. Virgin Islands): The Evolution of Folk Culture in the U.S. Virgin Islands Through the Prism of Historic Neighborhoods
CityLore (New York City): Documenting, Archiving, Presenting and Fostering Trinidadian J’ouvert Traditions
Los Herederos (New York City): Queens as Cultural Crossroads: Contemporary Cultural Documentation of Jackson Heights Diversity Plaza
Makah Cultural and Research Center (Washington State): Neah Bay’s Path to Wellness
Philadelphia Folklore Project (Philadelphia): Porch Places, Street Spaces: A Philadelphia Community Documentation Project
Thai Community Development Center (Los Angeles): Documenting the Thai American Experience in Los Angeles
University of Guam (Guam): Celebrating CHamoru Nobenas
University of Oklahoma (Oklahoma): Continuing Comanche Culture: Culture as Making, Craft as Shared Story
University of Southern California (Los Angeles): America’s first boats and their makers: Securing knowledge of the Kelp Highway and California’s enduring, sustainable Indigenous maritime traditions
For more information on the Community Collections Grants program, visit the Library’s Of the People webpages here. The projects of the 2022 Community Collections Grant recipients are well underway, and you can read more about them on the Of the People blog.