“Salishan Story Fest” was held in the Family Investment Center situated within the Salishan neighborhood and managed by the Tacoma Housing Authority. Staff worked with the Tacoma Housing Authority and the Salishan Association to plan the four-hour event.
Attendees were invited to participate in a variety of activities.
A “digitization station” consisting of two laptops and two scanners was available for scanning photos, recipes, and other items brought in by community members.
A digital map was available for people to share their place-based stories.
Interactive prompts were posted on the wall where attendees could share their responses to questions like “What do you love about Salishan?” or “In what ways has Salishan changed?”
Library Youth Services staff set up a “make your own comic book” station to provide kids a unique way to engage in storytelling.
Two recording stations were set up to document short interviews. Three prompts were provided to interviewees including:
What does this neighborhood mean to you?
How has this neighborhood shaped you to be who you are?
Please share a story about your life in your neighborhood.
Based on the demographics of Salishan, the prompts were translated into Russian, Vietnamese, Spanish, Tagalog, Somali, Marshallese, Korean, and Chinese. Release forms were also translated into each language.
While these activities ran continuously over the course of the event, a series of presentations occurred in another room. Two previously created short documentary films about Salishan were screened. These films touched on the history of the area and interviewed people about their experience living in the neighborhood which provided attendees with some grounding for the other activities. After that, four individuals with connections to Salishan shared their stories in front of the audience.
The day concluded with a screening of films created by students enrolled in a summer film camp held in the nearby Eastside Community Center. Awards, handcrafted by the local FabLab makerspace, were distributed and attendees had the opportunity to ask the young filmmakers about their work. Incorporating the debut of these films into the event provided an audience for the students and expanded the theme of how stories are told and whose story is preserved.
Resources