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3.8 Produce Your Own Community Event

During Phase I, the Project Team learned from the community that there was an interest in focusing on specific Tacoma neighborhoods. Two areas in particular were identified as places where the Project Team should devote attention: the Hilltop and the Eastside.

Two of the most diverse neighborhoods in Tacoma, these areas were underrepresented in current local history holdings and currently underserved by the library system following the closure of two neighborhood branches in 2011 due to budget cuts.

CAC staff organized an event in Salishan, an area of the Eastside, in August 2022 and an event was organized for Hilltop in May 2023.

3.8.1 Salishan Story Fest

“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:

  1. What does this neighborhood mean to you?

  2. How has this neighborhood shaped you to be who you are?

  3. 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

3.8.2 Hilltop Story Fest

“Hilltop Story Fest” took place at Tacoma Community House located in the Hilltop neighborhood. Many of the same activities were set up for this fest similar to Salishan’s, including:

  • two oral history stations

  • two digitization stations

  • a gallery walk

  • the virtual story map

  • the create-your-own-comic-book station

The same gallery walk questions, multilingual release forms and prompts were used as well.

Unique activities sponsored for the event included

  • a multimedia performance titled, Armed: A DanCe Demonstration, which used archival images and current images to tell a Hilltop story

  • five historical presentations

  • four local storytellers

  • a poet laureate’s spoken word

  • information tables of local organizations such as the Tacoma Historical Society, Tacoma Arts Live, The Hilltop Artists, the Hilltop Action Coalition, the City of Tacoma’s Preservation Department, and the Tacoma Colored Women’s Club’s Dr. Nettie J. Asberry Home Site Project.

Resources

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