La clase de Español VH Catlin Gabel School-Portland, OR

How the project was fundedIn August 2009 the American Immigration Council awarded me with a Teacher Fellowship Grant to undertake the project described herein. I am grateful to them for their support of and interest in this project and of what my student’s are doing in our community.~Lauren Reggero-Toledano, teacher

The Project Phase I: Students seek out

Hispanics who meet the following criteria for oral or written interviews Either were living in Oregon

during the Great Depression or have family members who have told them about what it was like living in Oregon at that time

Are willing to share their feelings about that time and, in comparison, speak about how the economic situation today is affecting them.

Are willing to help us document the Hispanic experience in Oregon

Collaboration

Students collaborate with local and national organizations as we move forward with our project.

Teatro Milagro Links to Spanish VH Site

Link

Initial Findings

Students find very little information about Hispanics living in Oregon during the Great Depression

Initial contacts to Oregon Historical Society and Oregon State University Historical Archives http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/archives/archive/ come up empty

Conclusion– no information is information and class documentation of the Hispanic experience in Oregon will fill a void in our state’s historical record

Language Issues

Questions we considered What languages do our interviewees speak? Grammar usage How do we transcribe what we don’t understand? Need for a language disclaimer?

With the objective of being as faithful as possible to the oral and written texts presented by the people interviewed, we’ve decided not to alter them and show them exactly how they were originally produced. Our most sincere thanks to all who participated for their generous collaboration.

Taking the Project Beyond the Classroom

October 9th -Teacher presented project at Technology Professional Development Day held at Catlin Gabel School http://www.catlin.edu/news/technology/technology-professional-development

November 5th - Students presented phase I of project at performances of Canta y no llores at Portland’s Teatro Milagro http://www.milagro.org/1-Performance-Presentacion/MiracleMainstage/muertos-llores.html

November 13th -Spanish VH presented project at Grandparents and Special Friend’s Day held at Catlin Gabel School

December 3rd - Spanish VH presented project at Lewis & Clark College to Latin American Studies students as a service-learning model

April 8th- Spanish VH (both semesters) presented project & class service-learning model at Catlin Gabel Upper School Assembly

As we speak… the project, via our class web page http://inside.catlin.edu/site/hispanicsinoregon/ , is being shared with local and national organizations so that others can learn from the written and oral histories that have been so generously shared with us

The Project Scope Expands

Phase II of this project began as soon as the grant portion of the project came to a close in early December.

Phase II consisted of getting out into our local Hispanic community to collect more interviews and learn, first hand, about the Oregon Hispanic experience

Phase III incorporated second semester Spanish VH students who built on what first semester students documented.

Phase IV will consist of summer work to find more suitable ways to house this oral and written history archive, to broaden our audience, and to strengthen our Spanish V Honors service-learning curriculum.

May 2010 Update… In May second semester students

conducted over ten interviews of Hispanics ages 7-54 who currently reside in the Portland Metro Area.

These interviews were conducted in Spanish to be shared first in class and to be added to our oral and written history project web site this summer so that others may learn from these immigrant stories.

Stay tuned for more audio and video clips in the upcoming months….the project continues!