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Oral history project grant sought
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Posted on Feb 16 2005
The Northern Marianas College is seeking a $200,000 federal grant to record history as they are told from the natives’ point of view in their own languages.
Laura Kaspari Hohmann, director of the NMC Library Programs and Services, said the oral history project aims to preserve, maintain, and promote Chamorro and Carolinian languages and cultures by video recording interviews with the Chamorro and Carolinian elders in the CNMI, as well as some Chamorros living in Papua New Guinea and Brisbane, Australia.
These interviews, she said, will be edited, transcribed, and translated to English. The results will be published in an online database.
“There were very few printed materials in native languages. What has been written and published about the islands has largely been done by outsiders in non-native languages. In addition, with the passing of the elder generations, the traditions, folklore, family knowledge, and language of the Chamorro and Carolinian peoples is in danger of being lost,” NMC noted in a project summary submitted to the Administration of Native Americans.
“This project will save that knowledge and history before it is gone forever. It will preserve cultural knowledge and native languages and provide better documentation of local history by having elders tell their own stories in their own languages,” NMC added. “In turn, the present day community as well as future generations will benefit because they will have access to culturally relevant materials and bilingual texts that are not currently available.”
Further, NMC said the project will be of particular value to the Public School System and the college for use in CNMI history courses.
At least 500 high school students and 60 NMC students will use the oral history interviews each year for their history courses, NMC said.
The oral history project is expected to take three years, with a requested budget of $210,909.
NMC is applying for the funding under the ANA Native Language Preservation and Maintenance grant program.
