California Humanities

With support from California Humanities’?Civic + Humanities Middle Grades?grant, Pasadena Educational Foundation's Building Empathy project has trained high school ninth graders to teach middle school students across the Pasadena Unified School District about the forced removal and imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II, as the basis for examining contemporary civil rights issues. For the student teacher participants, visiting Manzanar Historic Site was a shared vision, and became a reality earlier this spring. Read the reflections, poems, and essays that students wrote in response to their experiences: bit.ly/4fXT54T

Thank you Karen Mack for representing California Humanities at the National Humanities Conference in Providence, RI last week and for these affirming words about the necessity of the humanities!

Friends, we are excited to embark on a national expansion of our Library Innovation Lab professional development program in 2025, and are hosting a second virtual info session for applicants this Thursday, November 21, at 9 am PT. You will hear from our library mentors about their own past experiences with the program and be able to ask our staff your questions about applying. Register here: bit.ly/48VvdfX

Thank you Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation and Angel Island State Park for hosting a special visit to Angel Island, where among its many histories was the home of the US Immigration Station (1910 to 1940) that processed hundreds of thousands of immigrants coming to the San Francisco Bay Area. cc. Rick Kaz Noguchi

We're coming back from a whirlwind week in Providence, Rhode Island, where we gathered with almost 900 colleagues in the public humanities across the country and territories for the National Humanities Conference. Thank you to our hosts Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, the Federation of State Humanities Councils, and the National Humanities Alliance for their work organizing! Amidst engaging capstone addresses—an exploration on urban renewal and historic preservation in Providence by Marisa Angell Brown of Providence Preservation Society, a discussion on Black and Indigenous histories connected to water and and cultural power from Capps Lecture panelists at the historic First Baptist Church, and a spotlight on the power of the humanities as seen through the work of 2024 National Humanities Medalists from National Endowment for the Humanities Chair Shelly C. Lowe's (Navajo)—attendees had the opportunity to attend a myriad of sessions about humanities in practice focused on making waves through public humanities, and navigating currents of change. A shoutout also to our own staff at California Humanities, who led engaging sessions on translating academic scholarship for public humanities work and meeting audiences where they are, reaching immigrants through public libraries, and more. cc Rick Kaz Noguchi, Kirsten Vega, Marika Garcia, Nancy Olivares, MPP, Zuriel Garcia Ortiz, John Lightfoot, Beth Segura, Phoebe Stein

We are so thrilled to have Justin Fichelson join the California Humanities Board of Trustees! The humanities are needed more than ever and we look forward to your leadership Justin!

First Baptist Church of America and meeting place for the Federation of State Humanities Councils’ Walter Capp Lecture. The church/meeting house, built in 1775 by Roger Williams, has no religious symbols as a community gathering place. It is also the oldest continuously functioning wooden structure in the US. California Humanities Federation of State Humanities Councils

Check out this interview with California Humanities' John Lightfoot and FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK director Bobbi Jo Hart about the film's homecoming to Sacramento on November 21, part of a partner series with Crocker Art Museum: bit.ly/3YDCFYd Bobbi Jo and Fanny band members Jean Millington and Brie Darling will be in attendance for an audience Q&A after the film, which shares the untold story of this Sacramento-founded band, the first all female band to release an LP with a major record label. Tickets are now available, share with your Sacramento-area friends!

We're proud to share more reporting from student journalists participating in California Humanities’ Emerging Journalist Fellowship program for 2024, this time from Los Medanos College in Pittsburg, California. Students launched DEFINE AMERICAN, a four-part series and documentary film that highlight the perspectives and experiences of immigrants in Contra Costa County. The series explores why someone might leave their home country, the challenges they face when arriving somewhere new, the complexities of the immigration process, and the importance of maintaining cultural connections when making a new home in the United States: bit.ly/3ABFpgT

The Mindful Veteran Project, a California Humanities grantee, includes "paying attention to present moment experiences...while suspending as much judgement as possible, to explore with openness and curiosity" in its definition of mindfulness. These humanities traits are as important in daily civilian life as they are in combat, and for Veterans Day we are highlighting MVP's mindfulness workshops for veterans across southern California. In a supported project this spring, they worked with students to interview US veterans about their service and compose poems or prose pieces, telling those veterans’ stories and sharing them at free public readings and storytelling events. MVP's work with veterans was also featured in "The Mindfulness Movement," a documentary that aired on PBS last year: https://lnkd.in/gRZJd4ny (43:08)