Celebration highlights expansion of oral history project

Campus and community leaders celebrated the expansion of an oral history collection that includes interviews with West Michigan senior citizens.

"A Neighborhood Affair to Preserve Community" was held March 29 in the Kirkhof Center. Many of those seniors who participated in the project were present. Their stories, "Community House: Senior Histories," will be available through the Kent District Library as well as the Young Lords Collection, housed at Grand Valley. 

Lance Werner, director of KDL, said the library was honored to house the collection. "This is such a fantastic project," Werner said. "It's a preserved memorial that others can learn from."

José Jiménez, a graduate student, and members of Grand Valley's Young Lords student organization were responsible for conducting interviews and working with community partners ASCET Community Action, and United Methodist Community House. Jiménez founded the Young Lords in 1968 and began researching an oral history project as a Student Summer Scholar through the Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarship.

Lee Van Orsdel, dean of University Libraries, spoke about preserving the new stories and added that the Young Lords collection is among the top three collections at the library accessed by scholars worldwide.

President Thomas J. Haas said the stories told by senior citizens build community, as storytellers have done for thousands of years. 

Campus partners in this project were Modern Languages and Literatures, and University Libraries. Access the collection at www.gvsu.edu/younglords.