The Power of Real Life Real Stories: Eighth Annual Asian American Digital Storytelling Festival

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The Asian American Studies Program at UMass Boston will host its 8th Annual Asian American Digital Storytelling Festival, “The Power of Real Life Real Stories,” on May 3 in the Healey Library, 11th Floor. This exhibition of digital stories by students in ASAMST 370, Asian American Media Literacy, runs from 12:00 to 3:00 pm.

View videos and stories from this ongoing project on the website of Shirley Tang, Associate Professor of American Studies at UMass Boston: http://shirleystang.com/digitalstories/.

UMass Boston is the only research university in New England designated and funded by the U.S. Department of Education as an Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPISI). Highlighted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities as a national model, the Asian American Studies Program offers the most Asian American Studies courses, faculty, and community linkages of any university in New England.

Gaining Political Ground in the Twenty-First Century: Latest issue of the Trotter Review available

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President Barack Obama and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick

The most recent issue of the Trotter Review, which focuses on issues of the political representation of African Americans in local, state, and national politics, is now available in ScholarWorks, the institutional repository for scholarship and research at UMass Boston.

The Trotter Review has been published since 1987 by the William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture at UMass Boston.

The contents of this issue include

To view the full issue, and to explore back issues of this publication (which the ScholarWorks team is in the process of posting to the site), click here.

ScholarWorks is the University of Massachusetts Boston’s online, open access institutional repository for scholarship and research. ScholarWorks serves as a publishing platform, a preservation service, and a showcase for the research and scholarly output of members of the UMass Boston community. ScholarWorks is a service of the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston.

Maxine Hong Kingston at UMass Boston for Grace Paley Memorial Reading on April 10

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The Grace Paley Memorial Reading  |  With Maxine Hong Kingston  |  April 10, 2012, 1:00 pm

Maxine Hong Kingston. Image courtesy David Shankbone.

Grace Paley (1922-2007) was an acclaimed poet, short story writer and committed political activist, especially to women’s rights, peace and social justice.

There are few writers who can be said to match Grace’s intense social conscience and her unerring artistry with words. The William Joiner Center at UMass Boston seek to honor her legacy by choosing annually someone with whom Grace would be proud to be associated.

Author Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Warrior Woman: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts and China Men, will read as part of this series.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012  1:00 pm

Chancellor’s Conference Room

Quinn Building, 3rd Floor

Sponsored by the William Joiner Center for the Study of Way and Social Consequences.

Roxbury Memory Day at Hibernian Hall on April 28

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As part of a day-long series of events celebrating the history and community of Roxbury, on Saturday, April 28, the Madison Park Development Corporation and Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino invite community members to participate in “Roxbury Memory Day” as part of a series of events that day called Our Dudley Square:  Discover, Explore, Celebrate!

Past and present Roxbury residents are asked to bring their old photos and other documents to be scanned and archived by University Archives and Special Collections at UMass Boston as part of the Mass. Memories Road Show.  (Photos will be returned immediately to their owners.)  All are invited to participate in brief video interviews about life in Roxbury.

“Roxbury Memory Day,” will take place from 11 am to 3 pm at Hibernian Hall in Dudley Square.

All of the day’s events are free and open to the public. For more information, call 617-849-6335.

Click here to learn more about the Mass. Memories Road Show.

Library establishes Community Archives Award with event, launches exhibition

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From left to right: University Librarian Daniel Ortiz, TIARA presidents and past-presidents Judy Barrett, Janis Duffy, Kathy Roscoe, and Mary Choppa, with University Archivist Joanne Riley

On March 14, 2012, the Joseph P. Healey Library at the University of Massachusetts Boston presented the first annual Joseph P. Healey Library Community Archives Award to The Irish Ancestral Research Association, or TIARA, for their work rescuing and preserving the historic records of the Massachusetts Catholic Order of Foresters. On the significance of these records, Joanne Riley, University Archivist for UMass Boston, notes that “for many genealogists, history buffs, and Irish families, the Foresters records are a treasure trove of ancestral information.”

Several members of TIARA and the Catholic Association of Foresters were in attendance, as were members of the general public and representatives from programs at UMass Boston. The Award was presented at a reception featuring music and storytelling by Nora Dooley and Susan Miron, and a presentation by TIARA member Susan Steele on what the Foresters records reveal about Massachusetts and U.S. history. In one example, Steele discussed the 1919 death of Foresters member James Lennon who, according to his death certificate, died as a result of the “bursting of molasses tank” in the Great Molasses Flood of 1919, an event that resulted in the deaths of 21 people and injured 150.

The evening also featured the opening of an exhibition by Archives & Special Collections at UMass Boston. “Calling the Heart Back Home: Irish-American Stories from the Archives” features images and information about the history of the Massachusetts Catholic Order of Foresters (now called the Catholic Association of Foresters) and the genealogically and historically significant information contained within the Foresters records, as well as a range of Irish-American stories as seen through archival images and documents from Archives & Special Collections at UMass Boston.

In 2011, TIARA donated the records of the Massachusetts Catholic Order of Foresters to Archives & Special Collections at UMass Boston and with the acquisition of these records, the department formally launched their Community Archives initiative, with the intention of, said University Archivist Riley, “creating a space where community-based history and archives groups can engage with, learn from, and preserve materials of historical value to their own organizational missions and objectives.”

Archives & Special Collections at UMass Boston collects materials that reflect the University’s urban mission and strong support of community service, notably in collections of records of urban planning, social action, alternative movements, community organizations, and local history related to neighboring communities, including the Boston Harbor Islands.

This event was sponsored by the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston, with the financial assistance of the Catholic Association of Foresters.