Historias Americanas: Integrating Local Culture into the Teaching of U.S. History

Over the past two years, StoryCenter has been honored to play a role in an innovative program in the Rio Grande Valley of Southern Texas. The project called Historias Americanas, was a three-year intensive for K-12 educators, designed by project partners, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and the Museum of South Texas History. The intent was to improve the quality of American history education in the Brownsville and Edinburg school districts by building on student and community knowledge and shining a light on the cultural wealth of the area. Local history was melded with the broader history of the United States to fill in faces that were blatantly missing from textbooks.

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"If Not Us": Intergenerational Storytelling and Theater Focused on Civil Rights History and Present-Day Social Action

The rich legacy of the civil rights movement was commemorated across the country in 2013, which marked the 30th Anniversary of the historic March on Washington. To honor the work of activists in the 1950s and 60s, several groups in the City of Denver, CO developed a project to encourage awareness and present-day engagement with civil rights issues, as part of StoryCenter's All Together Now initiative. 

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Hear Our Stories: Shifting Dominant Narratives About Young Moms and Sexual and Reproductive Health

Despite increased attention within the public health field to the need to refrain from stigmatizing teen mothers, prevailing views continue to suggest that these young women cause a whole host of social problems. In an effort to reframe public conversations about young moms and sexuality, health, and reproductive rights, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst School of Public Health initiated the “Hear Our Stories” project, in collaboration with StoryCenter and several other MA and national organizations.

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Sarah Webster Fabio Center for Social Justice: Reforming Punitive Sentencing Laws Through Story

The fervor in the United States over the "War on Drugs" and the development of punitive "crime reduction" strategies in the 1980s and 1990s created mandatory minimum sentencing laws that dramatically increased prison populations across the country- at the local, state, and federal level. In California, the "Three Strikes" law of 1994 created mandatory sentences for any third felony conviction, leading to people receive sentences of 25 years to life for stealing a slice of pizza or for any number of other non-violent offenses. Experiences of incarceration, re-entry into society, and the obstacles facing those who have served time are critical stories that must be documented, in the country that leads the world in imprisoning its population. 

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