Collect
Field work and recordings
Researchers and trained volunteers visit homes, markets, kitchens, churches and festivals with recorders, cameras and notebooks. A conversation about a recipe can open into migration, work, faith and song.
A listening archive in Los Angeles
A community remembers out loud
Oral history begins with one person speaking and another listening.
The Italian Oral History Institute is a nonprofit group devoted to the living culture of Italians in California. We record, keep and share the memories, music and everyday traditions of a community, so that a way of life is not lost when the last voice falls quiet.
What we do
Three habits that keep a culture audible
Our work is simple to describe and slow to do well. We sit with people, we listen closely, and we look after what they entrust to us.
Preserve
An archive that endures
Audio and video tapes, photographs, slides, student papers and radio programs are catalogued and held so that future listeners can return to them. The collection grows with every project.
Share
Programs and publications
Concerts, exhibitions, symposia, courses and books carry the material back to the community that made it, and out to a wider public that seldom hears these voices.
How a project takes shape
From a first conversation to a lasting record
01
Listen
We meet people where they live and work, and we follow the threads they choose to pull.
02
Record
Sound, image and writing are gathered together so that a story keeps its texture.
03
Catalogue
Every item is described, labelled and stored so it can be found again by name or theme.
04
Return
Programs, courses and publications give the material back to the community.
Where to begin
Paths through the Institute
Whether you have a memory to share, a question to ask or a project in mind, one of these doors is the right one.
For listeners
Public programs
Concerts, lectures, exhibitions and symposia on the folk and regional cultures of Italy, presented with the institutions that host them.
For learners
Courses and workshops
Learn how to plan an interview, run a recorder and care for the material you gather in your own family or neighbourhood.
For readers
Books and recordings
Anthologies of Italian traditional song and studies of Italian American folklife sit alongside the recordings they grew from.
From the archive
Material held for anyone who wants to listen
The archive is not a cupboard of curiosities. It is a working collection of field work, media and student research that documents Italian life in California, and it is open to those who ask.
Take part
A small institute runs on many hands
Members, volunteers, sponsors and interns each keep a different part of this work alive. There is a place for your time, your skills or your support.
Latest
News from the Institute
Announcements about conferences, workshops and fieldwork are gathered in the news archive, which records the life of the organisation alongside its research.
Coming up
Programs on the horizon
Details of the next lectures, workshops and public events are posted as they are confirmed, with registration notes where a place must be reserved.