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New Populations Project Completed and Ongoing Research The New Populations Project is an initiative of the Louisiana Division of the Arts Folklife Program to reach out to our state's immigrant and refugee communities. The goal is to address an underserved sector within the cultural economy and provide an opportunity to engage these communities in the identification and documentation of their traditional culture and art forms. Louisiana is home to significant numbers of people from Vietnam, Honduras, Mexico, Cuba, India, China, Taiwan, Palestine and the Middle East, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Korea, El Salvador, Japan, Columbia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Laos, and Thailand. In addition, there are trans-national cultural groups, such as the Garifuna and Mayans here. Because this is an ambitious project, our priority will be to focus on the larger, more concentrated communities with long-term residence in Louisiana rather than university students or those that have most recently arrived. Some cultural groups have come to Louisiana in successive waves - some up to seven generations - replenishing ties to the home country. This project focuses on the most recent arrivals that include foreign-born members. This project asks communities and individuals how they maintain their home culture here in Louisiana. We ask: Do you make crafts, music, or foods that are traditional in your culture? Do you celebrate holidays that are important to your culture? Do you work at traditional occupations? Our strategy in the first phase of this project has been to reach out to these communities by documenting their traditions. Generally, documentation has focused on folk traditions rather than classical or popular art forms, although we recognize that some classical or popular art forms take on new meanings in a diaspora setting. For more information about folklife, see Key Folklife Definitions. Fieldworkers have documented community traditions, art forms, and events and then provided essays and photographs that are added to the Folklife in Louisiana website. Fieldworkers have also helped us identify the following in these communities and submitted a field report on their findings:
To receive a copy of field reports about the documentation, contact Maida Owens, mowens@crt.state.la.us or 225/342-8178. We are now entering the second phase of the project with the piloting of the Open Doors Mentoring Project. Three organizations will receive training in producing arts projects and grantwriting.
Completed and Ongoing Research The following communities and traditions were documented in the first phase of the New Populations project. Research Completed Cubans
Filipinos Garifuna Germans Guatemalans
Hispanics Hondurans Indians Laotians
Latinos
Mexicans
Middle Eastern Muslims Nicaraguans Thai Vietnamese
Research in Progress:
Other Articles on Louisiana's New Populations: These articles were written through initatives other than the New Populations Project. For an overview of all of Louisiana's traditional cultures see Louisiana's Traditional Cultures: An Overview. For a complete list of web articles, see Louisiana's Living Traditions - Articles and Essays.
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