Published on
March 31, 2025
$25,000 grant supports the addition of conference’s first-ever storytelling festival.
The Missouri Humanities Council (MHC) has awarded a grant of $25,000 to the Cambio Center in support of the project titled “Migration and Missouri: Sharing Stories to Connect to Each Other and Our Ever-Changing Communities.” The MHC is the only statewide agency in Missouri devoted exclusively to humanities education for citizens of all ages. It has served as a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities since 1971.
“Migration and Missouri” is part of the Missouri Humanities Semiquincentennial Grant program, which focuses on telling the story of America through the unique lens of Missouri.
The funding will support a storytelling festival at the annual Cambio de Colores (Change of Colors) Conference on June 4-6, 2025, at Saint Louis University. The storytelling festival — a new addition for the conference’s 23rd year — has three objectives:
- To promote collaboration and open exchange among Missouri residents, as they share stories about heritage and migration during the conference and beyond.
- To develop greater access and interactions between storytelling experts and Missourians, particularly new residents.
- To generate and record new understandings of Missouri’s history and demographic change through subsequent story circles, presented in-person and preserved online.
The conference coordinators will accomplish these objectives through innovative programming led by scholars such as Nestor Gomez, award-winning, professional storyteller from Chicago, and Robin Hattori, Board member, Japanese American Citizens League, and President of the Japan America Society Women’s Association. Hattori will share her work to document the settlement of Japanese Americans in St. Louis after World War II and host a workshop teaching participants how to collect oral histories.
Cambio de Colores is a multistate gathering focused on demographic change and integration, where scholars, service providers, and community leaders come together to share research and promising practices.
To register for the conference, visit cambio.missouri.edu/registration-and-lodging-2025/.
For more information about the grants program of the Missouri Humanities Council, call 314/781-9660 or 800/357-0909 or email clarice@mohumanities.org
