PARTNER PROJECT
THE PROJECT
In 2014, at a moment when immigration was cresting a wave in the public consciousness, we launched The Newest Americans. Cities and counties across New Jersey and the country were beginning to shift to minority-majority status. DACA was altering the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people, and a backlash against immigrants would help fuel a presidential campaign. In this climate, project partners Talking Eyes Media, VII Photo, the Center for Migration, and the Global City at Rutgers-Newark developed a project to honor the past, present, and future of our migrating identities.
The Newest Americans is a multimedia collaboration between journalists, media-makers, artists, faculty, and students narrating the stories of the most diverse university in the nation, Newark, NJ.
The project comprises multimedia stories, gallery and museum exhibits, educational curricula, interactive experiences, and public history programming.
The Story Bus
The Newest Americans Story Bus is a mobile media lab for sharing and collecting the rich stories that make Newark a global city. The bus contains a sound booth and portrait studio designed to gather audiovisual histories from residents and workers in the city.
The Story Bus launched in summer 2021 with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Rutgers University-Newark, NJPAC, Audible, Amazon, and the NJ Arts & Culture Recovery Fund.
