Mission Statement
Talk Story: Sharing Stories, Sharing Culture is a family literacy program that reaches out to Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI), and American Indian and Alaskan Native (AIAN) families and their intergenerational community members. Talk Story celebrates and affirms Asian, Pacific Islander, and American Indian intersectionalities through books, oral traditions, art, and more to provide interactive and enriching experiences. Talk Story grant funding supports library and community organization opportunities to highlight APIA and AIAN stories through programs, services, and collection materials. Children and families can connect to rich cultural activities through Talk Story in their homes, libraries, and communities while challenging mainstream Anglocentric literacy practices. We welcome libraries and community organizations to develop their own Talk Story: Sharing Stories, Sharing Culture project to serve family literacy needs.
Family Literacy
Family Literacy programming intentionally supports parents, grandparents, and caregivers as children’s first teachers following the understanding that learning is a lifelong process. Children and their motivation to learn are influenced by the learning attitudes and literacy behaviors demonstrated by the adults in their homes and communities [1]. Literacy behavior extends beyond print literacy and includes digital, financial, culinary, health, document, information and media literacies, and more [2]. Talk Story: Sharing Stories, Sharing Culture supports opportunities for adult family members to build their own literacy skills as they strengthen their children’s literacy skills.
Intergenerational
Intergenerational programming intentionally caters to multigenerational households and creates space for members of different generations to interact, co-construct, and learn from each other. In many cases, intergenerational programming provides an opportunity for members of one generation to pass on cultural values, experiences, family history, language, and skills to another generation. Furthermore, intergenerational programming assists with the development of mutual understanding and support across generational gaps [3].
Cultural Literacy & Identity
Literacy behavior reflects the cultural heritage of families and occurs naturally as they navigate their everyday experiences. Recognizing that families possess widely ranging, experience-based knowledge, intergenerational programming that facilitates naturally occurring literacy traditions provides a sense of empowerment and should strengthen cultural identity. Talk Story: Sharing Stories, Sharing Culture programs should reflect the histories, arts, and storytelling traditions that honor and celebrate the cultures of APIA and AIAN communities including print, oral, visual, and performance traditions.
Library programs that bring together books and inclusive representation of ethnic communities are important in building confidence in budding readers. Children need to see their own faces in contemporary characters with whom they can identify. Additionally, books, rhymes and stories from a child’s own culture allows him or her to see their own heritage. Children and families from other diverse backgrounds also benefit from programs that promote basic and cultural literacy.
Let’s work together to create accurate, reliable, and culturally competent resources for celebrating APIA and AIAN communities.
Talk Story: What it Means
“Talk Story” is a Hawaiian expression that means “to chat informally” or “to shoot the breeze.” A linguistic scholar describes it as “a rambling personal experience mixed with folk materials” [4], while author Maxine Hong Kingston uses the term to describe a Chinese / Chinese-American storytelling style, which is “an oral tradition of history, mythology, genealogy, bedtime stories, and how-to stories that have been passed down through generations, an essential part of family and community life” [5].
Sources
For questions about Talk Story: Sharing Stories, Sharing Culture, contact:
Asian Pacific American Librarians Association: familyliteracy@apalaweb.org
American Indian Library Association: talkstorygrant.aila@gmail.com