Stories of Hilltop to be focus of Saturday festival. Here’s why you should share yours

The Tacoma Public Library wants to hear stories from Hilltop residents so that their voices can be added to the city’s history narrative.

Hilltop Story Fest aims to fill the gaps of the neighborhood’s archives. The event is at 11 a.m. to 3 p.m Saturday at Tacoma Community House, 1314 S. L St.

Tacoma Public Library received a federal grant in August 2021 from the Institute for Museum and Library Services for a two-year community-archiving project to broaden representation in the library’s Northwest Room collection.

Anna Trammell, TPL’s neighborhood services manager for archives and special collections, said the library began to identify whose voice and whose perspective were missing and decided to focus on the Eastside and Hilltop.

“Those stories are not well-documented in our collections,” Trammell said. “And when they are documented, it’s often from an external perspective, so we’re not really getting the story, the experience from people who actually live there and are part of that community.”

dindria barrow, community archives center associate, said Tacoma Public Library needs to get those stories down before any more people leave or are lost.

“It’s been a long time coming to get the voice of the people that live in the most put-upon areas,” she said. “Because we were able to have this grant, we were able to really pour our energies into that.”

Tacoma Public Library hosted a story fest in Salishan in August. The event turned into a celebration, barrow said.

Like the Salishan Story Fest, the Hilltop event will have a gallery walk, oral history recording stations and a digitization station to share photos or recipes with the city. Any items shared will publish on the Northwest ORCA database within a week .

barrow said one woman at the Salishan Story Fest talked about some of the struggles she experienced growing up on the Eastside.

Another person told barrow about a church that burned down and how the community came together to rebuild it. He said the community’s resilience is why he decided to stay.

Trammell said a mother shared her story of moving from Vietnam to Salishan as a refugee. The woman spoke about taking English-language classes and the services that were offered.

“You got the sense that maybe these were stories that they hadn’t even necessarily shared with each other, but they saw the value more broadly outside of their family,” she said.

Those stories are now part of a collective memory that Tacomans can learn from, Trammell said.

Trammell said Hilltop has a long and significant history that touches Tacoma’s communities and industry.

“This is not only an opportunity for us to document those stories, but it’s an opportunity for anyone in Tacoma to come and learn about Hilltop, to celebrate this neighborhood,” she said.

At the Hilltop Story Fest, attendees can add a story to the Virtual Story Map or share their thoughts about Hilltop with the Gallery Walk activity.

At the Oral History Recording Stations, attendees can record their stories. Prompts will be available in English, Chinese, Korean, Marshallese, Ukrainian, Russian, Arabic, Farsi, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese.

The Digitization Station will add mementos into the library’s digital database. All items will be returned after they are scanned.

Kids can also create a comic book story to take home.

Lunch from Boss Mama’s Kitchen will be served from noon to 1:30 p.m. Trammell and barrow will welcome attendees and provide an overview of the Community Archives Center project at 12:45 p.m.

Jamika Scott, Antonio McLemore, Bonnie Pinckney, Brendan Nelson, Felix Strozier and others will tell stories about Hilltop at 1 p.m.

Hilltop history will begin at 1:30 p.m. with presentations on the Hilltop Action Coalition, Hilltop Story Plaques Project and Dr. Nettie J. Asberry Home Site.

Artist Kenya Adams and company will debut her new piece, “Armed: A DanCe Demonstration,” inspired by stories of Hilltop.