The newly proposed NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture program, Saipan’s Land and Sea: Battle Scars & Sites of Resilience, provides 72 teachers an incomparable opportunity to interact with a largely undisturbed record of conflict history on the island of Saipan. It is a collaborative, community, and place-based project in partnership with local Saipan agencies and community members. The goal of the program is to expand and enhance teacher knowledge of U.S. history, culture, and literacy by exploring historical battle scars and sites of resilience on and around Saipan, as guided by Indigenous project team members, in order to highlight indigenous Pacific Islander voices that have long been silenced in historical narratives. Teachers will then be assisted in translating these experiences into learning opportunities for their students.
Both programs will be held in July 2021. The one-week programs will be held twice at Kagman High School by a mostly Indigenous project team comprised of educators, historians, archaeologists, authors, and cultural guides. This program relates to NEH’s Standing Together initiative and stems from the 2017 Dialogues on the Experiences of War discussion program in Saipan in which several local educators participated, and are now team members of this program.
Please view the news announcement of this upcoming program.