Folklife Program Overview
 Hmong wedding negotiations, Portland About the Program The Oregon Folklife Program is a department of the Oregon Historical Society. Its mission is to document, present, and encourage the preservation of traditional arts and cultures in communities throughout Oregon. Traditional arts are those forms of artistic expression learned as part of the cultural life of a community (such as an ethnic group, tribe, region, religious or occupational group). Traditional arts reflect the history, culture, and shared values of a community, as well as its sense of beauty. They are generally learned informally, passed on from one person to another, one generation to the next. The Folklife Program is staffed by folklorists and other cultural specialists who are trained in ethnography, a research technique used by anthropologists and other social scientists to study the world around them. Staff folklorists use ethnographic fieldwork to identify and document people who practice traditions in communities. The Oregon Folklife Program was established at the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark College in 1988 and moved to the Oregon Historical Society in the summer of 1993. The work of the Folklife Program is primarily funded by the Oregon Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, Portland's Regional Arts & Culture Council, and by private foundations, corporations, and individuals.
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