Dante Alighieri Italians Settle in  Edmonton Celebrating  Edmonton's  Italian Community

  
The recording of any oral history is an attempt to record, on tape or other media, the ideas, experiences, and impressions of persons who might not otherwise leave any written record.  It is an important tool for primary research in community, ethnocultural or other less formal historical research.  Oral history utilizes and adds to existing information about historical events and other aspects of "official" history; it is not a substitute for more traditional techniques of research but does provide an invaluable glimpse into the lives and experiences of those interviewed. In the latter part of the 20th century, it has become a vehicle for understanding cultural memory and living traditions-all of those aspects of life that help define identity and create a sense of place.  Although an interview cannot capture everything that a person knows, it can capture part of a person's life experience and fill gaps in our written historical knowledge.  Oral histories may not be historically accurate because people's memories are imperfect and may also be influenced by wish fulfillment and desire for certain things to be so.  Having said this, they have an immediacy and vibrancy that is lacking in the formal recounting of events

We are extremely fortunate that, on several occasions and through several different projects such as the Dante Alighieri Project, the Italians Settle in Edmonton Project , and the Celebrating Edmonton's Italian Community Project, there has been a great number of Oral Histories recorded with members from the Italian Community in Alberta.  In this section we would like to share with you some of these, and allow you to experience the stories of triumph and tragedy, as told by those that lived them. 

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