Sonja L. Lanehart

The city literally speaks out into public space through millions of words written on signs, in many different languages, and with layered meanings and histories to help create meaningful places. “EthniCITY” is a digital, spatial humanities database about language and space in Los Angeles. In addition to generating computational data, “EthniCITY” collaborates with community-based non-profits to unite their smaller scale cultural asset maps into a larger regional map as well as creates cinematic, narrative map layers about the intersections between places and peoples. This project is in collaboration with the University of Arizona to extend “EthniCITY’s” methods for comparative research, new pedagogy, and to sponsor a national symposia and data visualization challenge and exhibition to foster the next generation of digital humanities scholars. These resources will be adapted for K-12 local public school’s American Culture and Ethnic Studies curriculum.