I.O.H.I. About Us

The IOHI was founded in 1993 as the Italian Oral History Project and has operated through the help of UCLA students and community volunteers. It was incorporated as the Italian Oral History Institute and became a non-profit tax-exempt 501(c)(3) educational organization in the year 2000. The IOHI conducts community-based research and public education. It engages in the collection, preservation, and dissemination of materials and information relating to the culture and history of Italians in California. It encourages and practices cross-cultural dialogue through its programs.

The IOHI has achieved local, national and international recognition, with programs such as:

Performing Ecstasies: Music, Dance, and Ritual in the Mediterranean
Italian Jews: Memory, Music, Celebration
The Stones of Matera and the Ethnography of a Literary Thriller
Mountains of Cheese and Rivers of Wine: Paesi di Cuccagna and other Gastronomic Utopias
St. Joseph’s Tables and Feeding the Poor in Los Angeles
Italian Culture in Los Angeles: Collecting and Connecting
Essential Salento: A Festival of Salentine Culture
In Vino Sanitas: Health, Certification and Marketing of Organic Wines

The IOHI has produced many events in partnership with the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Slow Food, the Craft and Folk Art Museum, UCLA, the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce West, the Skirball Cultural Center, and many more leading cultural and educational institutions.

Its community courses have featured local field tours and food events, and have offered its participants an opportunity to learn about the interview and documentation process first-hand.