Hudson Oral History Project
In Jersey City, Hudson County Community College’s oral history project captures how cricket, soccer, and local school rivalries bring immigrant and longtime communities together through sport.
The Hudson Oral History Project, an existing initiative supported by Hudson County Community College with NJCH grant funding, is turning its attention to a powerful question at the heart of By the People theme of Moving Together: How do sports connect and nurture communities?
In Jersey City and surrounding Hudson County, where immigrant communities shape daily life, global sports like cricket and soccer carry deep cultural meaning. This project will document those connections through short-form interviews with fans gathered around two major international tournaments that will take place in part in New Jersey in 2026, the ICC Cricket World Cup and the FIFA World Cup. These interviews will probe the importance of soccer and cricket, sports that are less popular among the larger U.S. population, to immigrant communities in one of the United States’ most diverse areas.
Alongside these global touchpoints, the project will also look locally to the traditions of high school and community sports. The project will bring together coaches and sports leaders to reflect on rivalries, rituals, and the responsibility of passing traditions from one generation to the next. The conversation will be recorded and preserved as part of the growing Hudson Oral History archive.
Learn more about the project at https://hudsonoralhistory.org/.
