Rice students preserve Indigenous stories through oral history archive

Students at Rice University have launched an oral history archive to preserve Native stories in Texas, according to Rice News. The initiative, in collaboration with the Texas Tribal Buffalo Project (TTBP),, has gathered more than 50 hours of interviews since the fall of 2024 through the university’s Houston Action Research Teams program.

The archive, “Living Memory: An Oral History Project to Strengthen Native Sovereignty in Texas,” includes testimonies on cultural, financial, linguistic, and spiritual topics. The student-led effort aims to support sovereignty and community resilience and will be housed at Rice’s Fondren Library. Lipan Apache leader and founder of TTBP, Lucille Contreras, said the project helps ensure that Indigenous stories are not “just remembered”, but recognized.”