While walking along Washington, Court and Marcy streets, which happen to circumference the Strawbery Banke museum complex, an observer cannot miss the crowd of historical buildings that span 350 years of Portsmouth history. And though each building’s unique architectural design is readily apparent to the casual eye, the human stories behind the meticulously preserved wood and glass are far more secretive. Stories of the immigrants who once lived in the neighborhood, along with the ongoing issue of language assimilation within today’s New England culture, will be brought into the open as part of a two-day conference organized by the Center for the Study of Community at Strawbery Banke, in conjunction with the Center for New England Culture at the University of New Hampshire.

The conference, entitled “Becoming American/ Maintaining Identity: A Community Conference on Immigration & Language in New England,” will be held this Friday and Saturday,  Sept. 23 and 24, at both the Strawbery Banke Museum and the Community Campus in Portsmouth. It is open to the public and admission is free.

The purpose, explains Thaddeus (Thad) Guldbrandsen, Ph.D., director of the Center for the Study of Community, is to spotlight an aspect of American life that is often written out of American history: the experience of migration and its impact on a community’s identity and language.

Strawbery Banke is the perfect backdrop, he says. “With Strawbery Banke, you have 350 years of everyday life that included a lot of different lives.”

This year’s conference is the second in a series of CSC conferences devoted to the many aspects of contemporary immigration in New England within the context of history. The 2004 conference laid the groundwork with a community discussion on migration, and the series will conclude in 2006 with a conference on migration and childhood.

When asked why study migration and community so extensively, Guldbrandsen cites examples of immigration stories that fill local and national news: the two immigration reform bills in front of Congress at present; the “Ipswich, N.H. event” that gained national attention when a local police chief circumvented U.S. Immigration and arrested a Mexican illegal alien for “illegal trespassing”; and the governors of Arizona and New Mexico, who declared a state of emergency this past month due to escalating problems of drug trafficking and violence on their borders with Mexico. Then, of course, there are the immigration issues intertwined with globalization and the ongoing “war on terror.”

Guldbrandsen points out that this is not the first time people in this country have grappled with issues of security and immigration, different languages in public schools or the impact on social services. “(For) a huge portion of the U.S., English is a relatively recent process,” he notes.  The purpose of the conference series, he says, is to “resurrect” history that has been forgotten and use the lessons of this history to answer contemporary questions.

Conference participants will consider the immigrant experience through a variety of methods. Jan Max will teach a memoir workshop that gives participants a chance to put their own life into a historical perspective. The conference will offer an immigration tour of Strawbery Banke, as well as public lectures on the challenges of communicating in a second language and insight into immigrant communities, such as Chinese communities in Maine and Franco-Americans in northern New England. Some of the other conference activities include “crash” language courses and, for those who sign up, an opportunity to record one’s oral history.

A highlight of the conference will be the keynote speech by Charles Simic, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and UNH professor of English. “An amazing poet,” says Gulbrandsen of Simic, who came to the United States as a refugee from Yugoslavia.  As both an immigrant and an esteemed poet and translator of academic works, Simic is uniquely qualified to speak on the impact language has on both immigrant and community identity.

The conference will end with an open forum. Many consider this to be the most important part of the conference, for it allows participants, in particular immigrants of the Seacoast community, to speak freely about their experience with immigration.

Though registration for the conference is required, “mainly so we know how many sandwiches to make,” says Guldbrandsen, the conference is free to all participants. Guldbrandsen hopes this encourages people who normally avoid traditional museum events to participate.

Martha Pinella, archeologist for Strawbery Banke who has completed an extensive archeological survey of four immigrant houses in Strawbery Banke, attended last year’s conference and says the conference is an example of ethno-historical research which combines the examination of historical objects with their human element. She says she finds the conferences compelling because they give her a chance “to see beyond physical artifacts and hear the stories of people.”

For those who also want to see beyond the physical artifacts of Strawbery Banke and discover the stories of New England immigrants, CSC is still accepting registration for its conference at www.studyofcommunity.org or at 603-422-7543.