About
Belongings: What We Bring, What We Leave Behind is a Sonoma County community storytelling exhibit and public event series exploring migration, memory, loss, resilience, and belonging through meaningful personal objects and the stories they carry.
On view from September 4 – October 4 (TBA), 2026 at the Petaluma Historical Library and Museum, the project invites immigrants, refugees, those who were displaced and other residents, and community members of all backgrounds to share objects that connect them to family, homeland, identity, survival, or transformation.
Housed in one of Petaluma’s most beautiful and historic civic buildings, the museum offers an intimate and deeply fitting setting for this project. The historic architecture, gallery spaces, and gathering rooms create a space where visitors can slow down, reflect, and encounter the humanity behind everyday objects and personal stories. In addition to the exhibit itself, the museum will host live storytelling events and visitor can participate in activities throughout the month.
Archaeologists often uncover artifacts from the past without fully knowing what those objects meant to the people who once held them. A bowl, a suitcase, a photograph, a tool — the physical object survives, but the human story is often lost.
Belongings turns that process inside out.
Rather than excavating artifacts from distant history, this project centers the “living artifacts” of people who are here today — objects still held in people’s homes, carried across borders, passed between generations, or preserved through displacement and change. Here, the people connected to these objects are still able to tell us what they mean: the memories they hold, the journeys they survived, the people they represent, and the futures they imagine.
A central part of the programming will include intimate live storytelling nights inspired by the style of The Moth radio hour and community storytelling traditions. During these evenings, selected participants will share true personal stories connected to an object, memory, migration journey, family history, or moment of transformation. These gatherings are designed to create authentic human connection across cultures and generations — allowing audiences not just to observe stories on a museum wall, but to experience them through voice, presence, humor, vulnerability, and lived experience.
A rice bowl found in Petaluma's Chinatown
(Photo: Archeological Resources)
The exhibit builds on the community response to Chinatown Unearthed: Facing the Past for a Better Future, which demonstrated a strong public desire for projects that surface overlooked histories and create spaces for connection across cultures and generations. While that exhibit explored erased voices from the past, Belongings focuses on preserving voices in the present — especially those that are too often unheard, invisible, or excluded from public narratives.
The project is led by members of the Petaluma Historic Chinatown Park Committee in partnership with Asian American Pacific Islander Coalition of North Bay (AAPIC), Poetry of Remembrance, Sonoma County Japanese American Citizens League, along with artists, educators, historians, cultural workers, and community collaborators dedicated to preserving stories, building connection, and fostering a deeper sense of belonging in Sonoma County.
Together, we hope to create a space where stories are not only preserved, but shared with dignity, care, and humanity — and where visitors leave with a deeper understanding of one another and a stronger sense of belonging.