The prospective folklorist will implement the Folk Art Alliance’s first year of fieldwork and documentation of folk and traditional artists living and working in Berks, Carbon and Schuylkill Counties. The position is expected to begin November 1, 2016 and continue until August 31, 2017. The proposed work covers a three-county region that is especially rich in ethnic arts and cultures. These counties include an area rich in Pennsylvania German culture as well as ethnic cultures that arrived in the continued waves of immigration that came to the coal fields of Pennsylvania after the Civil War. Ethnic groups of immigrants included the Irish, Carpatho-Rusyn, Polish, Slovak, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Italian, Russian, Jewish, and Lithuanians. The newest immigrants include Latinos and others.