The Alsatian Language Preservation Project

In the 1840s Henri Castro recruited Alsatian families to establish communities west of San Antonio. Over generations, the immigrants assimilated into American culture and the Texas Alsatian dialect went unspoken. In late 2021, descendants of the Castro Colonies commissioned StoryKeeping to preserve the language by capturing the voices, memories, and energy of the few native speakers left. While filming the Alsatian speakers I had little idea what they were saying. After filming, volunteers sat down with the storytellers and had them explain in English, word for word, what they'd said in Alsatian. Upon loading these transcripts into my editing software, I was able to understand the conversations I'd been filming that day. Editing storytelling in your native language is surprisingly time consuming. Editing stories by captions requires a whole other level of patience and dedication. Helping to preserve the dialect my ancestors once spoke for future generations was worth all the effort.

The film premiered at the historic Rainbow Theater in Castroville to sold out audiences multiple nights in a row.

The response from the community was immediate, helping inspire renewed interest in preserving the Texas Alsatian dialect and culture, including the establishment of an ongoing Alsatian language class.

In addition to the feature film, StoryKeeping created an extensive chapter archive preserving the individual memories, stories, humor, and personalities shared throughout the interviews. This searchable collection allows future generations to continue hearing the Texas Alsatian dialect spoken naturally through hundreds of authentic moments and conversations.

Every chapter in the archive was carefully shaped to preserve not only information, but personality, emotion, humor, and human connection. The following video offers a behind-the-scenes look at how StoryKeeping transforms long-form interviews into meaningful, searchable story chapters families and communities can revisit for generations. Producing a movie like this is exceptionally rare, so I recorded a small part of the process to show some behind the scenes of how I worked.

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Meet Your Legacy Filmmaker

Clinton Haby is a legacy filmmaking pioneer who has been establishing and elevating the legacy film industry since 2009. Recognizing his retelling of his grandparents' stories was a disservice to their spirit, Clinton sought to capture their energy and stories in the magic of the first person perspective. Initially, Clinton was his own client. With no template to follow, creating a legacy film business from scratch was a long and difficult path, but listening to client desires and studying all the areas of specialization that go into this work made StoryKeeping a sustainable business. Clinton is fascinated by people, intrigued by what makes them tick, and loves helping folks talk through everything that makes life worthwhile.