Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
How and when can I contribute to the Story Archive?
What is a Contributor? What is a Narrator?
How old do Contributors and Narrators have to be to participate in the pilot testing?
Why do I need to be English proficient?
Does my Narrator need to be English proficient?
Do I and my narrator both have to identify as Asian American?
Is this program accessible?
Am I allowed to record and add more than one interview to the archive?
SEE ANSWERS BELOW
How and when can I contribute to the Story Archive?
We are wrapping up our first round of Pilot Contributor testing and compiling our learnings. We cannot wait to share all that we learn and bring in more Contributors soon!
Follow @selfevidentshow and subscribe to our newsletter (bottom of the page) to stay tuned for future opportunities to contribute.
What is a Contributor? What is a Narrator?
A Contributor is anyone who wants to learn and develop their oral history skills, in order to conduct their own interview with someone in the community. With the use of our toolkit, Contributors will learn how to conduct, record, and upload an oral history interview to our digital archive. Contributors will also play an important role in guiding and preparing Narrators throughout the entire interview process. For this pilot testing, Contributors will also provide important feedback to help improve and grow the program.
A Narrator is our primary storyteller for each oral history interview. Narrators can be anyone in a Contributor’s life that they’ve always wanted to interview or learn more about. Narrators will not be asked to complete the oral history education toolkit.
How old do Contributors and Narrators have to be to participate in the pilot testing?
In order to add and store your oral history recording in our publicly accessible digital Story Archive, all pilot Contributors and Narrators will be asked to submit a signed release form.
If you or your narrator are under 18 years old, a parent or guardian will be required to sign the release form. We strongly encourage you to review this How to Become a Pilot Contributor overview and FAQ together with your parent or guardian, before confirming your participation.
Our Oral History Toolkit fully explains what happens to your interview once it is added to the digital Story Archive, including your rights as Narrators and Contributors. It also provides guidance on how to discuss this important information with your narrator before and after the interview.
Review our Story Archive Release Form
Why do I need to be English proficient?
At this time, our team only has the capacity to create our pilot oral history educational materials and digital archive interface in English.
As we plan for the future, we are actively thinking about how to integrate greater language access into this program. This increased language access could take the form of bringing on language interpreters to provide multilingual materials and investing in partnerships with community organizations that already serve as trustworthy, language-accessible, culturally competent venues that provide familiar places for narrators to share their stories.
Does my Narrator need to be English proficient?
Nope! Your interview can happen in any language you choose.
For this pilot program, we ask that you submit all written information in English for the digital Story Archive. This will allow our team to interpret everything collected and add them to our Story Archive.
You are also more than welcome to include written information in any language other than English. We ask that you submit this in-language information side-by-side with a rough English translation.
Do I and my narrator both have to identify as Asian American?
We invite you and your narrator to interpret the term “Asian American” and whether/how you identify with it on your own terms.
We acknowledge the complexities of the term “Asian American.” With roots spanning across the world’s largest continent, Asian diaspora communities come from countries, regions, cities, towns, and villages of origin with distinct cultures and livelihoods. We encourage you to learn more about the term “Asian American” by listening to Self Evident’s episode The Non-United States of Asian America or by reading Li Zhou’s article The inadequacy of the term “Asian American.”
Having said that, this pilot program is focused on centering our Asian American contributors, as these contributors are accustomed to having their experiences either undervalued or overexploited by media companies and other institutions (but rarely engaged with between these extremes). This Story Archive aims to become a growing primary resource for unfiltered representation from the grassroots — from longtime Asian Americans learning about traditions and history brought over from Asia; to recent Asian immigrants articulating how they experience that same history being made in the present; to potential immigrants accessing a more direct understanding about how life can be in the United States; to Asian Americans across this entire spectrum of heritage navigating what it means for them to live as Americans moving forward.
As this program grows, we envision that it will provide a valuable resource not only for Asian Americans, but for anyone aiming to strengthen their personal relationships, engage in community-centered storytelling or oral history, or learn more about the vast diversity of the Asian American experience through first-person narratives.
Is this program accessible?
All of our Oral History Toolkit lessons include video subtitles and transcripts. We also welcome all requests for accommodations, as well as suggestions and/or support for the future, and we will be transparent about our capacity to provide those accommodations.
At this time, we are aware that this program is not fully accessible. We believe accessibility is an act of love, and we are committed to making this program accessible for all who want to participate. We also acknowledge that there will be gaps in what we are able to provide in our pilot program at this time as a small grassroots organization.
As this program grows, we envision a collaborative effort that invests in partnerships with trusted community organizations that already serve as trustworthy, language-accessible, culturally competent venues that provide familiar places for narrators to share their stories. These partners — spanning across schools, community-based organizations, and cultural institutions — will be critical to reaching underserved populations, such as elders, folks with disabilities, immigrants, and people facing social stigma within their families, and to scaling the project to consistently engage with, and be accountable to, the people it’s for.
Am I allowed to record and add more than one interview to the archive?
Yes — we encourage it!