02 • What Is Oral History?
27m 35s
A walkthrough of how history, stories, and oral history overlap — and why oral history is important.
LESSON OUTLINE
1. What is history?
2. What is a story?
3. What is oral history?
4. Why oral history?
LESSON REFERENCES
TRANSCRIPT
Lesson 02: What is Oral History?
Hello, and welcome back to Self Evident's oral history training and archiving program. This is Lesson 02: What is oral history? In today's lesson, I'm going to walk you through some big questions. First, what is history? Then, what is a story? What is oral history? And then finally, why oral history?
What is history?
So what do these words even mean? History, story? Well officially, Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines history as 1.) A chronological record of significant events, such as those affecting a nation or institution, often including an explanation of their causes. 2.) A branch of knowledge that records and explains past events. And then 3.) Events of the past. And then, it defines story as an account of incidents or events.
So on paper, history and stories seem to directly inform each other. History is made up of stories. And yet, in our minds, they hold different meanings beyond just these definitions. We're told that history is neutral and objective, while stories are personal and subjective. We study and learn about history in schools and museums, while we hear and tell stories at home, with our families.
So when we look at the definition of history, though, some big questions come to mind for me. Like what counts as a significant event? And to whom? Who decides what is significant enough to include? And finally, what about the events that are not included in history? Why aren't they?
So, let's think back. Who are some people that you most clearly remember learning about in school? For me, I remember people like Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, George Washington, Thomas Edison.
Now take a minute to dig back even more in your memory for a time when you learned about someone that reminded you of your family or community at home. You don't necessarily need to look like them or be from the same community, but what was the connection that you felt with them? And what was your reaction learning about them?
I remember learning about the Chinese railroad workers. You know, I learned that they came from China and were paid very, very little to risk their lives to build the Transcontinental Railroad. I remember that they were blowing dynamite through the mountains and losing their lives and that they had to leave their families back home.
I also remember a little bit about the Japanese internment during World War II, where the Japanese were shipped off to concentration camps in the middle of the country, because they were seen as a national threat.
I also remember a little bit about the Silk Road trading routes when learning about European history, where Europeans "discovered" tea and spices. But there was never any mention of the people who exposed these teas and spices to them or the people who had been using them for centuries.
So all of this is to say that a lot of times our histories, the histories of communities of color are not taught in K through 12 schools alongside U.S. history. So even if they were mentioned like the railroad workers or the Japanese internment, you maybe see a paragraph or two. I know that I never learned the names of any of the people involved in these events. I just learned about the event happening generally. Yet, I can still remember names like Christopher Columbus and Thomas Edison in an instant.
So without seeing these stories and histories in our history classes, in our schools, a lot of times, children of color can grow up thinking that communities like theirs, that they don't see in these textbooks, never existed in this country, let alone contributed to it. It also keeps us from learning about each other, about other communities, and also seeing the connections between us.
On the flip side, when the only histories that we see of communities of color are the ones like Chinese railroad workers risking their lives and losing their lives for the railroad or the Japanese being interned or Black communities being enslaved on plantations or Indigenous people facing genocide when they were "discovered" by colonizers, we really only see violence against our communities in our country's history. And not only does this leave out so much of our histories of our communities, but it translates into continued very real threats against our communities, threats of violence even today. Because for some people, this can be their only exposure to these communities of color and communities not like them. And it's been normalized in our country's histories.
But these stories of violence and injustice can't possibly be the only stories of our communities, right?
What is a story?
Absolutely not. Because when we look back at our own lives, our families, our communities, we see so many stories. We hear and experience stories of home, family, love, work, play, conflict, success, activism, migration, and everything in between from our families, our friends, our community members, our neighbors, and our own lives. We hear these stories at our dinner table, in the neighborhood, through our heirlooms, at our celebrations, in our music. And so, do these stories also count as histories?
So often I've heard students ask how their grandma's stories could possibly belong in a museum. And honestly, this is a totally understandable question. We've been taught all of our lives through the media and school that our family's stories have no place in museums, textbooks, movies. So in response to this, I ask why not?
You know, my grandma tells me so many stories of listening to her favorite Cantopop singers after she arrived here in the U.S. whenever she missed home or her family in Hong Kong. Her personal story may be her own individual experience, but it ties in to larger themes, like immigration, global conflict, music, that are often explored in our history classes and museums.
And these personal stories are the building blocks of these larger histories. All of these stories, from big to small, piece together to build our chronological record of significant events, also known as history, that brought us to where we are today. And just like these individual stories piece together our own personal histories, all of our personal histories come together to make the larger histories of our families, our communities, and this country. And before they were seen as significant events and histories, they were first personal stories in our day-to-day lives.
And even though we may not grow up seeing these stories and histories in mainstream media, in our textbooks and schools, it doesn't mean that they are not significant. Instead, we really have to ask who has been given the power to tell and write their version of history? Who has been deciding what is significant enough to include?
And we also need to ask questions like how do we bring our communities in to tell and write their versions of history? How can we bring them in to tell their own stories as we live them every day, on our own terms? One way to start doing that is through oral history with our communities.
What is oral history?
So what even is oral history? Well, according to the Oral History Association, oral history is a field of study and a method of gathering, preserving, and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events.
So oral history is one of the oldest forms of learning and exploring history. It even existed way before we had writing, and it continues all the way through to today.
Oral traditions have held such an important place for centuries, exchanging information, passing on memories and knowledge from generation to generation. From the kitchen to the public square to our living rooms, oral history has long been the people's university, communicating stories and memories and knowledge in an entertaining and accessible way, using stories.
Oral history brings our everyday experiences and stories on the micro level, on our individual level, and weaves them into these larger histories on the large, macro level. While history tends to focus on official narratives of big, significant events, oral history explores these very events through the individual stories and people involved in them. It is history told through our everyday stories, memories, conversations, experiences, and relationships. And it shows us that there is most often not just one side of the story. There's more to the story than what we see.
Oral history really aims to tell stories as true to the narrator's voice as possible, while also taking into account the context and perspective through which both the narrator tells their story and the interviewer interprets it. So in this way, oral history really challenges the idea that history can only have one perspective. And when we leave out these stories, these perspectives, and contexts, we're not only missing key parts of history, but more importantly, we're misrepresenting history itself. And as a result, this can trickle down back to our everyday lives and actually harm the very communities that have been excluded and misrepresented in these histories and stories.
Why oral history?
Oral history opens up the space for a wide range of perspectives and voices to participate in the writing and creation of history. It gives far more than just representation for underrepresented communities by allowing for the communities to actively participate in how they're being represented. It allows us to dig deeper into our everyday lives and look internally within our own lives, our families, our communities, and not just to big celebrities or people in the movies, famous people, successful people. We're looking at our own communities for the stories that really represent us. It teaches us to see our communities around us as our classroom and the people everywhere, all around us, as active collaborators, storytellers, producers, and teachers in the process. In this way, oral history is built on the idea that our everyday lives have value, that we are all storytellers and have stories worth sharing.
Oral history shows us that it's not only our most exceptional parts or after we've achieved success that our stories become significant. It gives us the opportunity, it gives people the opportunity to take history into our own hands in our day-to-day lives. And it shows us that history is all around us, and that we've been a part of it and doing oral history all along.
So from these personal stories, oral history opens up the space for us to make connections in three important ways. One, it allows for our stories, our personal stories to be connected to a larger history. It also connects our own individual stories to others who may share or even just relate to our story. And finally, oral history allows us to connect with each other and deepen our relationships with each other. So I'm going to walk you through each one of these connections of oral history right now.
Oral history connects our stories to larger history
So first, our personal stories that we learn through oral history can be used to fill in the gaps that were previously missing in official tellings of history. Oftentimes these gaps could actually lead to misrepresentation of already underrepresented communities within these larger histories.
For example, we were taught in school that the great explorer Ferdinand Magellan was the first to sail around the world in the 1500's, where he was also the first to "discover" the islands now known as the Philippines. What we didn't learn was that the inhabitants of the island, who had not been discovered at all, but had been living their lives for millennia long before he arrived, resisted this unknown explorer's attempts to colonize their land. And Magellan was, in fact, killed by the island's inhabitants. After his death, Magellan's crew continued their trip around the world. And yet he's still credited for first discovering the islands known as the Philippines and for making that first trip around the world.
These undertold stories are significant in our understanding of history. And by filling in these gaps, these stories have the potential to correct and add to the formal histories that we're taught and that we widely accept as the truth.
Oral history connects our stories to others who share or relate to our story
Second, these individual stories can then be seen as part of a collection of others' individual stories. So even if we thought that we were the only ones who lived that particular story, when we zoom out, we see that we were experiencing this major event together with other people, even from within our own circumstances. From this, we can see where our stories and histories overlap, even with people we've never met or knew existed before, but now we have this connection from these similar experiences.
A recent example of this is during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. At first, Asian Americans who experienced individual discrimination, harassment, or violence may have just thought that they were the only ones experiencing it. But as more people shared their experiences and stories, we came to see that it was a part of a larger trend of violence and discrimination against Asian Americans, which has then also spurred collective action and organizing to combat it.
This also doesn't have to only apply to our own communities. It can also build connections across communities that may face similar struggles in their own ways. Solidarity really starts with listening and learning and connecting our personal stories with others, and then leading to collective action.
So for example, many Southeast Asian and South Asian communities have been displaced as refugees as a result of U.S. violence in their homelands, while also facing mass deportations by the U.S. government once they arrive here. Similarly, many Latinx communities have made their way to this country under very similar circumstances, facing detainment at the border and mass deportation back to the dangerous situations in their homelands that are often caused again by U.S. violence. From these common struggles, we've seen communities coming together to organize mutual aid, fight for immigration reform, and advocate for all immigrants and refugees across all these communities.
And as we build these connections with others' stories and see parts of ourselves reflected in them, we see the further value of the very lives who live them, including our own. Learning the real stories of struggle and exclusion experienced by those around us has the power to fuel our movements for justice. Just as our stories of resistance and resilience hold the knowledge and strength we need to inform our work and sustain our communities into the future. Even in the face of these systems that have long excluded underrepresented communities from the official history narrative, oral history empowers communities to use their voices and native languages and experiences, not only to share their lived experiences of injustice, but also to use their personal experiences, connections, knowledge, network, to advocate for their visions of justice, both for themselves and for each other. In this way, oral history teaches us that we are not only storytellers, but historymakers too.
Oral history connects us to each other in our relationships
And finally, oral history has the amazing potential to strengthen our relationships with each other. As a practice that brings people in as active participants through strong community relationships, oral history emphasizes the process over the final product of the interview. It equips us with the skills and experience to be impactful and caring listeners, storytellers, and community members, long before and after the interview. It also brings our narrator into the process as an active collaborator all throughout the process.
Through our soft interview skills, which we'll learn about in lesson four, we develop the care and skills we need to become better listeners to people all around us. We learn how to open up and hold space for people to share their personal stories, from their struggles to their joys to everything in between.
And in opening up this space, there could be times when we are talking to people who may never have been asked to share before. For our narrator, this could be scary and also healing to talk openly about it for the first time or the hundredth time. So how can we show our care? And how we do that can impact how our narrators share their personal stories, and also how they choose to stay connected with us after the interview.
At the same time, this could be the first time we ourselves are hearing these stories. This can also feel scary and also healing for us as the interviewer. So how can we also show the same care that we give to our narrators, to ourselves as interviewers too?
So all throughout the interview process, you're not only developing a deeper understanding of your narrator through the stories they share, but you'll also learn how to show up for them as a fellow community member. In making sure that they have what they need to feel safe to share their stories, actively involving them in the interview process and decisions, and gradually building trust with them through your care and your full transparency throughout the process, you're making it clear to them that it's not just their stories or the interview that you care about, but that you care about them as a person living those stories.
So just as the oral history interviews should be just the start of many conversations to come, your relationship with your narrator can continue to grow and strengthen long after the interview. And we really hope it does.
Recap: Why oral history?
So a quick recap of the ways that our personal stories, through oral history, can open up the space for us to make these bigger connections. First, oral history allows for our personal stories to be connected to a larger history beyond our own. It also allows for our personal stories and our individual experiences to be shared with others who may relate to our story. And then finally, oral history allows for us to connect with each other and deepen our relationships within our communities and with each other.
So whether you're a journalist, an educator, a curator, producer, artist, or just someone who loves stories, oral history can be such a valuable tool in how you present stories and how you bring your narrators into the process. Remember that stories don't only have an impact when they reach a wide audience. But stories and the impact on individual people that they reach can be so much deeper if it's done with deep care. By actively involving communities in the process and production of their stories, we learn to be more mindful of the impact that representation has on communities, who may not be used to seeing the full range of their lived experiences depicted in movies, museums, textbooks. And in this way, oral history gives us an alternative to the widely accepted practices within media that take from, extract, and misrepresent communities. It allows for us to develop the understanding and the skills for today's storytellers to tell and share these stories with, rather than about, underrepresented communities.
Before the next lesson
So before you jump into our next lesson, we want to get you started thinking about and feeling the personal stories that are important to us in our everyday lives. So head over to selfevidentshow.com and listen to Episode 17: Saving the Seeds. In this episode, our host Cathy gathers her friends to talk about some of their favorite stories about fruit. She's digging into the question "Why do Asian Americans have such deep relationships with fruit?" She talks to her local fruit vendor, her friends from all over the country to really dig into these personal stories of people's favorite fruits.
And to get you thinking all throughout this episode, here are some questions to guide you. What fruit do you have a special connection to? And how did that happen? Over the years, has the way that you and your family share fruit or any other food changed? Is there something that plays the kind of role for you that fruit has played for our guests in this episode, but is not fruit? What is that thing and why does it matter to you? And then, where have you heard these kinds of personal stories before in your life and from who? And then, also who are some people you'd want to hear these stories from in your life?
And then, when you're ready and full of stories and you've got your favorite fruit next to you, then you can head to our next lesson: Where Do We Fit In as Asian Americans?