Refugees Oral History Podcast

The speaker acknowledges their privileged background and shares their intention to share what they've learned about the refugee experience through academic research and interviews. They play a recording from a StoryCorps interview where a man talks about suppressing his emotions as a child in a refugee camp. The speaker encourages listeners to listen to the full interview and explains what oral history is. They discuss the importance of approaching oral histories with a critical lens and how they differ from the portrayal of refugees in mass media. They mention a CNN article that simplifies a refugee's experience and the lack of control refugees have over how their interviews are represented. Another StoryCorps interview is mentioned where a man reflects on becoming a U.S. citizen. An archivist from StoryCorps is interviewed and discusses the organization's mission and ethical practices in conducting interviews. They emphasize self-identification, creating a safe space, not editing int Before I get into this podcast, it's important to acknowledge my own positionality. I come from a very privileged background in which I don't have any personal experience or family ties to the refugee experience. In no way do I plan to speak for a community, but instead share what I've learned through academic research and interviews. Now I'd like to start off with a recording from a StoryCorps interview between coworkers Imad Inchassi and Lani Habrock, where Imad explains his experiences as a child growing up in a refugee camp in Lebanon. You'll hear Imad here. Now keep in mind those classes were segregated back then, boys and girls, and we were taught early on that boys are not supposed to cry, that it's not a manly thing to cry. And even those people who cried, perhaps they were bullied and they were made fun at. So we kept it inside. The heart was bleeding, the heart was crying, but on the outside, we were just consoling one another. This is an example of an archived oral history, which was recorded on October 29th, 2021. I encourage listeners to go listen to the entire interview, as this is just a short snippet from an extensive oral history where Imad provides a deeper recollection of his past experiences. I will continue to include archived StoryCorps interviews featuring refugees' experiences throughout this podcast. Listeners can access the full interviews on the StoryCorps website by searching the participants' names. Now I recognize that oral history is not a widely used term, so allow me to define it. As explained by the Oral History Association, oral history refers to both a method of recording and preserving oral testimony. It begins with an audio or video recording of a first-person account made by an interviewer with an interviewee, also referred to as a narrator, both of whom have a conscious intention of creating a permanent record to contribute to an understanding of the past. This organization also explains how the interview and its copyright belongs to the interviewee, which is important so that their story cannot be monetized by another entity or corporation. Because an oral history is often much more conversational with two participants, providing background on the interviewer's identity is necessary, and it's important to recognize both the interviewer's and the interviewee's positionality when recording such intimate experiences. The Oral History Association also stresses the importance of approaching oral histories with a critical lens. With its prioritization of intention, preservation, and maintaining a critical perspective, the practice of oral history fits in perfectly to critical refugee studies. With this explanation, we must wonder how the representation of refugees' experiences as a result of oral histories contradict how refugees are portrayed in mass media. First, I'd like to acknowledge that news stories that stress mass amounts of people who are forcibly displaced are necessary for public knowledge and awareness. However, in these stories, the emotional distress of displaced people are frozen in time and projected into a headline where millions will see it forever. Typically, interviews of refugees are taken and placed in mass media news articles about a big crisis. In this way, a refugee's entire experience and complexity is simplified by the trauma in this news story. Additionally, they don't have control over how their interview is represented in a news article. They don't own it. The news company does. For example, a CNN article covering the war in Ukraine is titled, I Cannot Believe This Is Happening, See Emotional Interview with a Ukrainian Citizen. Here is her brief interview. As 36-year-old Daria tells us... It's like you wake up in a totally new reality at 5 a.m. and you find out that the world is no longer the safe place you imagined. We are an independent country, Ukraine, and we are totally not the same as Russia. And we don't want to be a part of Russia or any other country. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I recognize the need to educate the general public in a short, digestible manner. But we will never know how this broadcasted moment will impact Daria beyond the story's release. Next, you'll hear a small bit of another StoryCorps interview between two friends, Madi Akal and Issa Spatresano, where Issa asked Madi to reflect on how he feels now that he has American citizenship. I recently got to go with you when you became a U.S. citizen, which was very exciting, and congratulations. What does it mean to you to be a U.S. citizen? For me, that's finally I will, I could have more freedom. I could be, I could, I have a place to call home now. In Alaska, I don't have to travel or move anywhere now. I mean, hopefully there's no wars or anything, because I was kind of tired from moving too much. I've been using StoryCorps as an example of how ethical oral histories can be recorded and archived. I was actually lucky enough to speak with a StoryCorps archivist, Sara. So, my name is Sara. I use she, her pronouns. I'm 26. I'm from Abu Dhabi. I did a undergrad in English at Temple University, and then I originally pursued my master's of science in library information science to be a public librarian. Fell in love with archives along the way. Got my advanced certificate in archives and my MSLAS from Pratt. I've worked in a few different archives, one with African American ephemera, one with textiles, and one with works on paper before I came to StoryCorps. So, you said that you kind of fell in love with archives, but what motivated you to work specifically for StoryCorps? Yeah. I have tried to always work in a nonprofit space, even within the discipline of archives. I was really excited about StoryCorps' mission. I studied oral history pretty extensively in my graduate studies. And something that was really unique about StoryCorps, which I was hoping to be true and it has been true since I worked there, is that StoryCorps is really open to a human aspect within the archives. So, we consider the fact that people have different backgrounds. We consider how people want to be honored. We implement empathy in the way that we archive things, and not just honoring best practices, although that's incredibly important, especially for an archive of this size. We also are just really open to changes and boundaries and self-identification. And I think we'll talk about that more later. But that was definitely what motivated me to apply. That's really good to hear that it's something that you saw in the organization and then it proved to be true through your time working for them. It's really hopeful for certain. Yeah, for sure. So, in your eyes, what is the most ethical way to interview someone? So, I was thinking about this, and I'm coming from a back-end point of view. So, our facilitators are the ones who are conducting the interviews, although we say that they facilitate them more than conduct them because it's more a conversation between two people, usually two people who know each other. The four things that I thought of, something that we value really heavily at StoryCorps is self-identification. So, within our data sheet, we have self-identification boxes for every single category. We also honor changes that people want to make within the online archive to their own interview, as long as it's consistent with our data and, like, lends to the person's boundaries. Something else that's really important is, not from an archival perspective, but from the facilitator's perspective, all our facilitators really excel at making a safe space emotionally within the booth when they conduct interviews and also a physically accessible space. So, that's something that we take into consideration really heavily. The other thing that I think is really important that we do at StoryCorps is that we don't edit interviews. So, even if something is completely unfactual, ahistorical, we honor the participant's stories. We've even had interviews in the archives that a lot of people would consider incredibly offensive, and we have a best practice in place for archiving difficult conversations in terms of sensitivity warnings and content warnings. And then something that really, I think, sets StoryCorps apart is that we share ownership of the interview with the participant. So, they can disperse it as they see fit for non-commercial purposes, but it also lends to things such as, if you want to anonymize your interview, we have best practices in place for that. If you want to completely destroy the interview, I take care of that, too. And then even at the end of the day, because you have shared ownership with the StoryCorps for your interview, you can private it, you can make it just accessible to the StoryCorps community, you can make it publicly accessible. It's really up to you how you feel comfortable sharing your story. Because we like to say we don't own your story, we just own the interview. Wow. I really appreciate that difference in terminology about just the interview itself and not someone's entire experience. Yeah, because the interview is really just a leaf file at the end of the day. So, even if you said the same story word for word, that's your story and that's something that we really prioritize. Absolutely. Focusing more on the refugee experience, which is what I'm studying, do you think that StoryCorps is able to convey a refugee experience in a way that mass media is not? Yeah, I definitely personally feel that way. And I think that professionally, not even just within StoryCorps, but within oral history, oral history exists in a really unique space. I like to follow the framework that's set forth by Linda Schultz. She says that oral history is not factual. And that's very purposeful. And there's both potentially shortcomings involved with that, but definitely for the most part, just a lot of value. There's value in someone telling their story in their own accent. Even mistakes, English is a second language. Just hearing people's story in their own words, I think, is really important. But also the fact that it's not being 100% factual. Memory is imperfect. Everyone's experience is different. Bias is ineditable. And emotion is expected. And I think that those are things that can add a lot of meaning to a record. And also, I think we live in a time where the American government and media is partisan to a lot of conflicts that involve refugees, produce refugees, and just providing a space for counter-narratives or voices that maybe the dominant narrative has not deemed important, I think is really important. Because we go out of our way to highlight voices from minority demographics. Yeah, absolutely. And I know that you said that you're not a facilitator. So if you don't know much about this next question, I totally understand. But you mentioned when emotions come up in the interview or how the facilitator creates a safe space. Do you have any specifics on procedure, on how the facilitators are supposed to respond? Yeah, absolutely. We have kind of processes in place that I've been privy to at the training which I attend. Kind of how to deal with people who might be making offensive comments. Especially, you know, we have facilitators who are from less dominant demographics. And that can be a painful experience for them to experience. But they are so strong. And that's part of what makes them really great at their job. And then from the back end, something that I see frequently is that if someone becomes really emotional during their interview, we encourage them to stop the interview. We consolidate the WAVE files into one contiguous interview. But I've consolidated as much as seven WAVE files if someone's telling a really difficult story. And then, for instance, we have different initiatives. One that's, I guess, really pertinent to your field of study or your interests would be the American Pathways Initiative. And that's kind of separated into two collections. So one would be the NWARC Collection of Muslim Voices and then the Tapestry of Voices. And the Tapestry of Voices is for immigrants, refugees, and asylees mainly. We're not closed off to new initiatives. We stopped actively seeking interviews for these in 2021. But we have a lot of considerations that we think about every time we have a new initiative. So something that we thought about with Curtis' initiative was reminding participants that anonymity is optional, an option for them. We use respectful language to talk about everyone's experiences. And we tend to just mirror the language that the participant uses. And then something else that was really important for this specifically was not going out of our way to assume or ask about an immigration status. And there have been people in the archive who chose to make their interview not anonymous and not private, even if they have an immigration status that could be potentially put them in a vulnerable position. And that's something that we respect and we just follow. We really tend to follow our participants' lead with that. That's really good to hear because in a lot of the readings and discussions and speakers that we've had in our class, they talk about how qualification of someone's status really determines their experience because of the way that the government, like, uses their status to justify certain acts. So you all kind of putting their experience first. And you also mentioned the ability to just completely stop the interview. It really highlights how their experience is much more important than the actual, like, WAVE file that, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, definitely. Like, their pain. Yeah. Continue. Sorry. No, sorry. There's a little bit of a lag. Something that our founder, Dave Isay, always says is that we're an experience-first process. So even though the archive is kind of the nucleus of StoryCorps, we really focus on the experience as opposed to the final product. And there's been tons of cases of people just thinking it's a cathartic experience, not wanting to release the interview and asking that we do a non-release, which includes destroying all the paperwork, destroying the WAVE file itself. And that's something that we completely honor and respect. Like, we have tissues in the booth. A lot of the time, what people think is a story worth telling is an emotional story. So it's something they completely anticipate. Yeah. And so just to – I don't – what percentage of the interviews are something that is facilitated by someone from StoryCorps? And what percent of them are just, like, submissions of conversations? So I think we have about 300,000 interviews in the archives. I can't tell you what. So the ones that would be facilitated by someone from StoryCorps would be called a StoryCorps signature. I'm actually not sure what makeup of the archive is StoryCorps signature, but it's a pretty significant portion. But because we introduced the app for the pandemic, which has been really important, even though it messed up our data pretty aggressively, there's a lot of people who've chosen that route with the app. And I think – I don't want to say a number that I don't know, but there's obviously – because of the ease of uploading a story, it's a significant portion of our archive. Yeah. And have you noticed a difference in between even just the conversations that were sent in by people who were basically having a conversation with a friend versus a StoryCorps facilitator? So the majority of our interviews outside of one small step would be with somebody that you're comfortable with, and that's a really important facet. Our model is based on talking to somebody that you know. And I think that a worry would be that there wouldn't be the same level of comfort within a signature interview, i.e., an interview that we've conducted. But there's something that's, like, really special about the booth that makes people feel comfortable, and our facilitators are, like, incredibly kind, incredibly sensitive. And sometimes we've had people come in, like, in an opposite way, and they've talked about some trauma that they've experienced together that they were not able to talk about within their own home because they just, I don't know, feel this sense of comfort within the booth that we provide. That's amazing. That's really good to hear. And finally, how do you think that StoryCorps tactics can be implemented outside of your specific platform? And I know that they're almost kind of opposite sometimes with, like, I refer to mass media as just the bigger news outlets, but how do you think that the ethics of StoryCorps can be applied to those different areas, if you think they even can be? Yeah, I definitely think they can be. I think that, I mean, the American media is interviewing people as well, and interviews have to be approached with caution and care and sensitivity. Making a safe space for people is important so that they feel that they have the comfort to share their truth. Physical accessibility for people with different abilities is incredibly important and something that's not highlighted as much. And also just this idea of aftercare, I think, has been really important in the oral history, modern discourse. Something else that I think should be put on a pedestal and really prioritized is the after fact of data security and information safety. We take a lot of steps. We follow the Library of Congress's preservation model to make sure that not only will your interview survive, but it's not going to be vulnerable to being shared in spaces that you're not comfortable with. And then I think most importantly to that question is really this idea of the everyman. So we also, kind of something that's interesting, I guess, about StoryCorps, we also look at people who live in really rural areas as minorities in and of themselves, because those are not the stories that are being told. And we go out of our way to go to rural areas. We have been to all 50 states. We had an initiative last year where we went to Alaska, and this is when notators really enjoyed that. But, yeah, just providing this space for the everyman and the counter-narrative is not something that's put into practice as much for, in my experience, the American media. And that's where oral history really has, like, a necessity and a meaning, significantly. We really go out of our way to collect every single voice, and we think that strengthens the archive. We archive, like I said, things that we don't agree with all the time. And it's really, like, we're facilitating the interview. We're not inserting ourselves into the narrative. Yeah, which I think is really useful as long as you're doing it in a safe and productive way. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks so much, Zahra. I really appreciate your time and you speaking with me about this. StoryCorps is an incredible platform to archive the audio recordings of oral histories. But there are also other ways in which oral histories can be applied to support written literature. In a chapter from Queer and Trans Migrations called Central American Migrants, LGBTI Asylum Cases Seeking Justice and Making History, author Suyaba G. Portillo-Villeda shares the experiences of Josie, a lesbian refugee from Honduras, and Clementina, a trans male refugee from Honduras as well. While the entirety of the oral histories were not shared, Villeda is able to provide a larger backstory which more accurately humanizes Josie and Clementina while sharing their stories to emphasize the chapter's concerns with LGBTI refugee studies. Another reason oral histories are so successful is because of their informality. In the novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, the narrator Little Dog describes the stories his grandmother would share in the home. These were oral histories that Little Dog then cemented in his retelling of his childhood. Of course, this book isn't an audiophile, but the sentiment of oral histories remain the same. In a similar way that a fictional oral history is recorded on paper in On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Eric Tang engages in oral history as he interviews Rob Prone to inform his book, Unsettled, Cambodian Refugees in the New York City Hyperghetto. Tang and Prone build a relationship for 15 years starting in 1999 while he was working on his book which was released in 2015. This book follows Prone's experiences to provide one personal account of the conditions Cambodians faced during their migration to the Bronx in the 80s and 90s. It's clear that utilizing and applying aspects of oral histories to our reporting practices is incredibly beneficial to both the interviewer and interviewee. As oral histories aim to honor the interviewee's voice, it's important to honor someone's language as well. We see this aspect of oral history practices being used in the podcast episode, The Out Crowd, from This American Life. I went to meet Baki's. Tell me when his 8-year-old daughter needs a bathroom. Well, you know, if I have some money, then I'll look and see if I can find her another bathroom. She used, but if there isn't any, then I'll take her out into the woods, into the mountains, so that she can, you know, use the bathroom, do her business, and then we'll go down to the river to wash up. While publishing detailed oral histories for every refugee crisis in the world might not fit into our modern media frameworks, which are focused on fast, eye-catching stories, it's important that we all supplement our news readings with oral histories so that we can have a more nuanced understanding of displacement's impact and honor the individual stories of refugees. It's also clear that we can apply the ethics of oral histories to other mediums, like written literature, so that refugees' singular experiences can be more holistically represented and not diminished to something monolithic. This has been Kendall Thomas from American University, which lies on occupied Nacotchtank land.