Evaluating the Experience

“Was there, like, a Latino regiment or something?”

The above quote comes from a conversation about this course that I had in the dining hall.  By this time, we were nearing the end of the semester, and I was able to explain how a sizeable portion of the soldiers who fought in Vietnam was Latino, yet their stories and experiences are rarely represented in historical texts.  I felt pretty informed at that time.  Looking back at day one, however, I don’t know what I knew about Latino involvement in the Vietnam War.  In addition, we’d soon be collecting our own oral histories.  By the end of the course, I would gain experience in this area, but on day one, I had encountered oral histories only in passing, never as an area of study or practice.

This class had historical, theoretical, and practical aspects. We began with the theoretical, reading about how oral histories were recorded and preserved. The readings were paired with the results of a few oral histories on topics different than we would be recording.  This helped us to see how these projects ended up.  I was able to approach these readings with a particular outlook, that of someone learning techniques that would later be put into practice.  At that time, I wasn’t too concerned with the content, the actual history involved. Then there were readings that introduced the historical aspect alongside the theoretical, and I was unsure of how to analyze them.

I interpreted “Vietnam Veteranos” as an account of experiences and historical data, but also as an example of how oral histories are presented.  Given our previous readings on the techniques of oral historical research, I paid more attention to the latter, looking towards the practical aspects of the course.  I unintentionally picked up a lot of historical knowledge while reading the book – it was hard not to – but when it came time to discuss, I wasn’t always sure if we’d be discussing essential understandings of the experiences, the methods, or both.  My blog post for that book grapples with the experiences but tries to put them in terms of how the book presented them, and thus thinking about how they were collected and presented.  It would’ve been good for me to revisit the course outcomes and remember that “[demonstrating] historical knowledge of the experiences of Latinas/os in the 20th century” was just as important as “[employing] oral historical research methods”.

“Freedom Flyers” was even more difficult for me to navigate than “Vietnam Veteranos” in that the content was, at first glance, not directly related to the course.  I looked at this book as more of a study in the presentation of oral histories, paying attention to the stories of Black airmen only when I thought they were closely aligned with the Latino Veterans we would be interviewing.  I realize, now, that this was not the best approach.  It is inadvisable to channel learning and only take away certain things from experiences and readings.

This class also included the practical side, which involved actually conducting and writing up interviews of Latino Veterans who fought in the Vietnam War.  First of all, I’m eternally grateful to Profe for facilitating the contact with the narrators.  Having found participants and scheduled my own interviews while working on my documentary, I know how difficult this task is.  There were times, however, when I wished I ‘d been more proactive in this regard.  My brief foray into this area was in contacting the Boys of Belvedere, and I never got very far with them.  During the semester, there were many weeks where I trusted that we were on the right track and the interviews would happen, but I realize I could’ve done more each week to help facilitate that.

Having done interviews before, I was not as nervous as some of the other students seemed to be.  I knew I had to be sure to cover my bases, and we had discussed those bases in class.  The interview would go where the narrator wanted it to and we, the interviewers, would be able to gently direct it when necessary.  Having a co-interviewer, however, was a rather new experience.  Having two people gave more variety to our questions, as each of us made difference connections and were curious about different things, and thus the questions we thought of in the course of the interview were broader than they would have been had we been interviewing alone.  Oral histories are always a collaboration between interviewer and narrator, and this other type of collaboration proved equally as fruitful.

Our veteran was thoughtful and willing to share.  He had looked over our preliminary questions beforehand, and at the beginning he was sticking close to what we had sent him.  As we went, he started making connections and following his thoughts as he wove the threads of his stories into a tapestry of experience.  During the interview, it made sense as he went from topic to topic, digressing and returning from a new angle.  When it came time to go through the recording and prepare it for presentation, however, it became clear how nonlinear oral historical accounts are.

Creating the website was a challenging process.  Isolating certain moments and themes from the larger accounts proved more difficult than I expected.  I wonder how much was not included in books like “Vietnam Veteranos”, or if things were moved around so that the narratives would make sense in the limited space they had for each one.  I worked by listening to interviews and taking notes whenever the topics I was representing about came up.  Oftentimes, I would notice that my notes had followed the way the narrator presented things, and the details I was writing about didn’t pertain to the subject, and I was over the word limit.  Practically speaking, I had to find a way to pull out the important threads and communicate the essential messages.

I also had to be mindful of the narrator’s experience and be sure to do it justice.  I tended to stick close to the facts and stay away from doing too much interpretation unless it was clearly supportable.  In making something that was accessible, I wanted to let future readers have a similar type of encounter to the information that I had, one that felt unmediated and allowed them to interpret.  I knew I had to leave out a lot of the experiences, and that was difficult.  However, I think that having many accounts together will serve to provide varied perspectives that center around certain common aspects of the experience in a way that attests to the variance of experience.  While the website is not complete, I trust that it will be a faithful and multifaceted portrayal of the accounts we collected.

There is no way to sum up this class, which is a good thing.  We learned about the experiences of Latino veterans, examined techniques for recording oral histories, and combined them both to learn from Latino veterans as we collected their accounts.  My initial uncertainties with how to approach the materials cleared up as the class progressed, and the central threads running through all of our materials and experiences grew clearer. By the time we read “gods go begging”, I was better able to navigate between literary frameworks, historical learning, and comparisons to other methods for presenting stories and lessons.  I was in a better place to see the connections between our different approaches to the topic than I was at the start of the course.  Having read countless interviews and conducted one with a partner, I was looking for the takeaway lessons in this novel, recognizing common motifs from the other stories we had encountered while evaluating the ways in which novels could connect the reader to the stories in a different way.  Looking back, I realized that our class had been connecting these different aspects throughout the semester.  Like an oral history, the full experience can only be observed and appreciated by stepping back and observing the entire thing, and each seemingly disparate piece is equally important in the overall picture.

Miracles in the Aftermath

The “Blue Ballet” (96) is a concept that most who have studied war are familiar with.  Young boys, barely out of their teens, are shipped off to do the bloody work of war.  In his novel gods go begging, Alfredo Véa follows a sergeant from the Vietnam war, Jesse Pasadoble, to his work as a district attorney in San Francisco, and the parallels between the blue ballet of an official war and that of the projects becomes clear.  On both of these hills, groups of boys try to survive in an environment of pure desire.

As he sums up the murders that took place on Portrero Hill, Jesse explains that “‘…when desire is stripped of humanity…all that remains is war’” (291).  Many veterans return from war with things that they must grapple with for the rest of their lives.  For Jesse Pasadoble, it is this relationship between desire and war.  He is partially drawn into the world of criminal defense because it involves the same negotiations as did the war; years later, Jesse is still sorting the products of desires which have been let loose from their groundings in human emotion and rationality.  Watching the men die on the hill in Vietnam is the same as watching them die on Potrero Hill.  As an attorney, however, he no longer must simply watch as those around him die.  In Vietnam, he said “‘ There ain’t no justice out here, man, there’s just us” (95), and that is how his whole squadron felt.  However, there are moments of justice on the streets, and Jesse is there to ensure that, in those moments, justice is served and no one is allowed to slip through the cracks.

Jesse’s mentoring of the Biscuit Boy may be an attempt at redemption, using the power he had to save a life in the wake of all those boys who died on the hill in Vietnam.  By introducing him to language through novels and unlocking his humanity, Jesse gives the Biscuit Boy a chance that the Hill never would’ve afforded him.  Jesse is determined not to let the Biscuit Boy become another casualty of another hill, making it all the more devastating when the Biscuit Boy is shot on his way off the Hill.

When the Biscuit Boy and the Padre are shot, it seems that all hope will die with them.  This takes the novel in a decidedly darker direction, and one wonders why Véa chooses to kill Jesse’s nascent hope so quickly.  It is a part of war, however, that hope, fairness, and safety are not secure.  There was no reason that any of the men should’ve died in Vietnam, and in figuring Portrero Hill as a war space, Véa is forced to admit the dire consequences that come with it, no matter how unpleasant they are to a reader who was just beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel.  These two shootings brought home the unfairness of war as effectively as all of the accounts of deaths experienced in Vietnam itself.  Placing Jesse and the Padre on Potrero Hill helps to strengthen the continuity between the two hills, but the connection is in the environment, an environment of desire.

While it stays true to the omnipresent death and destruction, gods go begging also finds the miracles in war.   Biscuit Boy and the Padre survive.  Jesse finds a way to save a life.  It seems impossible to stay true to the devastating impact of war and also celebrate the miracles, as the miracles seem to counteract or negate what is a necessarily considered reality.  However, miracles do occur.  After all, every soldier who survives must’ve experienced a number of miracles, and there are a number of soldiers who survive every war.

*  *  *

Our oral histories will capture, as best they can, the experiences of the veterans in Vietnam.  However, they will also capture what happens after, those following years on which gods go begging spends so much time.  Jesse came home to wrestle with his experiences and become a lawyer to continue fighting on hills.  He witnessed death, but also miracles and redemption. The veterans that we interview had their own experiences, witnessed things beyond comprehension, and lived through miracles too numerous to count.  All we need to do is listen.

“Classic Example”

In writing an historical account, it helps to have primary sources to draw on. Every year, countless middle- and high-schoolers learn the benefits of a primary source: immediacy, direct connection to the period, illustrative qualities, etc. When it come to primary sources, few are better for livening up a text than a transcribed oral history. Being able to use the words of people who experienced the event first-hand adds life to the account.
In reading the first two sections of Freedom Flyers, I was struck by the lack of integrated oral evidence. The Prologue presented story after story taken directly from the Tuskegee Airmen Oral History Project (12). Presented in sequence, these stories constructed a picture of the aspiring Black pilot in the early twentieth century: a love of planes (1), a desire to do well and represent their race (10), and a desire to fight racism abroad and at home (12) were but a few of the repeated motifs in the various accounts. These stories grounded the reader in a few specific stories that were meant to represent the larger themes of the work.
Once Chapter One began, it seemed that the oral histories almost disappeared. It was mentioned that they were a few case studies from a larger group (18) and every once in a while, a quote would be thrown in for emphasis or effect. Most of the chapter was background information. It is hard to tell how much contextualization oral histories need. In many of our readings, the histories have been allowed to contextualized themselves, collectively establishing the overall histories of which they are a part. Freedom Flyers, however, gave the context mostly by explanations of events and a few primary sources: memos, letters, speeches, etc. At times, I lost sight of how what was written related to the stories of the airmen, or what was the main focus of the book. Perhaps, as this was only the first chapter, the book would reintroduce the narrators from the prologue. If this is the case, then such extensive background is helpful in that readers get a sense of the big picture surrounding the oral histories that might not have been contained in the stories themselves.
If, as Moyes says, the pilots themselves “…came closer to describing the experience’s significance for African Americans than numbers ever could” (39), then why weren’t they used more consistently. Even when taking time to establish the big picture, it would seem that keeping it closely related to the oral histories around which the book is focused. Moyes used the phrase “classic example” (18) a few times to describe the value of the oral history. Oral histories are “classic examples” because the narrators were there. The history being told is made up of events that they themselves experienced, and their stories are the best way to illustrate them and connect the reader to the past.
In thinking about the use and effectiveness of oral histories for a given project, one should also look at the project itself. I don’t know the specific intent of Freedom Flyers, though it seemed that Moyes wanted to explain the stories of these men and women as he recounted them. Looking through the works cited (191), it become clear that Moyes has written other pieces using these same interviews. Maybe those pieces gave less second-hand narration and focused on the stories themselves. For this project, Moyes seems to be pulling from all over and balancing his sources as best as he can. There is a more specific story that he wants to illuminate, and so he uses primary sources with greater precision, trading the nuanced vastness of a full oral historical account for these short “classic examples”.

First Interview

Scheduling interviews can be tricky, especially when you have three people to coordinate with.  As Evelyn and I were working as a team, we had to find a time that worked for both of us and for our author.  This took multiple e-mails and phone calls and a number of readjustments as conflicts were remembered or revealed.  And that is just the logistics side.

Our author also wanted to review a list of questions to prepare himself. I sent him a list, and told him that we’d have those in mind, but ultimately the direction of the interview was up to him.  It’s hard to communicate exactly what is supposed to happen during an oral history interview, especially when you don’t have a very specific goal or something you want to “get” from it other than the stories of the author.  Thinking beforehand is all abstract, and it will only be during the interview that it all makes sense.

The interview itself went well.  Rudy at first seemed to want to stick close to the questions I had sent him, but he quickly took his stories in many directions.  Evelyn and I were both careful to remain quiet, and I think this cause Rudy to continue pursuing his thoughts for longer than if we had been speaking.  This was great in that we got to see connections that we wouldn’t have heard about otherwise.  It was tough to decide between continuing a line of questioning and pursuing the directions that Rudy went in, and each time we took a different approach.  Sometimes, we’d loop back to something later, others we would go back to the question we had just asked but remember the other topics he’d brought up.

Working as a pair went smoothly.  Evelyn and I talked a little bit beforehand about how we wanted to run the interview, and agreed that we would just feel our way through.  I think that, at times, I asked too many questions in a row.  Evelyn often brought up points I hadn’t thought about or asked things in a different way that brought new things to light, so in this way we complimented each other.

During the interview, I was unsure if we had spent enough time talking with him and wondered if we had covered everything in sufficient depth.  Looking back, I think that reading the accounts in Vietnam Veteranos primed us in certain ways, both positive and negative.  On the plus side, we were able to pick up on certain topics and pursue them because we had some familiarity.  We also knew to ask about things like troop dynamics, post-war care, and camaraderie within the ranks.  On the other hand, we sometimes skipped over certain topics because we knew about them.  We also were unsure of how far to pursue certain sensitive topics given that we had read so many detailed, straightforward accounts.  Overall, I think it was good that we were grounded in the subject.  We would’ve slowly gained that experience over time anyway, and the book provided a sort of crash course for us to get familiar with these types of stories even before or first interviews.

Overall, it was a good first experience.  I felt very comfortable with Rudy, and he was willing to share.  I’m glad we made it through the many time changes and adjustments we had to make.  I look forward to going back through the recording to see it from a different perspective, which I think will really help for future interviews.  As far as first interviews go, however, this one was great.

Pay Attention

Valerie Raleigh Yow spent a good number of pages speaking about potential sources of uneven power dynamics and came to the following conclusion: “…differences may be overcome to some extent, but you as the researcher must give attention to the particular age group, gender, social class, race, ethnic group, and subculture.” (177).  This is what she decided we, as future interviewers, needed to remember.  This is a valuable point, but she never mentions that these considerations form the basis of many interviews.  Oral histories are frequently worth collecting because of the age group, gender, social class, etc. of the narrator, so reminding readers to be aware of them is not very productive.

Her concluding sentence stops just short of making a fuller point, as it is never specified whose “particular age group…” needs attention.  However, Yow does provide a number of exemplary anecdotes that illustrate who it is we must keep in mind, which is both the interviewer and the narrator.  The collaborative nature of oral history projects means they are built on working relationships.  Yow shows us how these working relationships function much like any interpersonal relationship.  This often takes both narrator and interviewer off-guard as the process begins to take on as much significance as the product in their eyes.

It is daunting to think about trying to navigate difference-based power dynamics on top of remembering how to effectively ask questions and what the proper etiquette is.  On this front, Yow does not seem to provide any particularly helpful suggestions, other than paying attention.  This, however, is perhaps the best advice.  There is no quantifiable method for building relationships, and these things are far from the only factors that will effect the dynamics of interviewer and narrator.  Yow provides a few stories of interviewers doing their best, and reminds us to do the same and not let these concerns stop us from forming productive relationships with our narrators.  These differences will be important, but they are hardly the most important factor in the success of an interview.  For example, the questioning strategies play a huge role within the interview.

A number of skillful questioning strategies are discussed in Recording Oral History.  Many of them boil down to taking a different tact. It is difficult to get a sense of an interview as a whole from the text, as Yow shares selected moments from interviews.  It is slightly difficult to understand how to wait for a while and then circle back to a point when you don’t know how long a while is.

It is also difficult to understand when to employ each type of question.  As with relationships, it is up to the interviewer to feel out the situation and decide when they will take a new approach, and which approach will work.  If an interviewer is comfortable with their narrator and vice versa, it is likely easier to do a “challenge question” (107) because there won’t be as much fear of the narrator shutting down.  Similarly, knowing when to probe or clarify means you must read the narrator’s comfort level with each topic.  Questioning strategies are important to be aware of, but they are unusable if a good connection is not present.

My favorite piece of advice in this book was this: “Use some humor” (93).  So much of this section of the book was devoted to the way interviewers interact with narrators to form the most productive, fulfilling relationship.  Like all relationships, this is a tough thing to write about in the abstract.  There were great stories, but eventually interviewers need to stumble through a few pitfalls themselves before we understand how interviews work.  Whether it be navigating relationships, asking questions, or setting up a productive relationship, there are many skills that interviewers need which will only come with practice.

 

I think that I am so focused on this topic this week because our interviews are starting up soon.  For some of us, interviews have already happened, and some of us are waiting for contacts.  We will soon have to be minding power dynamics, asking questions, and using humor to run our interviews, and I am curious to see how it goes.

Therapy

Following our class discussion with Luis Castellanos, I was thinking about therapy during this reading.  These narratives shed light on the topic of therapy in two important ways.  First of all, the veterans articulated the difficulty of assimilating back into civilian life and their inability to examine themselves and the effects of the Vietnam War.  They also talked about what it was like to receive therapy, where they received it from, and why it was essential to them after the war.

Multiple veterans described themselves as “callous” (178, 181) after the war.  The expectation that someone could return from war and suddenly “operate like everybody else that’s walking down the sidewalk” (227) was stressful on many veterans, except that they couldn’t figure out why at the time, or what to do.  For most, it was easier just to close off their emotions, which was difficult both on them and their families.  There were multiple instances of wife support, wherein the wives of the vets stuck by them and listened to them talk about the war, sometimes repeating stories multiple times.  This was quite a task for the wives to undertake.

One wife asked, “‘…When are you going to get your feelings back?’” (199).  This question came up in a number of stories, both from the veterans and those around them.  The war necessitated complete distancing from emotions, especially sympathy for others.  The army trained these men to stop feeling, then they brought them home and expected that the feelings would simply return on their own.  There was no accounting for the difficulty of processing wartime experience, and formalized therapy was out of the question for many vets due to cultural expectations, personal pride, and basic unavailability.

Without realizing it, many veterans sought therapy from different sources.  As mentioned, many turned to their wives and families.  For some, it was best to talk to each other (171) as they could relate and feel understood.  At the time, the men simply didn’t want to evaluate themselves (169) because they didn’t want to be crazy (224). It is only in retrospect that these men can identify this as therapeutic, which is part of the time gap that oral histories incorporate.  Many are still finding formal therapy for the first time today, decades after the war.  Everyone works on a different schedule.

Talking with Luis made it clear just how prolonged and complicated the postwar effects are on veterans.  Hearing how difficult the system was for many to navigate helped me to understand why so many vets got informal therapy as well, at least partially.  It was reassuring to hear that things are changing, and veterans are ready to come forward and know how to do so.  But the process still varies for every veteran, which was reflected in Vietnam Veteranos. Each author dealt with their experiences differently, but most tried to find a way to incorporate their memories into their lives.  The war will never go away for these men, and so they have to learn how to cope with it.

Memories of Boundaries

Throughout Vietnam Veteranos, the men reflected on the boundaries between people in the field, which were both drawn and erased by the war.  As Chicanos, these vets witnessed firsthand how their communities were overdrawn by the draft.  This spoke to a structural racial issue somewhere in the government.  For most, however, it was the everyday racism of the army that stuck out.

“You fucking Mexicans, you’re all alike.”

                                                -Alejandro, recounting the words of a sergeant, pg. 33

A number of stories contained accounts of rampant racism within the army once they got to Vietnam.  This conflicted with the sense of patriotic duty and national belonging that sent many off to war in the first place.  Groups formed around race within some bases, and that sometimes led to tensions.  Most of the effects were within the upsettingly ordinary bounds of racism back home, but sometimes it went further, as with the story of the man who was beaten up after being accused of stealing.  Putting someone in a different category was practically a military technique during the Vietnam War, which is why it found its way into the base.  It was much stronger, however, when dealing with the Viet Cong.

I just didn’t see this as human life.

                                                -Tanis, pg. 30

For some, this racist attitude served as a bridge to devalue the Viet Cong.  While the otherizing of the VC subjects was much more extreme – and more extreme actions were the result – it was still inscribing lines between us and them, only this time there was firepower, intimidation, and disregard involved.  The war was their life, and so it found its way into all aspects of their days.  In this way it became easier to disregard all Vietnamese people.  This was a survival tactic justified by positioning the Vietnamese as “those people” (21), a phrase which it seemed many soldiers used to cope with what they felt forced to do.  While they often worked to put up walls, in some cases, there was work done to erase those walls and build connections.

I think, regardless of ethnicity, when you’re out there, you’re all the same.

                                                -Daniel, on sharing food with Vietnamese peasants, pg. 156

The Vietnamese farmers helped to break the boundaries mostly out of necessity by begging for food.  However, this act of sharing gave many soldiers a sense of closeness to the villagers, and they could understand how the war was affecting them in different yet equally severe ways.  Common situation can bring people together.  While there was a lot of racism in the army, some men did get to take charge of people from multiple racial groups because they knew how to organize for survival (41).  In the base was one thing, but once the soldiers hit the field, they had to be “brothers” (142) and work together.  Sadly, this did not last once they were out of the service, and Chicano vets had to face discrimination as vets and as Chicanos, all for serving their country.

 

It’s coping with your memories, I guess, because memories are forever.

                                                                                                            -Tony, pg. 59

This book is many stories placed end-to-end to create a larger sense of the war.  Its personal nature gives each account a strong perspective rooted in experience.  From this, facts can be gleaned – when the Tet offensive was, what Agent Orange did, etc. – but we can also see how soldiers deal with their memories as time goes by.  In what ways do they justify their actions?  How do they feel about the war now?  What do they think of future or current wars?  Almost every veteran spent a few moments reflecting on the nature of memory and how it has come to shape their lives after the war.  There were multiple points of view, yet it seemed that the common thread was that sharing was necessary in order to come to terms with the experience in some way.  There were those things which will never be shared, but the rest will live on as a testament to the lives of the veterans and the people in whose country they fought.

Our project will further expand this body of knowledge, adding new perspectives to those already collected.  Reading this book, I saw how these stories will be, as Profe noted, not linear in any sense, but they are necessary.

Verdicts, Perspectives and Environment

An Oral History of Our Time by Donald A. Ritchie

“…history is the verdict ‘of those who weren’t there on those who were’” (Ritchie, 27).  David Lodge’s observation about history makes a strong case for the recording of oral histories, the stories of those who were there.  Throughout his piece, Ritchie lays out the pros and cons to various methods of evaluating history.  He proposes a comparative form of study, cross-checking sources to figure out the most accurate picture.  This accuracy goes beyond dates and names, and gets into Lodge’s “verdict.”  When it comes to matters of interpretation, it is essential to look widely and collect evidence from as many sources as possible.  Oral histories have the benefit of coming from those who were there, and, if done years later, the time they took to reflect and interpret the events (Ritchie, 34).  That time is partially what allows those who were there to pass their verdict on the events they witnessed, experienced, or actively participated in.  This is not to say that oral histories are more “authentic” or “valuable,” yet their perspective is often that which would be lost to the official history, and they form an integral part of the picture.

A Living Archive of Desire by Horacio N. Roque Ramírez

Oral histories are the chance to say “This is so” (Ramírez, 117).  Ramírez uses Teresita la Campesina as a particular case to articulate the power of the oral history for various communities.*  For many communities who have been “…kept separated from the sense of their own past” (Ramírez, 119), oral histories are the most accessible, valid method of recording their own histories (Ramírez, 122).  The power of oral histories lies in that key phrase: “This is so.”  The person testifying becomes a living author of the material that has been archived in their body over the course of their life.  This is a considerable amount of power, especially when it is given to those traditionally neglected communities.  This is not to say that only marginalized persons should be the authors of oral histories.  Every oral history brings a new perspective to the general history/histories into which it fits.  The reason that oral histories remain more important to marginalized communities is that they may be the only way that they can make their voices heard.

*This is fitting, as Teresita herself used her “I” as a “we” for the queer Latino community she inhabited (Ramírez, 125).

Recording Oral Histories, Ch. 1 and 2 by Valerie Raleigh Yow

Oral histories occur in a “retrieval environment” (Yow, 51).  As an interviewer, it is important to make a space where the author feels comfortable and willing to share memories, particularly those of a sensitive nature.  There is an initial amount of willingness on the part of the author, as s/he has volunteered to share the story.  The interviewer is responsible for affirming the sense of safety and openness.  As professor Summers Sandoval said on the first day of class, “we’re asking people to do something very strange; we’re asking them to share their life story with a stranger.”  Interviewers need to learn the art of not seeming like a stranger, which can only be perfected through interviewing.  To begin with, however, we can come prepared with facts and questions, but also simply be ready to listen.

Why I’m Here

It is tough to nail down the reasons why I decided to take Latino Oral Histories.  The closest I can figure is that it sounded interesting, and I am very much in favor of learning what you want to learn in college.  I love stories.  As an amateur documentarian, I’ve spent a good deal of time dealing with stories and the way they create and influence communities.  What does it mean to have a shared past, or common elements/experiences?  How do our histories influence our lives going forward?  How do we capture and preserve these experiential pieces of history?  These are all questions that I have been interested in a for a while, but this class (although we’ve only had one meeting) has brought them into sharper focus.  This also informs the work I’m doing with the Narrative Form and Function critical inquiry seminar.

This class is not simply about oral history preservation.  As far as the specific subject matter, i.e. Latino Vietnam Veterans – and the topic of Chican@/Latin@ studies in general – it is something I have never studied in school before, and it’s good to think broadly.  This class would also count towards an Asian American Studies minor, which I’ve considered, but that’s not really why I’m taking it.  I’m taking it to learn a different history and approach it in a new way.

I am looking forward to learning the methods behind Oral History preservation.  My experiences so far have lacked a conscious structure.  The class itself seems like it will be a good space for academic inquiry, and I am eager to see the dynamics emerge.  I am also looking forward to the interviews themselves.  Having a chance to participate in this project is a special opportunity. I’m excited to know a new facet of American history, and to learn it first-hand.  I am, above all, excited to see how this process effects each of us as scholars, historians, and people.  I get the sense that this will be a class that we take with us in a larger sense than most classes; we are going to learn skills, yes, but I think we will also gain wisdom and insight that goes far beyond academia.

I’m nervous, however, about participating in this process.  In tackling a project like this one, which in our case involves joining a larger group effort, I tend to feel pressure to get it right for those it is recording.  This project/class is not about me and my learning, although undoubtedly I will learn more than I could imagine.  I view this project as a service to the veterans and to the people who will use these histories as a resource.  At the same time, I do need to remember myself and gain as much as I can from this experience.  I’ll probably be seeking the correct balance all semester.