Oral History Analysis

The interview took place over the course of a couple weeks in the living room of my home which she shares with me. The interview was bittersweet as Dawn and Eileen recalled the events of the previous years. During the interview process, at times, Eileen became depressed and didn’t want to discuss certain events at certain times. Consequently, the interview process took longer than expected.

Most events and places of historical value nowadays holds little value in our lives. We confine ourselves to our interstates and highways, following the long line of motel chains stopping for maybe two minutes to take a picture just to say we were there. We take nothing away from these sites that is of real value. We barely scratch at the surface of information and true meaning of what happened at these historical sites. Rinker Buck explains his own experience with removing himself from this cultural norm

For the oral history project, I interviewed my grandmother. Her full name is Imelda Laborce, while she is known as “Meldy” to most family members. She was born in a small town called Calapacuan in the Zambales region of the Philippines. She was born in 1955 and is 61 years old. Like me, she was born in the Philippines but eventually moved to America sometime in her life. I believed she was a good candidate because I knew she was one of the earliest members of my family to travel to America. Hence, she must have good stories and have a rich background. I also never really knew anything about her past, so I just thought it would be interesting in general to learn about it. She currently lives in Union, New Jersey and works in a hospital as a nurse.

The study of history and the teaching of history has come under intense public debate in the United States in the last few decades. The “culture-wars” began with the call to add more works by non-Caucasians and women and has bled into the study of history. Not only in the study of history or literature, this debate has spread into American culture like wildfire.

According to Nelson oral tradition and history are important to native communities because it is the primary pedagogical tool for Indian communities around the country (Nelson Pg98). Before colonization oral stories were the main way of exchanging information and teaching future generations of the natives for centuries. They shared stories of how to gather plants, what and what not to eat, how to plant certain things and how and when to perform certain ceremonies. There were also profane and funny stories which included gossip.

As the Revolutionary War faded in Gunner’s memory, another image filled his mind. The smell was one they remembered from their adventures during the Revolutionary War. It was gunpowder! “Not another war”, was all Gunner could think. As Gunner looked down, he saw that they were dressed in a Union uniform….

On September of 2016, I did an oral interview with Vanna Moore about her military past and Vanna’s ties to Texas. Over the whole interview I asked her questions about her experience in Afghanistan and along the way I asked her questions about Texas. To the best of my knowledge Vanna answered “who are these people, these Texans”, what do Texans tell us about America, and what she thought of Texas. We talked about how her military experience shaped her conceptions of Texas. In a setting such as this one and her experiences combined she had moments where she seemed more comfortable and opened, and other moments that were difficult to get through. After this oral interview experience I feel as though I know how I could use oral histories in my classroom.

I chose to interview John because my family has known him for years. Listening to him reminisce about his childhood and growing up in poverty gave me a greater appreciation to his generation.

For my Oral History Project, I interviewed Dope Accoley-Tossah, my mother, on her nursing career. During the interview, she had a lot of great things to say. One of the topics she talked about was having to grow up with her parents in Togo. She stated that both her parent’s jobs had to do with business and her father was a factor in her decision to become a nurse. Since her father was the city’s director of the Red Cross organization, he partially cajoled her into becoming a nurse. This in fact paid off as she went on to volunteer at Red Cross and studied there until she obtained her certificate. She even quoted “Now I have the desire to do those kinds of jobs.” Her quote kind of inspires me to stay aware of my interests, since it might lead

For this assignment, I interviewed my grandmother. She was born in October of 1933, and she has lived in McMinnville, Tennessee for many decades. She is one of the few people I know who is old enough to remember it. Because of that, I chose to interview her over anyone else.

interviews of people who have or know people who have experienced historical events of the past. For this essay, I chose to take an oral history of the civil rights movement and the great migration. Preserving the memories of the individuals that lived during these historical events allows for many things in addressing the silence of African American experiences within U.S. History. First, memories and recollections taken from oral histories may differ from the perspectives of those who have appear on historical records or may be completely absent from any other documentations. Also, because cameras and video cameras were not as easily accessible as they are today, the majority of history is documented from peoples’ memories through letters, diaries, and oral history interviews. In addition, taking an oral history allows me to ask specific questions towards what I am are interested in documenting about the civil rights movement and the great migration. Lastly, oral histories are somewhat viewed as a “revisionist” to the study of both the civil rights movement and the great migration because it takes firsthand accounts of those participating on campaigns and protests and also of those were watching from afar and allows readers to understand each individual part of what made the movement as a whole.

The initial goal for this interview project was to discover if growing up in the 1960’s was shockingly different than growing up in the 2000’ with location being relative. However, based on the responses I received describing aspects of their childhood, my two interviewees with a 40 year age gap sounded surprisingly similar. My 10 questions were arranged in a somewhat chronological order, first asking the interviewee to describe their first best friend from their childhood, then inquiring if they could recall the point at which themselves or their peers started participating in more mature, adolescent activities.

The subject of my interview is a 68 year elderly Vietnamese man named Minh “Bi” Ngo. Mr. Ngo has white long hair, a medium long white beard and a distinctive mole on the bottom of his left eye and a thick Vietnamese accent. He was born and raised in Vietnam on April 3rd, 1947. He is also a widow who is currently living with his daughter in Westminster, Orange County. Originally, Mr. Ngo was from the city of Buon Ma Thuot in the province of Dak Lak, Vietnam. He then immigrated to Falls Church, Virginia where he began his new life in the United States. At the time of the interview, Mr. Ngo looked very exhausted yet grateful at the same time. I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Ngo through his daughter, who is a friend of my cousin. I conducted the interview on the afternoon of September 24th, which lasted for two hours. During the interview Mr. Ngo shared with me his experiences during the Vietnam war, his times in the Vietnamese Reeducation camps, his immigration to the United States, and his involvement in the Vietnamese community today. As the interview continues on, I began to comprehend a little bit more on the way it was back then and how the common folks

On March 25th, 2017, I interviewed Charlotte “Putse” McCarroll who was born on June 3rd, 1935 in Cyrus, Minnesota. I asked her about her life and experiences during WWII. She doesn’t recall much about the actual War. She was a 4-year-old child during the start of the War and was in grade school when the War ended. She didn’t have any family members that she remembers actually being in the War. Putse told me that while the war was occurring she just stayed at home or went to school. She kind of remembers gathering around with her family and just praying for it to end. She said that life was very different because everyone was scared and no one knew what was going to happen. She thought to herself that anything could

Imagine being able to tell stories for generations to come without ever having to write down a single word. Oral tradition is used to pass stories down from generation to generation through different forms of communication without any writing system. Oral tradition stories are told by word of mouth, riddles, storytelling, and songs. It cannot be changed although the narrator might embellish it. Oral tradition is how Africans perceived the past. The significance of oral Tradition is due to the stories holding so much information and knowledge. Oral tradition contributed to understanding pre-colonial history because the pre-colonial Africa was influenced by two major movements which are the expansion of islam and the dispersion of the bantu. Oral tradition gave us the perspective as to why the expansion and dispersion took place. Oral tradition has its strengths and weaknesses. A strength of oral tradition is that it is being told from word of mouth and more people will listen to a good storyteller than to go read a book about the history. However, a weakness of oral tradition is that many of the stories get forgotten, left out, or embellished. With each re-telling the story gets further and further away from the original. Oral tradition is a primary way of conveying culture and is a way of life in African history.