From 2007-2009, I designed and led an oral history project focused on gathering the stories of recent immigrants to Collin County, Texas. Students in my first year writing courses learned interviewing techniques before gathering stories from local volunteers. We built an archive of interviews that the students then used to connect the act of preserving narrative to civic work. We discussed oral storytelling as an act of public rhetoric and how further interpreting these texts through writing reveals the lived experiences of subaltern voices. Students did not have to go far to find these voices, both within their own families and the community. Many returned from their interviews with unexpected insights. For example, nothing could have adequately prepared one of my students for a moment during an interview with a Zambian immigrant. The man asserted that what Americans don’t understand is that but for the Atlantic ocean, the entire population of Zambia would be on its feet walking towards the U.S.
A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric