Telling the story of America

Monday, March 23, 2009
INARA VERZEMNIEKS
The Oregonian Staff

One of my greatest regrets is that that I never recorded my grandparents' stories: how they came to this country, what they left behind, the things they sacrificed. But also what they felt they gained. And now they are gone.
So maybe I am automatically predisposed to see something both sweet and profound in the small gesture of a local library to record the oral histories of immigrants and the children of immigrants.

As part of a celebration of the state's sesquicentennial and the statewide Oregon Reads project -- which features "Stubborn Twig" by Lauren Kessler among its recommended titles, a story that traces three generations of a Japanese American family in Oregon -- Cedar Mill Community Library partnered with students from Sunset High School's history department to record local residents' stories of immigration.
This is but one of countless oral history projects that take place all around us -- conducted as class assignments, as a part of academic scholarship or for family archives -- amazing gestures of belief in history with a little "h"; the joys and sadnesses of quiet, everyday lives.
Maybe precisely because this is one of many efforts, it is worth a moment of our time for the window it offers onto the larger why: Why are we are moved to assemble these records of our lives?
You can find the first few interviews on the library's Web site (tinyurl.com/b32mtv). Not all the audio files are up yet; they're being added gradually.

My name is Gloria Rivera. I came to the United States from the Philippines in April 1973.
I left my husband and my two children (at the time) behind.
I am a nurse by profession . . .
Now, nearly 36 years later, Rivera works in the neonatal intensive care unit at Legacy Emanuel Hospital. Her children -- ultimately, she and her husband had two girls and a boy -- are all grown, pursuing successful careers, she says.
When she first came here all those years ago, she spent two years on her own before she was able to send for her husband and girls, waiting for her back home in the Philippines.
"I had $6 in my wallet coming to this country," she says. "My only weapon was I could speak English, write English and read English, so if I got lost at least I could ask questions. My husband was very concerned. I said, 'I will be fine.' I didn't have any fear."
Still: "When I stepped on those stairs going up to the airplane -- at that time you went out on the tarmac, and you could turn and wave goodbye to your family -- I never looked back to wave goodbye to them, because if I did I would have not gone up those stairs. I just had to remember that it is for them that I am doing this."
That was one of the reasons she seemed drawn to the chance to share the story of how she came here -- to look back, when maybe she could not before.
"I know for sure that my life is better," she says. "And in fact, my main reason for coming to America was for the future of my children. I am now in my retiring years, and I can say with conviction that I think my goals have been achieved as an immigrant."
That's one story.

By the time the project is done, there will be 16 more.
A man who survived Cambodia's Killing Fields. A woman who recalled life with her Swedish father and Norwegian mother ("which makes for a bumpy ride sometimes!" she joked). A man who as a boy spent time in a Japanese concentration camp in the Dutch East Indies.

The first round of interviews were conducted by students from Sunset High School, who volunteered their time. They met with subjects after school.
My name is Helena Frueh.
I'm a senior.
My parents came here from Germany when I was maybe a month old.
I guess I immigrated here, too . . .
I asked Frueh why she offered to help with this project on her own time. She had never done anything like this before.
"I just think it's important for everyone to know as much as possible about other cultures," she said. "It makes everyone less ignorant." At the same time, "everyone should have the chance to find their roots, to know where they came from."
Matt Hiefield, a Sunset High School social studies teacher, helped recruit the students and supervise the process. The Cedar Mill Library folks thought to contact him in the first place because for the past few years Hiefield has made recording the oral histories of veterans part of his classes each year. It's an effort that, among other things, "gets students to consider firsthand accounts, the role of memory and how we evaluate memories from . . . years ago," he says.
Other things happen, too. For him, one of the most interesting things is to watch what happens when "you have people from really diverse backgrounds talking with one another." What happens when a story is shared and someone offers to listen.
It sounds so simple. But rarely are we offered the chance to take the jumbled events of people's lives and assemble them into some kind of order. When Cedar Mill Library staff first put out the word that they were looking for community members to interview about the immigrant experience, they had no idea what the response would be.

At first, they tried to take on everyone who was interested. But the library's head of adult services, Lynne Erlandson, says library staff soon realized that it was too many interviews for the student volunteers to take on. Erlandson and young adult librarian Mark Richardson are tackling the last few interviews on their own. They plan to do the project again next year. There's already a waiting list.

Inara Verzemnieks: 503-221-8201; inarav@news.oregonian.com