Oral History Society

Moving Stories: Oral History and Migration Studies

Author(s): Alistair Thomson
Source: Oral History, Vol. 27, No. 1, Migration (Spring, 1999), pp. 24-37
Published by: Oral History Society
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MOVING STORIES:
ORA L HISTORY
A ND
MIGRA TION STUD IES
by
A listair Thomson
article
-
which started as a
way
of
reading myself
into a new oral
history project
about
postwar migration
between Britain and A ustralia
-
reviews the contribu-
tion which oral
history
has made to
migration
studies over
the last
quarter century.
The various national oral
history
journals
and the
proceedings
of national and international
oral
history conferences,
some of which have been
pub-
lished as
anthologies, provide
a rich and indicative resource
for this
study1; indeed,
migration emerges
as one of the
most
important
themes of oral
history
research.2
My pri-
mary
sources are the
writings
of oral historians from
Britain,
North A merica and
A ustralasia,
though
I also draw
to a lesser extent
upon English
translations of studies from
L atin A merica and continental
Europe.
I define
'migration'
to include both interna-
tional and intra-national
migrations and,
like
most oral
history studies,
see the
physical passage
of
migration
from one
place
to another as
only
one event within a
migratory experience
which
spans
old and new worlds and which continues
throughout
the life of the
migrant
and into sub-
sequent generations.
This broad definition
highlights
an
overlap
within this field between the
study
of
migration
and the
study
of
migrant
or ethnic communities.
Many
of the
writings
referred to here
range
across these
two, inter-related areas of
study,
without
necessarily problematising
the distinc-
tion. On the one
hand, migration history
is con-
cerned with the
processes by
which
migrants
individually
and
collectively
establish them-
selves in a new
region
or
country,
and the
ways
in which networks and
lifestyles
from the
place
of
origin
are recreated and
changed
in the new
24 ORA L HISTORY
Spring
1999
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world.
Clearly,
a
particular
ethnic
group's
com-
plex experience
within the
place
of destination is
a
necessary
element of
migration history. Indeed,
as I discuss
later, changes
within established
ethnic communities and the contested relations
with a dominant culture are often motivations
for
recording
and
promulgating
the stories of
migrant origin
and arrival.
On the other
hand,
there is a
danger
in
seeing
such communities
only
in terms of their
migrant
origins, especially
where
they may
have
deep
his-
toric roots from a
continuity
of residence and
may
sustain elements of cultural difference
many
generations
after an initial
period
of
migration.
In the
experience
of members of a
particular
ethnic
community,
the
history
of
migration may
be less
significant
than the current issues within
that
community
and
concerning
its
relationship
with the dominant culture.
Conversely,
the
notion of
'ethnicity' may
not be
appealing
or
ap-
propriate
for some
migrants
who choose not to
identify
themselves in terms of
ethnicity
or
place
of
origin.
A nd
just
as individual
migrants
and
their descendants
struggle
with the labels of
identification,
migrant
societies have
fought
over
the labels which define and
shape
the
migration
experience: 'alien', 'immigrant', 'refugee',
'ethnic
minority',
'ethnic
community'
and so on.
Whilst we
might distinguish
the
processes
of
an initial
migration
from the
on-going experi-
ences of individual
migrants
and
migrant
com-
munities, most
migration
oral
history recognises
the
complex
inter-connections between
migra-
tion and the formation and
development
of mi-
grant
communities and ethnic identities. For the
sake of
clarity
I focus here on studies which ex-
plore migrations
which have taken
place
within
living memory,
and in which the
experiences
of
migration
and of ethnic communities are
equally
important parts
of the
story.
Family
at the Belle
Vue
studio,
Bradford. From
Here To
Stay.
Spring
1 999 ORA L HISTORY 25
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THE
UNRECORD ED ,
IL L -D OCUMENTED
A ND HID D EN HISTORIES OF
MIGRA TION
French historian
Phillipe Joutard
writes that
'modern
migrations...
could
scarcely
be studied
nowadays
without first hand accounts from the
emigrants'.3
A central and
abiding
claim of oral
historians of
migration
has been that the mi-
grant's
own
story
is
likely
to be unrecorded or
ill-documented,
and that oral evidence
provides
an essential record of the hidden
history
of mi-
gration.
For
example,
this was the motivation of
an oral
history project
initiated in the
early
1980s
by
the Ethnic A ffairs Commission of New South
Wales as a contribution to A ustralia's bicenten-
nial
history:
...the
experiences
of
large
numbers of mi-
grants
who had come to A ustralia were not
being
recorded and
preserved
and therefore
would not be reflected in
writing
about and
understanding
modern A ustralia. . . it seemed
unlikely
that
many
of these
immigrants
would
be able to
write, publish
or
publicise
their ex-
periences,
since
they
lacked the time and re-
sources and often had
problems
with the
written
English language.
4
Most
previous
A ustralian
migration
histories
had focused on
migration policies
and A ustralian
attitudes to
migration,
and 'the
migrants
them-
selves,
their
experiences
and their
impact
on
A ustralian
society
have been
relegated
to statis-
tical tables and
plodding
accounts of who came
when'.5
Writing
in the late 1970s Paul
Thompson
concurred that the
history
of
immigrant groups
was
'mainly
documented
only
from outside as a
social
problem',
and that an
'approach
from the
inside... is certain to become more
important
in
Britain'.6 In this
regard, migration
oral
history
exemplifies
the interest of
many
oral historians in
the undocumented histories of
marginalised
or
oppressed
social
groups.
Such
documentary
evidence about the mi-
grant experience
as does exist
might
be
partial
and even
misleading.
For
example,
in a 1978
study
of the
migration
of
mining
families to the
Kent coal field between the
wars,
Gina Harkell
noted the
inadequacy
of written records
pre-
served in
Ministry
of L abour files which blamed
the
high
turnover rates in the workforce
upon
appalling
conditions in the mines. In fact the oral
evidence from old miners
suggested
that
they
would have
put up
with bad conditions for the
sake of a
job,
but the
testimony
of their wives
showed that the main reasons
why mining
fami-
lies left the Kent coal fields were local
hostility
and the absence of familiar
support
networks for
mining
wives.7
Even when
documentary
sources
produced
and
preserved by
members of
migrant
commu-
nities exist, oral evidence can still act as 'a
pow-
erful corrective',
as Bill Williams
argued
in his
study
of
Jewish immigrants
in Manchester. The
surviving documentary
evidence was almost en-
tirely
the
product
of the
majority society
and of
an
A nglo-Jewish
elite with a vested interest in
rapid
assimilation and in
projecting
defensive
stereotypes
of a cohesive and harmonious
Jewish
community.
Thus 'a communal
history
drawn
from
documentary
sources tends to be a re-en-
actment of
community myth,
since most surviv-
ing
documents were formulated
by
those most
concerned to
keep
the
myths
alive'.8
By contrast,
the oral evidence collected
by
Williams evoked a
Jewish 'community'
with stark internal distinc-
tions and
complex
interconnections with the
wider Mancunian
society,
and demonstrated,
for
example,
that the
occupational
choices of
Jewish
migrants
were more
likely
to be due to residen-
tial networks than historical
stereotypes
about
Jewish
character and
'entrepreneurship'.
A s an
aside,
it
may
be
significant
that some of
the studies which
emphasise
the
importance
of
oral
history
evidence for the
study
of twentieth
century migration,
make little use of other forms
of
personal testimony.9
Histories of earlier mi-
grations
-
such as the nineteenth
century
Euro-
pean
settlement of A ustralia
-
make extensive use
of
migrants' letters,
diaries and memoirs.10 For
some cases of twentieth
century migration
such
sources
may
be
unavailable;
for
example,
Car-
olyn
A dams
explains
that this was almost uni-
versally
true of the
Sylheti
seafarers who settled
in the East End of L ondon.11 But I wonder if the
opportunity readily presented by
oral
history
to
record the
apparently
hidden histories of mi-
grants
has
displaced
historians' efforts to unearth
other forms of
personal testimony.
It is
revealing
that a
significant
and
initially unexpected by-
product
of the oral
history project
of the NSW
Ethnic A ffairs Commission were
personal
and
family
archives of
letter, diaries, memorabilia
and, above all, photographs.
It is also worth
noting
that in recent decades
community writing
and
publishing projects,
such as
Centerprise
and
Eastside Writers in L ondon or Gatehouse and
Commonword in
Manchester,
have
produced
many
volumes of
autobiographies
and
personal
writings
and offer a rich
complementary
resource
for the lived
history
of
migration
and ethnic com-
munities.12
Many
of the
arguments
in this
paper
about oral
history
could be
applied
to the use of
other forms of
personal testimony
-
visual,
writ-
ten and oral
-
as sources for
migration history.
CA RVING THEORY OUT OF EXPERIENCE
Personal
testimony
offers
unique 'glimpses
into
the lived interior of
migration processes'.13
Other sources reveal the creation, implementa-
26 ORA L MffOKY
Spring
1999
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H
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tion and contestation of
migration
and 'ethnic
affairs'
policy,
or the statistical
patterns
of move-
ment, settlement, employment
and welfare. Oral
testimony
and other forms of life stories demon-
strate 'the
complexity
of the actual
process
of
migration'14
and show how these
policies
and
patterns
are
played
out
through
the lives and re-
lationships
of individual
migrants,
families and
communities. A s Rina
Benmayor
and A ndor
Skotnes
argue, personal testimony
'allows un-
derstanding
of how
moving
matrices of social
forces
impact
and
shape individuals,
and how
individuals,
in turn
respond,
act and
produce
change
in the
larger
social arena'.
By
illuminat-
ing aspects
of the
migrant experience
which
might
otherwise be
disregarded,
oral historians
have been
'carving theory
out of ...
complex per-
sonal histories and
experiences', challenging
mono-causal,
linear and economistic theories
and
reshaping
the
ways
in which
migration
is
understood.15 The
following examples
illustrate
just
some of the
ways
in which oral historians
have contributed to both
empirical knowledge
and theoretical
understanding
of the
migration
experience.
Though
economic
pressures
often influence
migration decisions, personal testimony
reveals
the
complex
weave of factors and influences
which contribute to
migration
and the
processes
of information
exchange
and
negotiation
within
families and social networks. For
example,
mi-
grant
narratives evoke the 'cultural
imaginaries'
about
prospective
destinations and
explain
how
these
imaginaries
are
produced, disseminated,
received and used.
Ethiopian Jews
who suffered
a
gruelling process
of
migration
to Israel were
motivated and sustained
by
an oral tradition
which
upheld
their
Jewish identity
and a
'myth
of
return'.16 Barbadian
emigrants
were attracted to
Britain
by
the idealised
image
of the 'mother
country'
which had been
part
of their cultural
upbringing.
Yet when this dream was
punctured
by
the realities of discrimination and low
paid
work,
migrants'
letters home sustained that
image
to avoid
upsetting
families who had lent
money
for the
trip.17
In
migrant
narratives social networks are
shown to be a crucial
aspect
of the
migration
ex-
perience.
In her
pioneering study
of interwar mi-
gration
to Paris from the French
provinces,
Isabelle Bertaux-Wiame
argued
that life stories
illuminated 'the social relations which lie behind
emigration
... networks of relations between
people
which leave no written trace behind
them'. The
'migratory path' might
be
pioneered
by
a few individuals from a
particular region,
who would then
promote
it
among
old
friends,
neighbours
and
family
members: 'These net-
works, moreover,
were of crucial
importance
to
people
who came to Paris without either
capital,
or
qualifications. They provided
not
only
a
sup-
portive
social
circle;
it was
through
these same
networks that
migrants
would seek out a better
job,
a better
place
to
live, even a wife or hus-
band.'18 Much the same
picture
is
provide by
Merfyn Jones
in his
study
of Welsh
immigrants
in
the cities of North West
England
between 1890
and 1930.
Village
contacts were vital for social
and economic
survival,
the
chapel
was a sus-
taining
focus for culture and
identity,
and oral
evidence was
necessary
for examination of the
internal
workings
of the
immigrant
commu-
nity'.19
A mong
the networks of
relationships,
one
took a
principal role, according
to Bertaux-
Wiame and
many
other oral
history
studies: 'that
of the extended
family'.
For
example, Mary
Chamberlain's oral
history
of Barbadian
migrants
to Britain shows how the focus on
family pat-
terns and
relationships
within
migration
can
reveal much that is
neglected
in economistic and
metropolitan-based
studies.
L ong-established
family migratory
traditions
may
be
motivating
forces which
suggest particular
models of short-
term and return
migration;
extended families
provide
vital
support
networks in Barbados
(for
children left with
grandparents)
and in
England;
family
members take on different roles in the mi-
gration process along gender
or
generational
lines; culture is transmitted and transformed be-
tween
generations:
'once ...
family
histories are
taken as a
perspective,
then the motivations for
migration
and
questions
of
identity,
become
more
complex, ambiguous,
and
culturally spe-
cific'.20
Similarly,
in Celeste D e Roche's
study
of
Franco-A merican
women,
'oral
history
reveals
the subtleties of the texture of
family
life ... the
web of
family
connections ... the
passages
of time
in the lives of ethnic women... and the forces of
change'.21
John
Bodnar's seminal work on late nine-
teenth and
early
twentieth
century migrant
com-
munities in the United States showed how a
focus on the culture and networks of extended
family
and ethnic
community,
as evidenced in
oral
testimony, explained
the
political
'realism'
of A merica's
immigrant
workers. Oral
history
demonstrated that
family
and kin
relationships
were not
only
vital in
attaining work, but also
sustained a
preference
for stable and secure em-
ployment
as
opposed
to individual
progress
through
education and socio-economic
mobility,
and
engendered
a
particular
fusion of ethnic and
working
class consciousness. Bodnar's work
syn-
thesised a 'new
interpretation
of the
immigrants
as
"transplanted"
rather than
"uprooted" peo-
ples,
whose
family
and
community-centred
sur-
vival
strategies
were a
practical
means for
coping
with the demands of the A merican industrial and
urban order'.22
28 ORA L HISTORY
Spring
1999
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Just
as the
complex relationships
between eth-
nicity
and class are illuminated in such
studies,
oral histories have also
highlighted
the
particular
experiences
of women
migrants
and the
gen-
dered nature of the
migration experience.
A s Is-
abelle Bertaux-Wiame noted in
1979,
most
migration
histories were
implicitly
concerned
with
migrant
men and 'all too often in this
type
of
study
women are left
aside,
almost
ignored'.
In
listening
to women's stories she discovered that
despite
similar economic
motivations,
the meth-
ods,
conditions and
significance
of men's and
women's
migration
were different. Put
simply,
in
the case of French internal
migration,
'while men
move
through
the
family
network to find
work,
women move
through job
networks to find a
family'.23
Women also
gave
different
meanings
to
their life
stories, emphasising
the
significance
of
relationships
rather than the sense of au-
tonomous
agency apparent
in men's stories. A nd
migrant
women have often
played
critical roles in
ethnic
community development,
for
example
through
the sustenance of cultural tradition or
in
teaching
the
language
of
origin
to children.24
Over the last two decades feminist historians
have continued to
explore
the
gender-specific
content and form of
migrant
women's life sto-
ries.25
Oral histories also offer a rich resource to ex-
plore
the
intergenerational dynamics
of
migra-
tion. Rina
Benmayor
and A ndor Skotnes
argued
in 1995 that 'the manner in which families
evolve and alter
transgenerational migratory
tra-
ditions and identities
is,
no
doubt,
a fruitful di-
rection for future research'.26 On the one
hand,
personal testimony
can show how
patterns
of mi-
gration
are
repeated
and evolve across
genera-
tions. For
example, Mary
Chamberlain shows
how the decision of adult children of first
gener-
ation Barbadian
migrants
to return from
England
to Barbados
may
be influenced
by family
and cul-
tural traditions about return
migration.27
The
narratives of the children of
migrants
also
high-
light
the cultural dilemmas and
family
tensions
experienced by
this 'second'
generation.
In her
life
history study
of A sian women
migrants
and
their United States-born
daughters,
M. Gail
Hickey explores
the
challenges
faced
by
children
trying
to
negotiate
between the
family patterns
and values
espoused
within their own families or
by
the dominant culture. The
daughters'
stories
demonstrate that the sense of 'dual
identity'
ex-
perienced by immigrants'
children can be both a
powerful
resource and a
painful struggle.28
Sim-
ilarly, Janis
Wilton
argues
that in A ustralia ac-
counts from the children of
postwar migrants
-
in
the form of oral
histories,
memoirs and autobio-
graphical
fiction
-
have
challenged
the success
stories told
by
and of their
parents
and reasserted
a
history
of cultural
displacement
and
inter-gen-
erational tension.29
Memories and oral traditions also recall the
cultural life of
migrant
communities. Scottish
historian
Margaret McKay
used the oral tradi-
tions of twentieth
century
Canadian rural com-
munities to recreate three nineteenth
century
Hebridian
emigrant
settlements in
Ontario,
and
vividly
evokes the
transplantation
and evolution
of cultural forms and
practices
in the new world.
Customary
remedies such as the use of urine for
disinfectant were
supplemented by
local herbal
remedies learnt from native A mericans; the in-
stitution of the
ceilidh,
'the
visiting
of which was
so central to the
community
life of the Tiree
townships
and to the milieu in which
aspects
of
the oral culture were heard and
learned,
contin-
ued to be a feature of life in the Ontario settle-
ments'; the Gaelic
language
was sustained
by
churches and local associations until it was
eroded
by
centralised
schooling
and intermar-
riage.30
The
importance
of familiar cultural
prac-
tices for the sustenance of
migrant identity
and
community;
the
complex interplay
between in-
troduced, minority
cultures and the dominant
practices
of the host
society;
and the cultural
transformations and tensions across
generations
are all illuminated
by migrant testimony
and oral
tradition.
Many
of the
examples
used above demon-
strate one of the most
important
contributions
which
personal testimony
can make to
migration
studies,
that it is
revealing
'not
only
on the
pat-
tern of events which took
place,
but also on how
people
felt about
migration'.31
For
example,
in
her oral
history
of
Senegalese migrants
in
Bari,
D orothy
L ouise Zinn
explores
what
Roger
Rouse
calls 'the rhetorical dimension of the
interpreta-
tion that
people give
to their own and others' in-
volvement in
migration'.
Zinn shows how the
assertion and achievement of manhood
(grow-
ing up, leaving home, and
personal growth
achieved
despite
the 'descent into hell' of
Italy)
was a
powerful motivating
force for travel and
migration;
how the men took
peddling jobs
not
just
because Italians didn't want such work but
because
they
offered
pride
in
self-employment;
how
they
constructed life stories which
explained
their
experiences
in terms of tourism and
travel;
and how the
positive
stories which
they
sent or
took home offered further
personal
affirmation
while at the same time
encouraging
others to
follow the same difficult
path.32
Used in these
ways,
oral
history
is a
major
tool for under-
standing
what
John
Bodnar has described as the
immigrants'
'internal
worlds'33, for
exploring
how the
'subjectivity'
-
knowledge, feelings,
fan-
tasies, hopes
and dreams
-
of
individuals, families
and communities informs and
shapes
the
migra-
tion
experience
at
every stage
and is in turn
transformed
by
that
experience.
Spring
1999 ORA L HISTORY 29
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A D VOCA CY A ND EMPOWERMENT
So far I've
explored
the
ways
in which oral his-
tory
can contribute to
greater
historical under-
standing
about the
migrant experience.
Personal
empowerment
and
political advocacy
have also
been
important
aims in
many
oral
history pro-
jects involving migrant
and ethnic communi-
ties.54 Indeed,
such
projects
have often
developed
out of social and
political
activism at
both local and national levels. In
1978, Tamara
Harevan
argued
that the revival of ethnic com-
munity
oral
history
in the United States was a
relatively spontaneous
movement in the after-
math of civil
rights
and Black Power
politics (the
term 'revival' was a reference to the interwar
reclamation of rural and Black oral traditions).
In
part
this revival was
spurred by
the
gradual
extinction of the culture of the 1880-1920 mi-
grant generation;
in
part
it related to a search
for
identity
and
legitimation;
and in
part
it
rep-
resented an
acceptance
of ethnic
diversity
in
civil
society:
... the oral
history
revival is connected with
an effort to authenticate the
experiences
of
different ethnic
groups
in A merican culture.
It thus
represents
a commitment to
plural-
ism and
expresses
the
re-emergence
of eth-
nicity
and its
acceptance
as a vital
aspect
of
A merican culture.35
The
political
contexts for historical work
change
over time.
Writing twenty years later, and
embroiled in the 'culture wars' which have
pitted
assertions of ethnic
diversity against
the domi-
nant cultural forms of white
A merica,
Rina Ben-
mayor
and A ndor Skotnes are less
sanguine
about this 'commitment to
pluralism'.
Yet
they
continue to assert the
importance
of 'an activist
role for the
processes
of
personal testimony:
that
not
only reports on,
but
actively participates
in
the
process
of
identity
construction'.56
There are several
overlapping
motivations for
activist
migrant
and ethnic
community
oral his-
tory.
A
primary
motivation is often the need to
combat the silences and
stereotypes
which afflict
a
particular community.
For
example,
as a
youth
and
community
worker in the East End of
L ondon in the
1970s, Carolyn
A dams
developed
close
relationships
with local
Sylheti,
whose sea-
faring
forefathers had settled around the docks
during
the
previous century
and who were the
focus of vicious racist attacks from white Na-
tional Front critics of 'new'
immigrants.
A dams
was 'fascinated
by
the
story
of the
early
settle-
ment, and the need to make
explicit
the links
with the
past,
in
large part
as a counter to racist
propaganda'.
She discovered that
Sylheti
elders
were
equally
keen to tell their stories because
they
were
'feeling
rather
marginalised
and ne-
glected by
the new
generation. They
were also
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very
aware of the need to share their
history
and
counter racism'.37
Ethnic
community
oral
history projects
are
often linked to an assertion of
particular
social
needs and
political
demands
against
the
margin-
alisation, neglect
or racism of the dominant so-
ciety.
For
example,
the Ethnic Communities Oral
History Project
in west L ondon makes
explicit
links between life
history
work and
political
action, and
publishes bilingual
oral histories
which are accessible to members of a
particular
ethnic
community,
but which are also intended to
be influence the
understandings
and
policies
of
the dominant
society.38
William Westerman writes about the direct
use of oral
history
in a
particular political strug-
gle,
that of Central A merican
refugees
in the
1980s,
who used their own life
story
testimoni-
als to educate North A mericans about the situa-
tion in their countries and to
gain
financial and
political support.
Westerman shows how these
testimonials were constructed for maximum
po-
litical effect and
presented through
a
range
of
narrative forms: as
performance,
in
writing,
and
etched into the bodies of victims of torture.39
A part
from
gaining support
for a
cause, the
narrators in such
projects
can attain
therapeutic
benefits and
public
affirmation
through telling
their stories. The
process
of
'bearing
witness'
-
by
migrants, refugees
and other victims of social
and
political oppression
-
is thus
empowering
for
individual
narrators,
and can
generate public
recognition
of collective
experiences
which have
been
ignored
or silenced. Oral
history
can
pro-
vide a
positive
affirmation of
identity,
for the nar-
rator,
for members of a
particular community
and to the outside world. L aurie R Serikaku
makes a
powerful
case for the
community
value
of
participatory
ethnic
community
oral
history
projects, through
the
example
of two
projects
supported by
the
University
of Hawaii-Manoa:
with a
coffee-growing community
in Kona and
with the islands' Okinawan
community.
He asks
why
the
questions
'what has
happened
to us and
where have we been?' matter to ethnic commu-
nities:
A
group
that can
strip away
'the
layers
of se-
crecy,
shame and
guilt'
inflicted
by
a domi-
nant,
assimilationist culture will more
profoundly
celebrate the cultural traditions
and values that make it
unique.
Moreover...
minority groups
can use self-awareness as a
powerful
tool for
insuring
the survival of
their culture and
identity.40
Such
projects
can have a
particular
value in
breaching inter-generational
rifts. The
Sylheti
elders interviewed
by Carolyn
A dams feared that
the
younger generation
had little interest in the
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life stories of their
parents
and
grandparents, yet
the stories
published through projects
like hers
-
or dramatised
by
theatre and reminiscence
groups
such as
A ge Exchange
in L ondon
-
have
engendered
cultural transmission, understand-
ing
and
identity.41
A t a 1979 British Oral
History
Society conference,
school teachers from
L ondon's East End
explained
the
importance
of
encouraging Bangladeshi
children
-
many
of
whom had been
subjected
to racist intimidation
and violence
-
to discover the histories of their
families and communities: 'the
recording
and
writing
of their own
experiences
had
helped
to
strengthen
voices and confidence in use of both
language
and
self-image'.42 Similarly,
the oral his-
torian A kemi Kikumura
explains
how interview-
ing
her
Japanese-A merican
mother was 'a
transformative
experience
for me':
... for in the
process,
I was able to
reshape
many
of the
negative images
that
society
had
ascribed to
people
of color and I was drawn
closer to
my mother, my family
and
my
com-
munity. By peeling away
the
layers
of
secrecy,
shame and
guilt
obscured
by
a
history
of cul-
tural
genocide,
racism and
discrimination,
and
by placing my
mother's life within a
broader
social, historical,
and cultural con-
text,
I
began
to reexamine and
reinterpret
old
beliefs I held about her
and, finally,
to rede-
fine
my
own
self-concept
within a more
pos-
itive framework.43
I want to
highlight
three
general points
about
politically-engaged migrant
and ethnic commu-
nity
oral
history. Firstly,
the
examples
I've cited
demonstrate the interconnection between
public
histories and
personal empowerment. They
show
how the articulation and communication of
pre-
viously
silenced or
ignored
memories can be em-
powering
for the
narrator,
but also how the
generation
of
public
narratives about the
history
of a
particular community
can
provide
words
and
meanings
which enable the
telling
of
private
stories. There is a
'cycle
of
recognition'
between
personal testimony
and
public history.
For ex-
ample,
an adult education
project
at a Centre for
Puerto Rican Studies in New York
encouraged
a
group
of Puerto Rican women to narrate and col-
lect life stories. The
emerging
themes of
struggle
and survival
sparked
off new
remembering
and
gave shape
to the individual
accounts,
and chal-
lenged
media
stereotypes
which had in the
past
mis-recognised
women's lives and silenced their
stories. The
project generated
'stories to live
by'
for the
women, for members of their families and
for other Puerto Ricans in New York.44
Secondly, migrant
and ethnic
community
oral
histories are
generated
within and
against par-
ticular
political contexts, and need to be under-
stood in relation to their
specific
time and
place.
The contrast noted above between North A mer-
ican ethnic
politics
in the 1970s and the 1990s is
one
example.
A nother
example might
be a con-
trast between ethnic
community history
in A us-
tralian and Britain. In A ustralia ethnic
community
oral
history projects emerged along-
side the
profound
transition in the 1970s and
1980s from the assimilationist white A ustralia
policy
to a more multicultural
political
ethos and
civil
society.
This was no smooth transition
-
indeed there has been a fierce backlash in the
1990s
-
and oral
history projects played
an im-
portant
role in
contesting
mono-cultural histo-
ries and
asserting
ethnic A ustralian identities.
The 1984
'Migrant
Oral Histories' issue of the
Oral
History
A ssociation
of
A ustralia
Journal
is
packed
with
examples
of
politically-engaged pro-
jects, including:
the Oral
History Project
of the
Ethnic A ffairs Commission of New South
Wales;
'A rt in
Working
L ife' adult education
groups
linking migrant
oral histories with visual art 'as
a
very positive way
for
people
to reclaim their
past,
and
begin
to take control of their
present,
lives';
and a
public
radio series about 'A ussies
from
Everywhere' sponsored
under the recom-
mendations of a
government report
which
urged
professionals
to increase levels of 'understand-
ing
of cultural differences'. A n
impressive
direc-
tory
of
migrant
oral histories cites dozens of
projects
with
Chinese, Italian, Greek, L ebanese,
Vietnamese and other ethnic A ustralians.
Signif-
icantly,
there is almost no mention of oral his-
tory
work with the most numerous
category
of
postwar migrants
-
those from Britain
-
who had
not felt
personally
or
politically
motivated to
define themselves as a
community
with a dis-
tinctive
history
and needs.45
Rob Perks' British oral
history bibliography
also lists
many migrant
oral
history publications
produced by
local
organisations,
such as the
Bradford
Heritage Recording Unit, the
Jewish
Women's
History Group,
the Multicultural Ed-
ucation Centre in
L eeds, and so on.46 These
pro-
jects
are often
supported by
local communities
and,
in some
cases,
have benefited from local
government
or national
charity funding
or na-
tional
employment training
schemes such as the
Manpower
Services Commission's
Community
Programme
in the 1980s. Yet central
govern-
ment commitment to
projects
which assert the
histories and needs of ethnic communities
-
ev-
ident in the A ustralian context
-
is in Britain
striking by
its absence. Ethnic
community
oral
history
in Britain continues to be
marginal
and
oppositional
within a
stubbornly
mono-cultural
state and civil
society (some
might argue
that
projects
therefore avoid
co-option
within a
gov-
ernment
agenda).
It remains to be seen whether
the New L abour
government
and the wide-
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spread
celebration of recent
migrant
anniver-
saries
-
such as that for the 50th
anniversary
of
the arrival of the first
postwar
Caribbean im-
migrants
on the Windrush
-
will
significantly
alter the British context for
migrant
and ethnic
community
oral
history. My point
is that the
funding,
aims and
parameters
of oral
history
projects
are situated within and
shaped by spe-
cific
political
contexts.
A third and related
point
is that
politically
engaged migrant
and ethnic
community
oral his-
tory
has
sparked
fierce debates about the
politics
of
history.
In 1979 the British Oral
History
So-
ciety's
conference on 'Oral
History
and Black
History' caught
fire as Natasha Sivanandan and
A mrit Wilson took issue with the conference
and with the methods of oral
history. They
argued
that whites should not talk or write
about black
experience;
that there should be
more stress on racism as a common black
expe-
rience
('segregated'
conference sessions about
A sian and West Indian
migration
concealed this
shared
experience);
and that oral
history
was
just
another
example
of whites
prying
into black
communities and
patronising
them
by 'giving
back' their histories.
Underlying
the race issue
was concern about academic research and ex-
ploitation.47
The conference lunch break was
cancelled as
participants
debated and contested
these
claims,
and the Oral
History Society
was
reluctant to
organise subsequent
events about
black
history.
In
effect, the conference had articulated for
black and ethnic
community
oral
history
a set of
concerns which continue to trouble
politically-
committed oral historians
working
in a
variety
of fields. What are the
rights
and roles of 'insid-
ers' and 'outsider' in ethnic
community
oral his-
tory,
and do those labels
respect
distinctive
identities or sustain a false
polarisation?
In what
ways might
academic researchers and commu-
nity
members
participate
on
equal terms,
con-
tribute their different
expertise
and have a
'shared
authority'
in the
processes
and
products
of historical work?48 What are the
appropriate
languages
for
recording
and
disseminating
oral
histories? Sav
Kyriacou argues
that ethnic com-
munity
oral
history
should be
published
in bilin-
gual
and even
multilingual
forms.49
Indeed,
how
might
conventional
approaches
to oral
history
interviewing
be
culturally inappropriate
within
particular
communities?
Janis
Wilton discovered
that
elderly
Chinese A ustralians were uncom-
fortable with
probing questions
about their ex-
perience
of
racism,
in
part
because of a cultural
preference
not to
speak
ill of the
past.50
Finally,
how
might
historical
projects explore
and even
challenge
the
myths
and romanticisa-
tions which sometimes sustain individual and
community identity
but which conceal
significant
points
of tension. For
example,
in 1984 the or-
ganisers
of the Oral
History Project
of the Ethnic
A ffairs Commission of New South Wales were
concerned about how
they might
deal with mi-
grant
life stories which celebrated A ustralia and
proudly
concluded that 'I am an A ustralian
now',
but which also contained detailed evidence about
the
painful struggle
to become 'an A ustralian'.51
The next section considers how oral historians
have come to see such contradictions as an in-
terpretative
resource.
'UNREL IA BL E' MEMORIES: A RESOURCE
A ND NOT A PROBL EM
Throughout
the 1970s and
early 1980s,
oral his-
torians of
migration
shared the usual concerns
of social scientists and historians about the reli-
ability
and
validity
of
memory
as an historical
source. Elizabeth
Thomas-Hope,
for
example,
explained
in 1980 that oral evidence about West
Indian
migration
to
Britain,
if used in
isolation,
could be
misleading
and should therefore be cor-
roborated
by
other sources. She also believed
that the
perceptions
and motivations of an earlier
migration experience
could not be
reliably
re-
called in later
years,
and conducted a
parallel
set
of interviews with West Indians still
living
in the
Caribbean in order to ascertain West Indian
ideals and
expectations
of Britain.52 A kemi Kiku-
mura
adopted
several
strategies
to ensure the re-
liability
and
validity
of her mother's memories:
she asked the same
questions
over a
long period
of time so that she could check for
discrepancies;
she checked her mother's account
against
inter-
views with other
family members;
and she ob-
served
family dynamics
to see whether or not her
mother's information was reliable.53
The
early
oral
history
handbooks offered sim-
ilar
strategies
for
making memory
a more reliable
source of evidence for historical reconstruction.
But
by
the late 1970s oral historians were be-
coming
less defensive about their source and
were
arguing
that the
'peculiarities
of oral his-
tory' might
be a resource rather than a
problem.
By listening
to the
myths, fantasies, errors and
contradictions of
memory,
and
paying
heed to the
subtleties of
language
and narrative
form,
we
might
better understand the
subjective meanings
of historical
experience.
This
profound
transition
in the
theory
and method of oral
history
is ex-
plored
in other
writings.54
Here I want to outline
just
some of the
ways
in which new
approaches
to
oral
history
have been
applied
in
migration
stud-
ies. One
point
to make at the outset is that new
interpretative
interests have
suggested
alternative
research
methodologies.
For
example,
in their
study
of overseas students in
Italy,
Francesca Bat-
tisti and A lessandro Portelli use an 'horizon of
possibility' methodology:
'we do not
attempt
to
generalise
from a broader
sample
but focus on
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1999 ORA L HISTORY 33
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the
meanings
and
implications
of a few
signifi-
cant narratives'.55 A second
point
to note is that
the
sophisticated
theoretical awareness about
memory
and
subjectivity
which characterises
recent work should not
displace
or discredit the
earlier, more
empirical
and
political
claims for
oral histories of
migration.
There are valuable
lessons to be learnt from different
stages
in the
history
of oral
history,
and as Elizabeth
L apovsky
Kennedy
has
argued,
the
empirical
and
subjec-
tive values of oral evidence are
'fully comple-
mentary
to one another* and should not be
'falsely
polarised'.56
Oral
testimony
reveals the
interpenetration
of
collective histories and individual life
stories,
and
can
help
us understand how collective motifs and
myths might
be resonant and
meaningful
for mi-
grants.
In the New South Wales Ethnic A ffairs
Commission
project,
for
example,
the narrators'
determination to
present
a
positive image
of A us-
tralia and of themselves as A ustralians is evidence
of the
complex processes
of identification in the
migration experience
and of the
power
of
public
narratives. Bill Williams'
work,
as noted
above,
used the detailed evidence of
personal testimony
to debunk collective
myths
and
stereotypes
about
the Manchester
Jewish community
around the
turn of the
century.
Yet Williams was alert to the
reappearance
of some of the communal
myths
within the oral
testimony,
even when
they
con-
tradicted the remembered details of
personal
ex-
perience.
He concluded that this
incongruity
revealed 'the role and
power
of such
generalisa-
tions as mechanisms of
solidarity
and defence. It
is for this reason that communal
myth may
co-
exist in oral
testimony
with
contradictory per-
sonal
experience'. Similarly,
Pnina Werbner
argued
that elements of a
'poor
man made
good'
motif evident in the
postwar
life
story
of a
wealthy
Pakistani Mancunian were relished and
used
by
Pakistani men of the same
migrant gen-
eration. These men had less 'successful' life his-
tories,
but
they
romanticised a common and
'heroic'
pioneering past,
a time before
they
were
joined by
their families,
'where there were no rich
and
poor, high
and
low;
a shared
past
when all
men were brothers'.58
In an
autobiographical
account of his
experi-
ence as a Chilean exile,
Ivan
Jaksic
writes elo-
quently
about the
linguistic consequences
of
displacement:
'I wanted someone to understand
what it was like to see
your
life
suddenly
cut
down, your points
of reference blurred, your
ability
to
express
emotions and
feelings impaired
by
the
pervasive presence
of a different culture
and
language.'59
The
language
used in oral his-
tory
interviews can offer clues to the
centrality
of
language
within most
migration experiences.
For
example, Nancy
Carnevale focused on
language
use in her interviews with
elderly
Italian- A meri-
can women. The
linguistic
shifts and tensions
within the interviews
-
as the women
struggled
to
find words for their lives and moved between
Italian and
English
to
represent particular expe-
riences
-
echoed and revealed the
struggles
over
language
in their
lives,
the
ways language
struc-
tured life chances in
public
and
private arenas,
and how the
continuing
use of Italian
preserved
old identities while
maintaining marginality.
The
women's
relationship
with
Nancy
-
as a
young,
well-educated and
English-speaking
second
gen-
eration Italian-A merican woman who
repre-
sented
aspirations
which had been
impossible
for
themselves but lived out
through
their children
-
suggested
the
aspirations
and tensions which
marked
intergenerational
relations within the
women's own families and communities.60
More
generally,
the forms in which life stories
are narrated
-
the
emphases
and
silences, linguis-
tic
patterns
and
metaphors
-
can be
richly
reveal-
ing
about the nature and
meaning
of
migrant
experience.
Isabelle Bertaux-Wiame
argues
that
'the forms of life stories are ... as
important
as the
facts which
they contain',
and
points
to the dif-
ferent
expressions
and
speech
forms that men and
women use in their accounts of internal
migration
in France. Men's stories
emphasised
their own in-
dividual
agency
and used the
pronoun
T much
more than did the women, who were more
likely
to use
pronouns
such as 'we' or 'one
('on'
in
French) to denote the
significance
of
relationships
in their lives.61 Francesca Battisti and A lessandro
Portelli
highlight
the
importance
of
metaphors
in
migrant stories,
and
argue
that memories of loss
or violence
may
be articulated
through imagina-
tion and
symbolism: 'exiles, migrants,
"ethnics"
travel back and forth between the
memory
and
nostalgia
of the olive tree and the desire of self-
hood and difference of the
apple
detached from
the branch'.62
By contrast, Janis
Wilton notes that
silences in the life stories of
elderly
Chinese- A us-
tralians
-
about the racism which is evident in con-
temporary
sources
-
offer subtle clues about
significant aspects
of their lives: the
importance
of survival
through becoming
'A ustralian',
the
value of
community respect
and a determination
not to
repeat
stories of humiliation. While
striving
for success in 'the
lucky country'
these men and
women had absorbed its value
system
and struc-
tured their own accounts in its terms.63
There is often a
congruence
between the
ways
people conceptualise
the
past
and how, at the
time, they experienced
and
responded
to the social
environment. Ron Grele and
Virginia
Yans-
McL aughlin
have shown how the life histories of
first
generation Jewish
and Italian New Yorkers
reveal
culturally
distinctive
patterns
of historical
consciousness
-
a
Jewish
metanarrative of
agency
and
gestalt by comparison
with a more atomistic
and fatalistic Italian world view
-
which structured
34 ORA L HlfTORY
Spring
1999
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the oral
testimony
but which had also
shaped
life
courses within the two
migrant
communities in
rather different
ways.64 Using examples
from in-
terviews with Scandinavian
migrants
in
Idaho,
Samuel
Schrager argues
that we can use oral nar-
ratives to
explore
both the
significance
of oral tra-
ditions and the social
relationships
of the
past
which are inscribed in narrative:
When we talk of what has
happened
we draw
pictures
of our folklife. We act in the
capacity
of chroniclers for events that
converge
in our
lives and are made
history through
our inter-
pretations.
We
give
our audience access to
these
experiences by
means of the different
points
of view we are
presenting. By entering
for a moment into the
perspectives
of
others,
listeners
get
to feel the social
relationships
that
are inscribed in events. Oral
historians, by
working
to recover these
messages
and their
import,
can better understand what the nar-
ratives are
really
about.65
Many
of the above
examples
attest to the
sig-
nificance of memories in the construction of in-
dividual
migrant
and ethnic
community
identities.
Recent studies
highlight
the dialectical relation-
ship
between
memory
and
identity.
Our memo-
ries of who we have been and where we come
from
shape
our sense of self or
identity
in the
pre-
sent and thus
impact upon
the
ways
in which we
make our lives. L ife stories are
'explanatory
nar-
ratives' (to use Giddens' term)
which
play
a cru-
cial role in
everyday
life. In
turn,
our current
identity (or 'identities', a term which better ex-
presses
the
multiple,
fractured and
dynamic
nature of
identity)
affects how we
structure,
ar-
ticulate and indeed remember the
story
of our
life.66 The
experience
of
migration,
which
by
def-
inition is centred around a
process
of acute dis-
juncture, presents
both an
urgent
need for,
and
particular
difficulties
in,
the construction of co-
herent identities and life
stories,
of a
past
we can
live
by.
For
example,
Nicola North makes the
intrigu-
ing
but
convincing argument
that Cambodian
refugees
in New Zealand do not exist in a
single
time or
place: 'Rather,
their consciousness is oc-
cupied intensely
and
simultaneously
with multi-
ple places
and times'.67
Migrant
oral
testimony
-
in
which narrators describe the
process
of
learning
to live in a new world, the collisions between old
and new
ways,
and the
forging
of new under-
standings
of self and
society
-
offers evidence
about the
changing
nature and
complex
mean-
ings
of
identity
in the
migrant experience. Indeed,
migrant testimony
is itself an
exemplar
of the
processes
and difficulties of
identity construction,
as
Mary Kay
Gilliland's oral
history
work with
men and women from the Croatian island of
Huar demonstrates. She found that the
testimony
of islanders who
emigrated
to the United States
emphasised
the
hardships
of their earlier lives on
Huar,
whereas the stories of men and women
who had remained on the islands
emphasised
the
community spirit
in the
days
before mass
migra-
tion.68 In
effect,
the stories can be used to
explain
the different motivations and life courses of the
two
groups,
but also as evidence of the
process
of
self-validation
implicit
in
autobiographical
narra-
tive.
The
retrospectivity
of remembered oral testi-
mony
-
so often the
object
of
methodological
con-
cern
-
is in fact a
unique opportunity.
The
migration experience
continues
throughout
the
life course of the
migrant.
For
example,
an in-
creasing proportion
of British
migrants
who had
settled in A ustralia in the 1950s and
1960s,
most
notably elderly widows,
are now
returning
to
Britain. In old
age,
as
psychological,
social and
practical
needs
evolve, they
are
changing
their
minds about where
they
want to live and
die;
'home' is an uncertain and
troubling category
for
these and
many
other
migrants.
The
meanings
which
migrants
ascribe to their
past experience,
and the
ways
in which the life
story
is
understood,
remembered and
told,
also
change
over time. For
example,
in the last few
years elderly
Chinese-
A ustralians have
begun
to talk
publicly
for the
first time about
aspects
of their
experience
which
had
previously
been
taboo,
such as the racism
that tainted their earlier lives.
Janis
Wilton ex-
plains
that this is
partly
because
government poli-
cies and
public
attitudes have
changed
and are
more
sympathetic
to such memories. In old
age
these men and women are less concerned about
offending people
who are no
longer around; they
now want to review their lives and bear witness
to their
histories,
and to communicate these his-
tories to
younger
Chinese-A ustralians and to 'out-
siders' like
Janis.69
Oral historians need to attend to the 'social
life of
stories',
to use a resonant
phrase
coined
by
Julie
Cruikshank in her work with Inuit oral tra-
dition.70 Samuel
Schrager
writes that 'the oral
historian is an intervener in a
process
that is al-
ready highly developed'.71
The stories that we are
told in interviews are often versions of accounts
that were created soon after events and that have
been used and reworked
by
individuals and
within families and communities over the
years.
Migrant
stories have
always
been a central
part
of the
migration experience:
in the
imagination
of
possible futures; during
the
physical process
of
passage;
and as
migrants
have lived with and
made sense of the
consequences
of their
migra-
tion. A t each
stage
life stories articulate the
meanings
of
experience
and
suggest ways
of
living.
When we record these stories we not
only
capture priceless
evidence about
prior experience
Spring
1999 ORA L HtSTOOY 35
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and lived histories. The stories themselves
rep-
resent the
constantly evolving ways
in which mi-
grants
make their lives
through
stories. Viewed
in this
way, migrant
oral histories
provide
evi-
dence both about
past experience
and about the
life stories which are a
significant
and material
feature of that
migrant experience.
'Moving
stories' is a crude but useful
pun
about the oral
history
of
migration.
These oral his-
tories centre on the
physical experience
of move-
ment between
places. They
are often redolent
with the
emotionality
of
disjuncture,
and are
deeply moving
for the narrator and for his or her
audience. A nd the stories are themselves con-
stantly evolving
and
moving, presenting living
histories in
every
sense of the term and a
unique
resource and
opportunity
for social and histori-
cal
understanding.
Notes
1.
Significant
international collections include:
Rina
Benmayor
and A ndor Skotnes
(eds),
International Yearbook of Oral
History
and L ife
Stories,
Vol.
Ill, Migration
and
Identity,
Oxford:
Oxford
University Press,
1
994; Memory
and
Multiculturalism:
Proceedings
of the VIII
International Oral
History Conference,
Siena:
Comitato Internazionale di Storia Orale and
Universita
degli
Studi di
Siena, 1993;
Communicating Experience: Proceedings
of the
IX International Oral
History Conference,
Goteborg:
International Oral
History Committee,
1996
(Section
1 :
Migration
and Ethnic
Identity).
Significant
national collections include;
Oral
History
A ssociation of A ustralia
Journal,
no 6,
1984, special
issue on
'Migrant
Oral Histories';
Oral
History,
vol
8,
no 1
,
1
980, special
issue
on 'Black Oral
History';
Oral
History,
vol 21
,
no
1
, 1993, special
issue on
'Ethnicity
and Oral
History';
Canadian Oral
History
A ssociation
Journal,
no 9,
1
989, special
issue on 'Oral
History
and
Ethnicity';
Oral
History Review,
vol
16,
no
2, 1988, special
issue on 'Oral
History
and Puerto Rican Women';
Oral
History Review,
vol
23,
no
2, 1996, special
issue on
'Migrant
Women'.
2. A related
question, requiring
further research,
concerns the
impact
of oral
history upon
the
wider field of
migration history
and
migration
studies more
generally.
In the United States,
for
example,
Matthew S.
Magda argues
that 'oral
history
has had, among
the various
specialisations
in the historical
profession,
perhaps
its
greatest impact
on ethnic and labour
history':
'Review
Essay: Immigration
and Ethnic
Communities',
Oral
History
Review, vol 15,
Fall
1987, p
152. See
also,
KH Halfacre and
PJ
Boyle,
'The
Challenge Facing Migration
Research: The Case For a
Biographical
A pproach', Progress
in Human
Geography
wo\
1
7,
no
3,
1
993, pp 333-48;
A M
Findlay
and
L N
L i,
'A n
A uto-Biographical A pproach
to
Understanding Migration:
the Case of
Hong
Kong Emigrants',
A rea,
vol 29,
no 1
, 1997, pp
33-44.
3. Quoted
by
Consuelo Soldevilla,
'A n
Example
of the Use of Oral Sources in the Global and
Interdisciplinary Study
of
Populations
Movements:
Emigration
from Cantabria to A merica,
1 880-
1930',
in
Memory
and Multiculturalism, p
785.
4.
Judith Winternitz, 'Telling
the
Migrant
Experience:
the Oral
History Project
of the Ethnic
A ffairs Commission of N.S.W, Oral
History
A ssociation of A ustralia
Journal,
no 6, 1984, p
45.
5. L ouise
D ouglas
and
Janis Wilton, 'Editorial',
Oral
History
A ssociation of A ustralia
Journal,
no
6, 1984, p
1.
6. Paul
Thompson,
The Voice of the Past: Oral
History,
Oxford: Oxford
University Press,
2nd
edition, 1988, p
7.
7. Gina Harkell,
'The
Migration
of
Mining
Families to the Kent Coalfield Between the
Wars',
Oral
History,
vol
6,
no 1
,
1
978, pp
98-1 1 3.
8. Bill
Williams,
The
Jewish Immigrant
in
Manchester
-
The Contribution of Oral
History',
Oral
History,
vol 7,
no 1
,
1
979, p
52.
9.
Family
and
community
oral traditions have also
been used to illuminate
pre-twentieth century
migration experiences,
such as those of mid-
nineteenth
century
Scottish
migrants
to Canada.
See
Margaret McKay,
'Nineteenth
Century
Tiree
Emigrant
Communities in
Ontario',
Oral
History,
vol
9,
no
2, 1981, pp
49^0.
10. A ndrew Hassam, Sailing
to A ustralia:
Shipboard
D iaries
by
Nineteenth
Century
British
Emigrants,
Manchester: Manchester
University
Press,
1
994; A J Hammerton, Emigrant
Gentlewomen: Genteel
Poverty
and Female
Emigration,
18301914,
L ondon: Croom Helm,
1979.
1 1
Carolyn A dams, 'A cross Seven Seas and
Thirteen
Rivers',
Oral
History,
vol
19,
no
1,
1991, pp
29-35.
12. For details of relevant
publications by
members of the Federation of Worker Writers and
Community Publishers,
email
fwwcp@cwcom.net,
or write to
FWWCP,
67 The
Boulevard, Tunstall,
Stoke on
Trent,
ST6 6BD .
13. Rina
Benmayor
and A ndor
Skotnes,
'Some
Reflections on
Migration
and
Identity',
in
Benmayor
and
Skotnes, 1994, p
14.
14.
A A erfyn Jones,
'Welsh
Immigrants
in the Cities
of North West
England,
1 89O1 930: Some Oral
Testimony',
Oral
History,
vol
9,
no 2,
1 98 1
, p
34.
15.
Benmayor
and
Skotnes, 1994, pp
1 3-14.
16. Gadi Ben-Ezer, 'Ethiopian Jews
Encounter
Israel: Narratives of
Migration
and the Problem of
Identity',
in
Benmayor
and Skotnes, 1994, pp
101-117.
17.
Mary Chamberlain, 'Narratives of Exile and
Return',
in
Communicating Experience, 1996, pp
1-13.
18. Isabelle Bertaux-Wiame,
The L ife
History
A pproach
to the
Study
of Internal
Migration',
Oral
History,
vol 7,
no 1
, 1979, pp
2632.
19.
Jones, 1981, p
33.
20.
Mary Chamberlain, 'Family
and
Identity.
Barbadian
Migrants
to
Britain',
in
Benmayor
and
Skotnes, 1994, p
120.
21. Celeste D e
Roche,
'"I L earned
Things Today
That I Never Knew Before": Oral
History
at the
Kitchen Table', Oral
History
Review, vol 23, no
2, 1996, p
61.
22.
Magda,
1987, p
158. See
John Bodnar,
The
Transplanted:
A
History
of
Immigrants
in
Urban
A merica,
Bloom
ington:
Indiana
University
Press, 1995; John Bodnar, 'Immigration, Kinship
and the Rise of
Working-Class
Realism in
Industrial A merica', Journal
of Social
History,
vol
14, 198081, pp
4665.
23. Bertaux-Wiame,
1
979, p
29.
24. See, for
example,
Ima
Imran,
Tim Smith and
D onald
Hyslop (eds),
Here To
Stay:
Bradford's
South A sian Communities, Bradford: Bradford
Heritage Recording Unit,
1 994.
25. See, for
example
Oral
History
Review, vol
23, no 2, 1996, special
issue on
'Migrant
Women'; Oral
History Review,
vol
16,
no 2,
1988, special
issue on 'Oral
History
and Puerto
Rican Women'; and Chamberlain,
1994.
26.
Benmayor
and
Skotnes, 1994, p
1 2.
27. Chamberlain,
1994.
28. MGail
Hickey,
'"Go to
College,
Get a
Job,
and D on't L eave the House Without Your Brother:"
Oral Histories with
Immigrant
Women and Their
D aughters',
Oral
History Review,
vol 23, no 2,
1996, p
64.
29.
Janis Wilton,
'Oral
History
and Ethnic
Community
Studies in
A ustralia', unpublished
paper
delivered at the International Conference
on Oral
History,
New
York,
1994.
30.
McKay,
'Nineteenth
Century
Tiree
Emigrant
36 ORA L HISTORY
Spring
1999
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Communities in
Ontario1, p
55.
31. Elizabeth
Thomas-Hope, 'Hopes
and
Reality
in the West Indian
Migration
to
Britain1,
Oral
History,
vol
8,
no 1
, 1980, p
35.
32.
D orothy
L ouise
Zinn,
The
Senegalese
Immigrants
in Bari: What
Happens
When the
A fricans Peer Back',
in
Benmayor
and Skotnes
1994, pp
53-68.
33. Quoted in
A A agda,
'Review
Essay', p
1 53.
34. For this activist
tendency
in oral
history,
see
the section on
'A dvocacy
and
Empowerment'
in
Robert Perks and A listair Thomson
(eds),
The Oral
History Reader,
L ondon:
Routledge, 1998, pp
183-268.
35. Tamara
Harevan,
'The Search for
Generational
Memory', D aedalus,
Fall
1978, pp
1 37-1
49, reprinted
in D avid K
D unaway
and
Willa K Baum
(eds),
Oral
History:
A n
Interdisciplinary A nthology,
Walnut Creek:
A ltamira Press, p
25 1 .
36.
Benmayor
and Skotnes,
1
994, p
1 5.
37. A dams,
1 991
, p
30. The oral histories of
Holocaust
refugees
and survivors
might
also be
seen as
part
of a
process
of
public advocacy
and
personal empowerment:
see Naomi Rosh White,
'Marking
A bsences: Holocaust
Testimony
and
History',
in Perks and
Thomson, 1998,
pp
172-
182.
38. Sav
Kyriacou, '"May
Your Children
Speak
Well of You Mother
Tongue":
Oral
History
and
the Ethnic Communities',
Oral
History,
vol 21
,
no
1, 1993, pp
75-80.
39. William Westerman,
'Central A merican
Refugee Testimony
and Performed L ife Histories in
the
Sanctuary Movement1,
in Perks and
Thomson,
1998, pp
224-234.
40. L aurie R.
Serikaku,
'Oral
History
in Ethnic
Communities:
Widening
the Focus', Oral
History
Review,
vol 1
7,
no 1
,
1
989, p
77. See
also,
Gary
Y.
Okihiro,
'Oral
History
and the
Writing
of
Ethnic
History:
A Reconnaissance into Method
and
Theory',
Oral
History Review, vol 9,
1 98 1
,
pp
27-46.
41. Pam Schweitzer interviewed
by Joanna
Bornat, 'A ge Exchange:
A
Retrospective,
Oral
History,
vol 20,
no
2, 1992, pp
32-39.
42.
Joanna Bornat, Judith Burdell,
Bridget
Groom
and Paul
Thompson,
'Oral
History
and Black
History:
Conference
Report1,
Oral
History,
vol
8,
nol, 1980, p
23.
43. A kemi Kikumura, 'Family
L ife Histories: A
Collaborative Venture',
Oral
History Review,
vol
14, 1986, p
7.
44. Rina
Benmayor,
Blanca
Vasquez, A najuarbe
and Celia A lvarez,
'Stories to L ive
By: Continuity
and
Change
in Three Generations of Puerto Rican
Women',
in
Raphael
Samuel and Paul
Thompson
(eds)
The
Myths
We L ive
By,
L ondon and New
York:
Routledge, 1990, pp
184-200.
45.
'Migrant
Oral Histories' issue of the Oral
History
A ssociation of A ustralia
Journal,
no
6,
1 984:
Judith Wintemitz, Telling
the
Migrant
Experience';
A ndrew Hill, 'Oral
History
as a Basis
for Visual A rt1; Jane Fleming,
'A ccents on
History';
'Migrant
Oral Histories: A
Preliminary D irectory1.
46. See under
'immigration'
in Robert Perks,
Oral
History:
A n A nnotated
Bibliography,
L ondon: The
British
L ibrary
National Sound
A rchive,
1 990. A
question
for further research concerns the
comparative
extent and
significance
of
academic,
government
and
community-based migration
oral
history projects.
47. Bornat, Burdell, 1980, pp
21-23.
48. Janis
Wilton
explores ways
of
resolving
such
dilemmas in
Talking Beyond
Racism:
A spects
of
the Chinese Contribution to A ustralian
History',
in
Communicating Experience, pp
73-8 1 . See also
Serikaku,
'Oral
History
in Ethnic
Communities';
Michael Frisch,
A Shared
A uthority: Essays
on
the Craft and
Meaning
of Oral and Public
History, A lbany:
SUNY
Press,
1990.
49.
Kyriacou,
1993.
50. Janis Wilton, 'Identity, Racism,
and
Multiculturalism: Chinese-A ustralian
Responses',
in
Benmayor
and
Skotnes, 1994, pp
85-100.
51.Wintemitz,
1994.
52.
Thomas-Hope,
1980.
53. Kikumura,
1986.
54. See the introductions and
chapters
in the
'Critical
D evelopments'
and
'Interpreting
Memories' sections of Perks and Thomson,
1
998;
and A listair
Thomson, 'Fifty
Years On: A n
International
Perspective
on Oral
History1,
Journal
of A merican
History,
vol
85,
no
2,
September 1998, pp
581-595.
55. Francesco Battisti and A lessandro
Portelli,
The
A pple
and the Olive Tree:
Exiles,
Sojourners
and Tourists in the
University1,
in
Benmayor
and
Skotnes, 1994, pp
37-38.
56. Elizabeth
L apovsky Kennedy, Telling
Tales:
Oral
History
and the Construction of
pre-
Stonewall L esbian
History',
in Perks and
Thomson, 1998, p
354.
57. Williams, 1979, p
51.
58. Pnina
Werbner,
"Rich Man Poor Man
-
Or
a
Community
of
Suffering:
Heroic Motifs in
Manchester Pakistani L ife
Histories',
Oral
History,
vol 8, no 1
, Spring 1980, p
48. See
also A lexander Freund and L aura
Quilici,
'Exploring Myths
in Women's Narratives: Italian
and German
Immigrant
Women in
Vancouver,
1 947-1 961
,
Oral
History Review,
vol
23,
no
2, 1996, pp
159-182. Not all
migration
oral
histories have
explored
and
challenged
conventional
mythologies.
For
example, Joan
Morrison and Charlotte
Zabusky's
influential
book,
A merican Mosaic: The
Immigrant
Experience
in the Words of Those Who L ived It
(New
York: EP
D utton, 1980)
has been
criticised as a
history
which validates rather than
challenges
conventional
mythologies
about
migration, assimilation, pluralism
and the
A merican dream. See
Perks, 1990, p
103.
59. Ivanjaksic,
'In Search of Safe
Haven1,
in
Benmayor
and
Skotnes,
1
994, p
26.
60.
Nancy Carnevale,
'Narratives of Italian
Immigrants', paper
delivered at the A nnual
Conference of the Oral
History A ssociation,
Philadelphia,
October 1996.
61. Bertaux-Wiame,1979, p
29.
62. Battisti and Portelli, 1994, p
50.
63. Janis Wilton,
1994.
64. Ron
Grele,
'L isten to Their Voices: Two
Case Studies in the
Interpretation
of Oral
History
Interviews',
Oral
History,
vol
7,
no 1
, 1979, pp
33-42; Virginia Yans-McL aughlin, 'Metaphors
of
Self in
History: Subjectivity,
Oral Narrative and
Immigration Studies',
in
Virginia Yans-McL aughlin
(ed), Immigration
Reconsidered:
History,
Sociology
and
Politics,
New York: Oxford
University Press, 1990, pp
224-290.
65. Samuel
Schrager,
'What Is Social in Oral
History1,
in Perks and
Thomson, 1998, pp
284
and 288.
66.
A nthony Giddens, Modernity
and Self-
Identity:
Self and
Society
in the L ate Modern
A ge, Cambridge: Polity,
1991 . See also A listair
Thomson,
A nzac Memories:
L iving
With the
L egend,
Melbourne: Oxford
University Press,
1994, pp 8-1 1 .
67. Nicola
North,
'Narratives of Cambodian
Refugees:
Issues in the Collection of L ife Stories',
Oral
History,
vol
23,
no
2, 1995, p
33.
68.
Mary Kay Gilliland, 'Performing
the
Past',
paper
delivered at the International Conference
on Oral
History,
New York,
October 1994.
69. Wilton,
1994.
70.
Julie Cruikshank, A ngela Sidney, Kitty
Smith
and A nnie
Ned,
L ife L ived L ike a
Story:
L ife
Stories of Three Yukon Native Elders, L incoln:
University
of Nebraska
Press,
1 990.
71.Schrager, 1998, p
284.
Spring
1999 ORA L HKTORY 37
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