Oversea and Overseen: Oral History of Gay Chinese Migrants to New York City Yu Cui This study attempts to answer two questions: What role does desire play in LGBT migration, […]
Re/searching in Second Spring Ru-Jün Zhou An experimental approach to oral history, focusing on the midlife experiences of Chinese immigrant and Chinese American women, is presented through a spiral research […]
A Labor of/for Love: Bridging Intergenerational Dis/connection in a Modern World Ambar Johnson How does our relationship with work impact our ability to relate to our relatives? This project seeks […]
Artistic In/Hindsight: Art-Based Oral History Research of the Pandemic Yuying Wu This thesis delves into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of diverse artists’ expressions. Utilizing art-based […]
Tidal Notes: A Critical Oral History of Asian and Asian/American Student Organizing at Barnard College and Columbia University, 1990s/2020s Solby Lim Tidal Notes: A Critical Oral History of Asian and […]
Seashores of Narratives: Collecting Conchs in the Intertwined Korean World Keren Piao The current English research on the Korean Diaspora, especially oral history projects, is based on Korean Americans and […]
Foundational Documents for Culture Without Borders Language Collective, LLC, A Sustainable World Language School Lindsay Szper Lindsay Szper used her time at OHMA — and the knowledge, resources, and community […]
The Silence is Quiet/Loud and Un/Clear: Deriving Meaning from Intentional Silence Rattana Bounsouaysana This paper and interview explores the testimonial of a Lao refugee who was displaced from his home […]
Runa Simita Yuyarispa, Runa Simipi Kausaspa Natalie Naranjo-Morett Explore this oral history project and virtual exhibit that centers on how collaboration with the local communities from the Andean region allows […]
South of the River Pengyuan Hu I thought about my attachment to laowu, to the pond at the front and the winding village paths leading to the old house. I […]
Eating Asian: Listening to Asiatic Femininity in the Kitchen Ariel Urim Chung My mom was a stay-at-home-mom. But the ‘stay-at-home’ part always felt inadequate, because she never stayed at home. […]
Using Natural Language Processing to Organize and Analyze Oral History Projects Christopher M. Pandza Chris Pandza graduated from OHMA in 2023, where his studies focused on using artificial intelligence to organize, […]
Can You Imagine? – a podcast in 3 parts Lisa Cohen Deloris has spent the past 30 years in this country taking care of other people’s families. She spent the […]
Quality Assured: Auto Worker Stories from the Chrysler Newark, Delaware Assembly Plant Meave Sheehan This audio documentary highlights the perspectives of four former employees of the Chrysler auto factory in […]
COLLAPSING TIME: INDIGENOUS STORYTELLERS AND THE ‘EVERYWHEN’ Bronte Gosper Too often, Indigenous voices encounter over-mystification, Indigenous testimonies are romanticized, and the ever-nodding head of (often well-meaning) non-indigenous listeners belabours our […]
Reframing Archives – Individuals & Imaginative Inventories Dharini Chand We all tend to share a curated version of ourselves with the world. In doing so, the rest of us—our identity […]
Purged out of Chinese Internet: An Oral History of Individuals Who Experienced “Digital Death” on Social Media Caiwei Chen As social media platforms become increasingly important sites for civic engagement […]
Queer Florida: Speculative Southern Oral Histories Han Powell Queer Florida is a multimedia oral history project documenting the stories of LGBTQ+ people who are making efforts to organize, create, and […]
Umubano mu Bantu: Love Among People Ornella U. Baganizi During one of our interviews, I asked my father what his favorite song was. He answered, Umubano mu Bantu by Francois […]
The Two Years Stolen: An Oral History of how Covid Influenced our Life Paths Yiwen Li When people talk about covid-19, what are they talking about? The rising numbers of […]
Did you see how many things I told you? Martina Lancia “Did you see how many things I told you?” is a research project based on interviews conducted both in […]
A Cute and Nice Oral History of Dave’s Lesbian Bar Kae Bara Kratcha A Cute and Nice Oral History of Dave’s Lesbian Bar follows the mutual aid origins of Astoria’s […]
This Is Not My Beautiful House Casey Dooley This Is Not My Beautiful House is an oral history of the life, death, and rebirth of a turn-of-the-century home. Buttressed by interests in […]
34th Avenue Oral History: Place-based Storytelling in Jackson Heights Bridget Bartolini This project tells the story of the 34th Avenue Open Street and what it means to people who use […]
Roots of Silence: How Retracing My Family’s WWII Escape Routes and Bearing Witness to Their Breaking of Long-Held Silences Unexpectedly Led Me to Compassion, an Open Heart, and My Voice […]
The Queens Night Market Vendor Stories Oral History Project in 2020: Pandemic Pivots, Media Moments, and Narrator Care Questions Storm Garner In 2019, I cowrote a mass market cookbook-with-oral-histories in […]
Finding Uncle Cesar Tyler Brady After Angel learned of his long-estranged Uncle Cesar’s death to COVID-19, he was unable to locate his body. I spoke with Angel in early 2022 […]
The Brick <deep inhale> Tamara Santibañez The brick occupies a singular role in the radical political imagination: not only as an object and tool, but also as a site and […]
Microphones & Brushes: An Exercise in Radical Engagement Sach Takayasu This thesis illustrates the narrator’s experience growing up in Japan during increasingly oppressive and dangerous times in the 1930s through […]
Reimagining the Family Archive as a Multidimensional Space Margie Cook
“It’s Not About Me” A Multidisciplinary Oral History Solo Memoir Performance and Reflection Paper on the Responsibility of Listening Kayleigh Stack This paper is a reflection on a Multidisciplinary Oral […]
Relationshapes Seth Langer
I am [not] your [m]other / I Am Your Nanny Courtney Scott I am [not] your [m]other / “I Am Your Nanny” is an oral history project about career nannies […]
1984: Sikh Genocide By Harpal Singh This thesis work on the 1984: Sikh Genocide is the culmination of a focused and rigorous year-long effort to study the academic approach and […]
Real World History: Intergenerational Learning & Student Oral Histories of The Great Migration By Max Peterson Part retrospective, part analysis, and part lesson plan, this thesis is an investigation of […]
sheddingsomethingshedding By Brandon Perdomo SHEDDINGSOMETHINGSHEDDING is space where practice meets testimony, as independent artists share their stories of becoming in a reimagining of a salon-style gathering in a digital space. […]
Speculative Archives + Black Feminist Listening Practices By Taylor Wilson Thompson “Tell Me About That World” is an oral history project exploring the organizing practices, critical political stories, and hoped-for-futures […]
BECOMING WILD AGAIN IN AMERICA: THE RESTORATION AND RESURGENCE OF THE PABLO-ALLARD BISON HERD By Francine Spang-Willis In this podcast series, Becoming Wild Again in America: The Restoration and Resurgence […]
How We Learn Who We Are: An Oral History of Storytelling in Alcoholics Anonymous By Lily Doron Below are selected excerpts from Lily Doron’s OHMA thesis, How We Learn Who We […]
the tidal flats: a documentary-collage on east asian american queer kinship By liú méi z.b. chen 劉梅智文苑陳粱 When this project began, Liú intended to make an oral history-based audio documentary […]
Angeline Butler By Brandon Perdomo, 2021 Angeline Butler – Civil Rights activist, playwright, musician – recalls growing up in farmland of South Carolina and the influence her environment had on […]
“My Ideal Place”: Towards a Speculative Archive for Community Care By Taylor Thompson, 2021 Community care practitioner and founder of NourishNYC, Tania Maree Giordani, describes an ideal place she intends […]
What I Saw In My Early Years By Nina Zhou, 2021 This interview is set against the backdrop of the Chinese Exclusion Era in Toronto, Canada. Many Chinese families were […]
Why Were They Interested In Our Ages? By Aluel Bol Kuanyin, 2021 In this audio piece, Aluel’s father, Bol Kuanyin Agoth, is sharing memories of home, his relationship with his […]
Footsteps Through Childhood By Susan Garrity, 2021 During a two-and-a-half-hour walking interview of a 300-acre site under development as an urban park, the narrator, Demetrius Hunter, muses about his many […]
Teachers All Around Us: Intergenerational Conversations & Student Oral Histories By Max Peterson, 2021 Cosby Hunt, a high school social studies teacher in Washington, DC, reflects on his initial experiences […]
Losing My Religion By Elizabeth Jefimova, 2021 Kris Goldsmith is a veteran on the Iraq war. During the course of our three meetings, Kris talked about his time in Iraq […]
There’s No Place Like Home By Casey Dooley, 2021 Inspired by an interest in architecture and memory, this edited interview excerpt revolves around a house in Rahway, a New Jersey […]
Pieno di Noi. Voices of Italian Lesbians in the second half of the 20th century By Eleonora Anedda Pieno di Noi is the exploration of the lives of two Italian […]
The International Phenomenon of Freedom Colonies: the original resistance, the archetypal safe spaces By Darold Cuba Since the inception of Western colonialism, the targeted peoples escaped the terrorism of Racialized […]
Ain’t Got Long to Stay Here By Courtney Scott, 2020 OHMA student Courtney Scott reflects with her father, Barry Scott, on 30 years of portraying Dr Martin Luther King Jr. […]
Grassroots & Hope: Campaigning for Obama – An Oral History Podcast By Anne Cardenas The 2008 Obama campaign was hailed as a monumental grassroots movement. With over 700 field offices, […]
Memoryscapes By Caroline Cunfer This thesis builds upon Luisa Passerini’s notion of a collective autobiography to explore my own experience living in Paris during the November 13, 2015 terrorist attacks […]
THE CROSSING By Lily Doron, 2020 Refugees traveling to Europe from Turkey typically depart from Izmir and arrive on the island of Lesvos across the Aegean Sea. For many, this […]
Se c’era quella persona che ti incuriosiva: an 80s lesbian bar in Southern Italy By Eleonora Anedda, 2020 In this piece, OHMA student Eleonora Anedda (2019-2020 cohort) brings us back […]
CRUISING By Lauren Instenes, 2020 Take a drive with Floyd Hook Jr. (JR) and current OHMA student Lauren Instenes as they explore queer places in Springfield, Ohio. JR opened Springfield’s […]
Hearing Moral Injury: Life Histories of U.S. Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan By Helen Gibb Helen Gibb: Since 2011, when I attended the Summer Institute at the CCOH, it has […]
Second Death by Nairy AbdElShafy The video was created as a final project for the Fall 2018 class: Toward a Multimedia Practice: Oral History and Storytelling Workshop. It is based […]
Uncertain Journeys By Carlin Liu Zia Uncertain Journeys is an oral history and epic poem documenting the life of Paul Zung Teh Zia, as told to and heard by his granddaughter, […]
THE 40% PROJECT: An Oral History of Gun Violence in America By Holly Werner-Thomas With 110,000 Americans shot every year, gun violence is a public health crisis. Indeed, forty […]
Spectrum of Spirituality: On the Religious and Spiritual Experiences of Black Men and Their Relation to the Decline of the Black Church By Alissa Rae Funderburk The purpose of this […]
Comparative Classrooms: Teaching to Transgress By Valerie Fendt Comparative Classrooms: Teaching to Transgress is the exhibit project that resulted from interviews with people whose life’s work is dedicated to […]
Why We Stayed: Poland’s Remaining Jews’ Experiences, Identities, and Reasons for not Emigrating, 1939-2018 By Filip Mazurczak By the 1980s, it seemed that it would be only a matter […]
“I’ll Fly Away”: A Genealogy of Maternal Loss and Leave-taking By Rozanne Gooding-Silverwood The over-medicalization of dying often renders family conversations about what constitutes a “good death” fraught with […]
Intersecting Histories: The Story of Her Skin By Nyssa Chow For the women born in the 1920s in Trinidad and Tobago it was often the women who kept the […]
From Meadowdale to Manhattan: Rides with Black Jesus By Mark Campbell II This project is a collection of stories based on and inspired by oral history interviews. These interviews […]
Fuerza: On finding inner strength to build our new normal By Nairy AbdELShafy FUERZA is a reflective manual inspired by Puerto Rican oral history narratives of Hurricane María. It aims […]
Healing: A Bridge with a View – Sexual Violence and Trauma Survivors’ Stories from Oral History Interviews By Eunice Kim This thesis presents original stories from sexual violence and trauma […]
Inter\views: An Interactive Oral History Exhibition By the 2018 OHMA Cohort, April 26 & 27, 2019 Curated by OHMA Director Amy Starecheski, OHMA alum Carlin Zia and current OHMA student Kim-Hee Wong. Check out the […]
“A Stranger in a Strange Land” By Nairy AbdElShafy, 2019 This audio piece is created from edited excerpts of two oral history interviews conducted by Nairy AbdElShafy, featuring Augusto Puig; […]
“So, A War Happened” By Rebecca Kiil, 2019 In this piece, my maternal grandmother, Aino Tuul Kaevats, at 101 years of age, talks about events that occurred in her homeland […]
A Lifetime Ago By Christina Barba, 2019 In this audio vignette, my mother, Susan Vartanian Barba, shares stories from her early childhood in Tehran, Iran. She spent the first five […]
The Announcement By Anne Cardenas, 2019 Narrators Rico Gardaphe, Carolyn Hull and Jay Plant share their recollections of then-Senator Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign Announcement in Springfield, Illinois on February 10, […]
“I Felt My Color For The First Time” By Christine Jeanjaquet (narrator) + Storm Garner (interviewer, editor), 2019 Christine Jeanjaquet, an Industrial Design professor from Manila, left the Philippines for NYC in […]
Ailleurs/Elsewhere By Caroline Cunfer, 2019 Raised in Philadelphia, Lindsey Tramuta is an author and journalist who has been living in Paris since 2006. This audio piece was edited from a […]
SHINDIGS & SINGSONGS By Rebecca McGilveray, 2019 Shindig n. Term derived from Scottish Gaelic sìnteag (“jump, leap”) meaning an elaborate or large dance, party, or other celebration. In this edited audio […]
Restoring Testimonies: Rediscovering the Individual & Unfolding Memory in Hibakusha Narratives. By Tomoko Hiramoto In this thesis, I aim to restore testimonies of Hibakusha, atomic bomb survivors, by using oral history methodologies. […]
The New Normal: Generational Understandings of the Aftermath of September 11, 2001 and to Today By Kyna Patel This thesis examines the experiences and understandings of Muslims and non-Muslims of Middle Eastern […]
Ballots Over Bars: The Fight for a Voice By Elly Kalfus People incarcerated in Massachusetts have a long history of fighting to make their voices heard on the outside, from […]
A Thesis on Blackness: Testimonies from Young Black Professionals By Desmond J. Austin-Miller As predominantly white institutions around the country accept more and more Black students and other students of […]
This I Wonder – Spiritual Journey of a Wondering Heart By Yiyi Zhang “This I Wonder” is a staged monologue on struggles and transformations along my spiritual journey with aural landscapes of […]
The Picture the Homeless Oral History Project: Don’t Talk About Us, Talk With Us! By Lynn Lewis The Picture the Homeless Oral History Project documents the work of this homeless-led grass roots […]
Reminiscences on Migration: A Central American Lyric By Fanny Julissa Garcia, 2017 Reminiscences on Migration: A Central American Lyric is based on the interviews conducted with Central American women who were […]
FINDING FATHERS: NAVIGATING UNCERTAINTY IN THE ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW By Emma Courtland, 2017 In his essay “Listen to Their Voices,” the former director of Columbia’s Center for Oral History Research, […]
Hogar de la Distancia: Memory Transmission Containers By Fernanda Espinosa, 2017 Found on Lucid Press. Through the project Hogar de la distacia (Home of Distance), Fernanda Espinosa interviewed Ecuadorian immigrants in […]
Hear & Now: An Interactive Oral History Exhibition By the 2017 OHMA Cohort, April 12, 2018 Curated by Desmond Austin-Miller, Samantha Lombard, Carlin Zia & OHMA Co-Director Amy Starecheski Check out […]
By Samantha Lombard, 2018 Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel In this piece, OHMA student Samantha Lombard’s Grandmother, Barbara Stone, recalls her memories of the rationing […]
“Lots of Tall Grasses and Red Ants” By Tomoko Kubota, 2018 Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel During the Pacific war, the American and the Japanese […]
The Record of Sorrows, a Living Memory of Death By Rozanne Gooding Silverwood, 2018 Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel My mother was a genealogist, […]
Prologue By Carlin Zia, 2018 Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel Current OHMA student Carlin Zia shares an experimental iteration of her self-reflexive thesis work on […]
Picture the Homeless By Lynn Lewis, 2018 Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel The Picture the Homeless Oral History Project documents the groundbreaking work of this […]
By Elly Kalfus, 2018 Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel elly asked her mother to share the story of her birth. this is the result. elly […]
“that death isn’t the end” By Yiyi Zhang, 2018 Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel This episode is from an interview that Yiyi Zhang conducted with […]
Current OHMA student Carlin Zia shares an early foray into film in this 7-minute interview-based portrait of her father, produced in our fall elective Documentary & Visual Storytelling. [filmmaker] I […]
Being Gay and Hippie: How Oral History Deconstructed My Fixed Ideas Steven Palmer, 2017 My capstone is a reflection on how my approach to history, my project, and my […]
Encountering the Sacred in the Everydayness of Existence: Oral History and the Phenomenology of Practice Geraldo Anthony Scala, 2017 Encountering the Sacred in the Everydayness of Existence Oral History […]
The River Sings Songs and Tells Stories: A Case for the Inclusion of Soundscapes in Oral History Practice Robin Miniter, 2017 This thesis is comprised of two parts: a paper […]
Inside Voices: An Oral History Exhibition By the 2016 OHMA Cohort, April 27, 2017 Curated by Emma Courtland (2016) & OHMA Co-Director Amy Starecheski Check out the full event description on […]
No Goodbye By Xiaoyan Li, 2016 Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel This episode is from an interview that Xiaoyan Li conducted with Alexandra Patz, an […]
An Excerpt from Finding Fathers: An Oral History of Uncertainty By Emma Courtland, 2016 Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel Alessandra R is a 31 year old […]
A Radio on One’s Own: The History of ‘Radio Donna’ By Paola Stelliferi, Visiting Scholar, 2016 Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel I imagined this clip […]
Secrets of Giving By Shira Hudson, 2016 Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel This is a mock podcast clip featuring Rabbi Avi Killip, who gives us a […]
Claudia’s Coming Out Story and Finding Love By Steve Fuchs, 2016 Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel In this audio, Claudia Caine a retired hospital administrator […]
Between Detroit and Liverpool By Bud Kliment, 2015 Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel Originally from Detroit and Barnard College, Felice Rosser is a writer and […]
Nueva York es La Frontera Pablo Baeza, 2015 Found on nuevayorkeslafrontera.wordpress.com Nueva York es La Frontera is a multimedia documentary website showcasing the life stories of New York-based Latina immigrant […]
Listening Through Time and Place: An Interactive Oral History Exhibit By the 2015 OHMA Cohort, April 28, 2016 Co-Curated by Amy Starecheski, OHMA Associate Director & Sara Jacobs, 2015 Check […]
Home By Meghan Valdes, 2015 Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel Arnaldo L. was born in the city of Santa Clara, Cuba, and immigrated to the […]
Existential Cathexis: Patriotism By Geraldo Jay Scala, 2015 Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel The following audio piece features Ed Shevlin, a robust, straight talking, tattooed […]
The Reality of Love By Sara Jacobs, 2015 Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel Cherise N. Washington is a 25-year-old currently living in New York City. […]
Memory of a Boy Soldier By Christina Pae, 2015 Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel In this clip, my uncle, Kon Ho Cho, tells me about […]
An Interactive Map featuring all exhibit’s from OHMA’s end-of-year showcase in 2016.
“That Something Else”: Botkin, Portelli and Ellison on Democratic Pluralism and the Dialogical Encounter Benji de la Piedra, 2014 Featured project in the 2016 Thesis Showcase Series, “Oral History: From […]
Then, Now, Next: Oral History and Social Change By the 2014 OHMA Cohort, May 1, 2015 Co-Curated by Amy Starecheski, OHMA Associate Director & Helen Gibb, 2014 Check out the […]
Failure to Materialize: An Oral History of Puente de Fierro, A Memorial that Never Was By Allison Corbett, 2013 Engage with the crowdfunded campaign on indiegogo.com Memoria Presente (the documentary […]
The Social Hall: An Oral History Exhibit By the 2013 OHMA Cohort, May 1, 2014 Curated by Suzanne Snider, OHMA Fieldwork Instructor Check out the full event description on the […]
The Weight of Words: A Co-Constructed Narrative of Love And/In Trauma By Sara Wolcott Weinberg, 2012 Found in the Academic Commons What does it mean to come of age in […]
The Banishment of Carrots: A Collection of Works About Dementia Sam Robson, 2012 Featured project in the 2016 Thesis Showcase Series, “Oral History: From Creation to Interpretation” In “The Banishment […]
A Country Between: An Iranian American Journey By Kyana Moghadam, 2012 Found on acountrybetween.com A Country Between is a collection of life history interviews conducted with Iranian Americans, explored and retold […]
Sandylore: Folklore and Life Histories in Post-Sandy Brooklyn By Miriam Laytner, 2012 Found on atavist.com In 2012, I came home to New York to complete a master’s in oral history, […]
Ambiguous Borders: Exploring the Definitions of Community in Red Hook, Brooklyn By Shannon Geis, 2012 Found in the Academic Commons Follow the audio walking tour on ambiguousborders.org Engage with the […]
Stories of the Skin: Exploring Women’s Skin through Oral History By Ellen Brooks, 2012 Found in the Academic Commons The purpose of this oral history thesis is to examine women’s […]
Oral History and Our Times: Multimedia Oral History Showcase By the 2012 OHMA Cohort, May 2, 2013 Curated by Amy Starecheski, OHMA Associate Director Check out the full event description […]
Wild Abandon: A Documentation of Wyoming Lesbians By Katy Morris, 2011 Engage with the crowdfunded campaign on kickstarter.com Wild Abandon is sixty-minute documentary film that showcasing the complexities of rural […]
Love: The Mix-Tape, Love Stories of African-American Gay Elders Living in New York City By Lamar Lovelace, 2011 Found in the Academic Commons Listen to the audio documentary on sound4picturenyc.com […]
“Stores of Memory”: An Oral History of Multigenerational Jewish Family Businesses in the Lower East Side By Liza Zapol, 2010 Found in the Academic Commons Listen to the audio documentary […]
The Half Life of Memory By Lisa Polay, 2010 Found on halflifeofmemory.com via Wayback Machine The rapid recent advancement of technology and its subsequent impact on biological science affects oral […]
Nothing About Us Without Us: Stories from Self-Advocates with Down Syndrome By Nicki Pombier Berger, 2010 Found on cowbird.com Read more about this project on the OHMA blog From 2012 […]
Groundswell: Oral History for Social Change, A Synthesis By Sarah Loose, 2010 Found on oralhistoryforsocialchange.org Read more about this project through Groundswell In September 2011, Groundswell: Oral History for Social […]
Grant’s Tomb: An Oral History at a Commemorative Landscape By Sarah Dziedzic, 2009 Found in the Academic Commons Read more about this project on the OHMA Blog Grant‘s Tomb holds […]
“All My Songs Are In The Past”: Older Women Look Back on Romantic Love: Nostalgia, Imagination, and Idealization By Lauren Taylor, 2008 Found in the Academic Commons When I first […]
