History through Memories and Stories: University of Washington Tateuchi East Asia Library Oral History Project for Seattle Chinese Immigrants
憶往事 講故事 探尋大西雅圖地區華人移民的往事經歷
Reviewed by: Miaoling Xue
Review start: February 10, 2024
Review updated: February 21, 2024
Site Links:
Archive Link: https://archive.ph/dGx6x
Data Sources
- Interview recordings (video) of individuals from Seattle’s Chinese immigrant community
- Interview recordings (audio) and self-narrations (audio) of individuals from Seattle’s Chinese immigrant community
- Edited short versions of some featured interviews
- Photographs of the interviewees and interviewers
- Transcripts in the language in which the interview or self-narration was conducted
- Community forum posts/posters of featured speakers
Processes
- Project initiation: The project was launched in the summer of 2014 by Zhijia Shen, Director of the University of Washington (hereafter, UW) East Asia Library.
- Team composition: They organized a team of principal investigator, oral history team leader, technology manager, communications manager, research assistants, and an advisory committee of community leaders.
- Training: All members serve as interviewers and received oral history training from historian Lorraine McConaghy, a historian at the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle.
- Interview protocol: Interviews are conducted on the UW campus or narrator's home, typically lasting two hours with possible multiple sessions. The interviews are either in English or Mandarin Chinese.
- Documentation: The process begins with taking three photographs of the interviewees and interviewers, recording, and transcribing interviews in English or Mandarin, also includes archiving of interviews, photos, family papers, and artifacts in UW Libraries Special Collections. Each month the University of Washington Tateuchi East Asia Library also hosts a Community Forum for feature speakers from Seattle’s Chinese immigrant community. These events are presented by community forum posts and posters.
- Further development: The team edited some short versions of interviews and uploaded them to YouTube. The team developed the project website and designed exhibits (digital records forthcoming).
Presentation
A project website is constructed under UW Tateuchi East Asian Library main website. The project website allows users to learn about the project background and team members, read about feature speakers, navigate to all video, audio, visual, or textual materials in the database (UW Libraries Digital Collections: TEAL Oral History Project Interviews). The materials in the digital collections are organized by the interviewees’ names.Topics or names mentioned in their interviews are tagged and searchable at the side bar. Short versions are uploaded to YouTube.
Digital Tools Used
- Video/audio recording and editing
- Digital archiving by the Digital Initiatives Program at UW (The Dublin Core Metadata element set, CONTENTdm Software Suite)
- WordPress
- YouTube
Languages
English, Mandarin Chinese
Review
The History through Memories and Stories project, initiated by Zhijia Shen, the Director of the UW East Asia Library, stands as a critical digital humanities and oral history initiative aimed at sharing, preserving, and advocating firsthand accounts, personal experiences and memories of Seattle’s Chinese immigrant community. This project has greatly enriched the Pacific Northwest’s immigrant narrative through the lens of Chinese Americans.
This project is not just a digitization of previous analogue objects but a proactive collection of life stories, memories, and experiences through interviews, photographs, and artifacts from individuals in “Seattle’s Chinese immigrant community from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mainland China, and other areas of the world”(About us). Dr. Shen and her team also create a standard/training workflow of conducting interviews and documentation, under the supervision of historian Lorraine McConaghy. Some documents for standards and training can be found under the “Narrator” section on their project website (Narrator). Such a standard is essential for ensuring consistency, positive experience, and high quality content across their interviews.
The project is also not confined to the digital realm. The monthly Community Forum talks hosted by the UW East Asia Library embody this project’s commitment to life stories and knowledge sharing among the community. Speakers and audiences in the forum create a dialogue that fosters a sense of community belonging among Seattle’s Chinese immigrant populations and promotes an understanding of cultural heritage across generations.
Supported by the The Digital Initiatives Program at UW, this team is able to work with the UW library to make a dedicated digital collection to preserve various types of data and make their interviews accessible in video, audio, and textual formats. However, if we review their project website from a critical viewpoint, they could spend more time on the user experience and enable faster and more efficient navigation. The link to the portal of the digital collection and the link to their YouTube Channel are not put in an intuitive interface and users might just miss them. If time allows, they could also develop searchability and interactive features of their interviews and transcripts, such as interactive maps and timelines.
In conclusion, the History through Memories and Stories project is a significant contribution to the digital memories and oral history of Chinese immigrants in Seattle. With further enhancements to the project website and other associated digital interfaces (YouTube Channel, library portal, etc.), the project would continue to share stories with broader audiences and inform further generations.
How does this project address information?
This project creates, curates, and organizes information by collecting firsthand video/audio interviews, and some artifacts from Seattle’s Chinese immigrant community. They transform raw materials through transcription, digital archiving, translating, and editing and makes the data accessible via the project website and YouTube channel.
How well does this project handle information?
This project ensures that information caters to diverse user preferences by transforming oral history materials into various formats, such as video, audio, photographs, and transcripts. They use tagging and searchable databases in the library archive to allow users easily find content relevant to their needs and interests. The project website and their YouTube channel also serve as effective promotional and dissemination platforms. By further enhancing the user interface, these platforms could handle more complex information on immigrant stories in an engaging manner.