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Savannah's Story Savannah speaks with Dennis about her experience living and working in Washington, DC the summer after her freshman year of college. Savannah discusses her determination to experience somewhere new, and how she was able to make it happen for herself. In her story, she touches on themes of loneliness, independence, family and friendship. Savannah reminds us that while independence is a virtue, we can all use some support to get where we're going. Scroll to listen Savannah's Story 00:00 / 03:57 So when I was looking at colleges, UMass was just sort of what made the most sense. But I also don't think it was expecting to have, I guess, the tough year that I did. I think UMass is a very big school. And it's an easy place to sort of get lost in. And I was really used to being at home in my hometown in my community that was so familiar. And I had a good group of friends and a good kind of support system. And I kind of went from that to go into this big place that was super vast, where no one's really keeping track of you or worrying about you. And I definitely felt lonely. So at the end of that year, I kind of knew that I had to do something different with my summer, I knew that I needed something that was a little bit more of a leap for me something that was challenging and new. And so I was like, okay, great, it's time to figure out how I'm going to spend the summer. So I ended up applying to an internship program in Washington, DC and spend two months of my summer living there is a really well set up program. And I think what draw me what drew me to it was it was pulling students from across the country around the world to which was really exciting to me. And I think the concept of the program gave me a little bit of the community that I knew I needed. And so once I kind of set my sights on that, at the end of my freshman year, that gave me a little bit of vigor, a little bit of excitement that I think I needed, then it was just time to kind of decide and figure out how I was going to make that happen for myself, I knew that this was going to be a good program, but I had to, like pay for the housing, I had to pay for some of the programming fee and things like that. My next kind of step was I have to find scholarships, I learned quickly that there's money floating around universities and floating around for a lot of the things that you want to do. People just tend to not know that those scholarships, those grants, those things are there. And so they don't look for them. So I made it my goal to find this funding to get me to DC. So that's what I did. I ended up applying to so many scholarships, writing so many essays, and all these different things. So I did get there, I always remember just like sitting on the plane and like taking a breath and being like, Wow, I can't believe I can, if I pull this together, it's amazing. And so from there it was, it was a really wonderful experience. I loved DC living there gave me kind of my first taste of like, what you would maybe call adult life. But I kind of got all I think the best parts of it. I think reflecting the important parts were the social parts and getting to be somewhere new and getting to kind of fulfill the plan that I had for myself, I think maybe twofold. I think I came back with some confidence. And I definitely learned that I had the ability to kind of dictate my environment and kind of get myself out of the funk that I was in, I think was really important. I can definitely see that I've grown in that way. I definitely hold on to that determination that I had and know that it's like still in me, how are you feeling about this next transition? And what do you see is coming next. So I've definitely been pretty stressed about my next transition. I think part of it is because this is something that I never would have, I think believed my freshman year but I have such a good and rich life here at UMass and in Amherst, that I think it feels intimidating to think about moving that somewhere new and even meeting new people. I think I am so kind of comfortable where I am. So I think making that transition is a little bit scary. But I also know that I have done it before when I went to DCA essentially picked myself up and moved to a new city for a couple months. And now it's just kind of doing the same thing, but for a little longer. And so I think I'm trying to harness that sort of can do attitude that I lose a little bit sometimes. And so I kind of try to take that from my summer, and I'm trying to kind of be hopeful and positive and excited. And I think that will serve me well.

Emily L's Story Emily discusses how her culture, once embarrassing to her, has helped her shape into the growing and caring person she is today. Scroll to Listen Emily L's Story 00:00 / 02:35 Reflecting now, it's sad to say but I was definitely embarrassed at the time when I had to do all this or if my parents didn't understand or spoke to me in another language, like in public and I would have to translate it, I thought it was a little bit embarrassing– I don't know, I don't really want to talk, be different –I don't want to stand out in front of other people and so that was kind of like how I felt growing up. I did think resentment, I did a bit too just because I wish things were a little easier. I think that just because I had this role in my life it definitely made it a lot harder for me to be a kid and a student. I had to worry about making sure that my brother was taken care of as well in the school aspect of things, but now I'm just reflecting on it and I'm kind of grateful that they [my parents] didn't know how to speak English because now I know another language because of it and I don't mind helping them now. I'm so used to it that now I care for people a lot more deeply just because I've grown up to have to care for people, so I think its definitely made me grow as a person and mature in a way where it feels like, “oh this is not embarrassing or it wasn't embarrassing but more so I'm grateful” because I'm still connected to my roots and culture and I'm thankful that I know my language because when I go back to Malaysia I can connect with my family members there too so there's no disconnect really and even though I grew up here and they live across the world in a different society with different cultures, I still feel like I'm a part of the family too.

< Back Luke's Story Luke shares a story about his uncle Peter who is a Carthuegen Monk in Slovenia. He talks about his personal relationship with Peter and how Peter inspires him in his own life. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 04:43 I’m discussing my uncle Peter who is a Carthuegen Monk in Slovenia, which is a very small country just on the northern tip of Italy, and he’s been there for probably about 30 years and he will be almost 70 now he's in his mid to late 60s. To give a little background I guess on the setting it’s a very beautiful place Slovenia and especially where he is. One of my uncles once said that Slovenia is Europe’s best kept secret. It’s got rolling hills, and lots of vineyards. It’s a very picturesque place. Speaking on my personal relationship with him, I’ve met him three times, but the last two are pretty impactful on me I would say. He’s a very interesting character and someone I do think I admire a great deal. I met him when I was 10. I went with my father and I don’t remember a lot from that trip because that was 12 years ago at this point, but I do know that after that trip took place we started writing to each other, and we kept a correspondence consistently for the last 12 years. Peter’s a really great guy, a very joyful guy. I think it’s interesting because his characteristics or his personality goes against what a lot of people would consider a Monk to have. He’s very energetic. He’s very joyful. He’s talkative. Perhaps some of that has to do with the fact that he seeing family and he doesn’t get a chance to do that very often, but it did surprise me meeting him last year, because there is so much energy and passion and just brightness about him that I wouldn’t necessarily had pictured a monk having. Most of the time we stayed in the guest house, and just shared meals together and shared stories, but we did on one day go out. We left the monastery, and we, went into one of the popular towns, sat by a river, which it seemed almost like a beach club. There were restaurants and canoes you could rent and things like that. So we did that, we had a great time, and then went and got food at McDonalds. He was really happy I think to get a taste of America in a long time. There are stories, he’s told us stories about being rebellious even as a monk and what he’s, I guess expected to do. You are not supposed to leave the monastery. They have a weekly walk that they take together, but beyond that, they are only supposed to leave to go to doctor’s appointments to dentist appointments or something that’s really mandatory that they have to leave the cloister for. But, he tends to break away a little more if he can. I don’t think what he does I could do. It’s a very specific vocation and it's a vocation that requires a lot of dedication. His entire being is in it. And he’s on another continent from the rest of his family and he’s been there for decades. And when my grandparents, both of his parents passed away he wasn’t able to come to their funerals. And when he passes away he will be buried in an unmarked grave within the monastery. So his belief and how strong his belief is, and what he gets from God is something that I’ve never seen from anyone else. But I can tell that it gives him a lot of strength, and I can tell that he is really called to do it. I guess you know there is a relation in this story, quite clearly to God and you know, what role that plays in everyone’s lives that's met him and what role that plays in his life. And I don’t know, it's interesting because I am 22 at this point, I haven’t necessarily found my way or found an answer in my own mind as to whether I believe in a higher being and what that might be, what religion might be “right”, and all of these different answers. But his devotion is very inspirational to me, and I find I pull a lot from it. I don’t know how to encapsulate my relationship with him and what he means, but I will say that I love him and I find him inspirational in a lot of senses. I’m excited to see him again at some point, hopefully in the near future. I’d like to go alone maybe the next time, I think that would be interesting and beneficial Previous Next

Nina's Story Nina Kleinberg tells Liya Liang the story about the moment she decided to leave her home and STEM education to pursue an education and career in film on the other side of the country Scroll to listen Nina's Story 00:00 / 03:28 What role has education played in your life? I think education has played an extraordinarily important role in my life in that every time there was something new that I wanted to learn or get involved in. I sought out the best educational experience possible. Education was highly valued in my family, both of my parents had masters degrees and professions. And the understanding when I was growing up for both me and my sister was that we would go to high school and we would go to college and our parents would support us through graduation from college and then we were on our own. When I started off in college, I was Pre-Med with the goal of becoming an obstetrician gynecologist. I had started observing and attending births when I was a candy striper at the age of 14 and even then, I knew that there was something wrong with the way obstetrics was practiced and I felt that my best role could be to become an OBGYN and change that. Very shortly after I got there, I got this sense that in being pre-med I was essentially going to approach the human body as a very sophisticated machine. And that as a physician, I was going to be an extremely sophisticated auto mechanic. And the emphasis was always on the hard sciences and not very much on human interaction. And I just intuitively knew that was wrong, I felt the what felt to me the wrong approach to healthcare. Somewhere in my sophomore year I decided I was not going to become a doctor and decided that I would become a teacher and I applied to and got into an MAT program with the goal of becoming a teacher. Between the summer program, which was part of my MAT program, and returning to school in the fall. I went to England where I met a man who was staring in a television series and he invited me to come to the set and watch how they shot it. And, again I was just totally hooked with the process. I remember on the plane home I was flying back from England I was going to be back in graduate school in a few days. I sobbed so heavily that the flight attendant asked me if I was okay, and by the time I landed I had decided to drop out of graduate school and become a film maker. It was you know within the space of a month of two from that first lecture till that decision, it changed my whole life.

Selena's Story Selena speaks with Jonathan about what it’s like to be living with a family whose views are very different from your own during a global pandemic. Scroll to listen Selena's Story 00:00 / 03:29 ​

Ray's Story In this clip, Ray discusses his journey to a love of theater and acting. Acting has taught him a great deal about life, and is a critical part of his identity. Scroll to Listen Ray's Story 00:00 / 03:52 Ray: So, um, my English teacher in my freshman year English class also happened to be the guy who ran the drama activities at Springfield College. This is 1961 we're talking. He was always trying to get the jocks to try out for the - because he never had enough bodies for the plays that he was doing. Then I tried out for a play in the spring quarter of my freshman year and I got a small part in a play called - by Tennessee Williams - called Cat on a Hot Tin Roof! So I got to see all the plays that they did, which was an eye-opener to me, because I had never seen a play before, really. Never seen the live theater. I fell in love with the idea of making theater. It was imaginative, it was like you all created to- as a, as a group of people, you created something, and, that was imaginary, and you lived in it! And you got to express a part of yourself that might not be able to be expressed in the rest of your life! It seemed very magical to me. So anyway I had decided, “Well I’m going to transfer and become an English major.” But I also said, “Maybe there's some theater going on over at the junior college, maybe they do something in the summer.” So I went over, offering to work backstage, but they said, “Aren't you going to try out for the plays? We do two plays in the summer. You should - ought to do that.” So I tried out for the first play and got a supporting role in it! I'm sure I was terrible. (Laughter) But, I did it, and found it interesting. And then the guy who ran their theater program at the junior college, he directed the second play they did in the summer. And he cast me in the lead for that without me even having to audition! And as it turned out, also I got a headline in the paper, in the Flint Journal, a review, and it said “Burke Scores in Local Play.” In all the time I did athletics, there was no recognition at all, and suddenly I had a degree of public success that just blew me away! I had - amazed me! It made me really turn my head around. Not just to switch and become an English major; I wanted to study theater. That fall, I suddenly was in Evanston at Northwestern University, and found myself as a full-time theater student. My focus was to be acting, but I loved all aspects of working in the theater. After I finished graduate school I did teach, uh, at Southern Methodist University, for, uh, three years. And then that led into working in more professional situations, and eventually I left the educational theater behind. And said, I want to try and see if I can't make it as a professional actor. There’s the same kind of progression that you do there. That led to, you know, working in regional theater for 14 years, which led to I wanted to work in a larger kind of framework, so I said I wanted to do television and film. So we all moved to Los Angeles and I was there for 20 years, doing TV and film and some theater. And after twenty years, um, we shifted and moved to the Twin Cities where I still continued to, ‘cause they have wonderful regional theater there, a really great - the Guthrie Theater. And I worked there for 16 years and only occasionally in television and film, when something would come to town that I’d get a part in. So I’ve been, now, a professional actor now for fifty years, and a student of acting for almost 60 years. My wife has always said that acting for me is a practice. It's not a career as such. So it’s more than just the way I turn my living, it's a way that has shaped me and fulfilled me as a human being. I think I said to you once that I'm a better actor because of having a full personal life. I'm also a better person for having been an actor, I think.

Sunny's Story Sunny shares a story about how her relationship with the fine arts has developed and strengthened over the course of her life. She has a passion for art that follows her everywhere. Sunny's Story 00:00 / 03:31 I would say my passion is art, and specifically fine arts. But I recently have branched out to other forms like dancing, and I do embrace this a lot. I have done fine arts competitively since the second grade. And I’ve actually been an annual gold key recipient of the Scholastic arts and writing award since 2013. And in college, I stopped doing it. Just because it took a lot of time and effort, and a lot of money and space to even continue to do fine arts so it wasn’t very possible to do it in college with a limited amount of space, and a limited amount of money, and just resources in general for myself. But I did end up joining an organization called the Korean Student Association, KSA, on campus. And the first year I joined, I was a photographer so I was still able to get that creative side out that way. And then the second year that I joined, I’m co-publicist right now, which means that I make graphics for this organization and post it on Instagram and any other social media platforms to just get our organization out there. And I continue to do digital art and post on my instagram hobby page. So these are different ways that I decided to continue my fine arts journey. Then, aside from that, I decided to branch out and I joined a dance ward on campus called DBJ. And then I also decided to start a small jewelry business for a little bit during COVID in order to fund different donation sites in order to help find relief for other families. This was my way to really use my creativity and, like, passion in art to give back to the community basically. And I honestly didn’t appreciate fine arts or any type of art until high school. I think even though I did this since second grade, and middle school, and elementary school, it felt more like a chore and like a class because I did go to art classes and academies after school. And in high school I switched to a smaller, studio-based art program that one of my favorite art instructors had founded and was leading and I really liked her teaching style, I think that other art teachers in the past would sometimes take my place as the artist and make changes to my art to fit more their style than my style and respecting my boundaries and my artistic visions. And this art instructor actually helped me find my style and let me be as creative as I wanted while also teaching me valuable art skills and the technical skills that come into art. So since high school, I realized that art was my place of comfort and consistency. And this was very valuable to me because I moved around so frequently throughout my life that my environment was constantly changing and I felt like it was the only thing I could always go back to, and it would be the same. How much I improved would really only depend on me and how much time I put in. so this new peace that I found in art kind of stuck with me and it never went away and I think that's why I really find art as my passion, and I think that’s where I’m at in the journey right now. Previous Next

< Back Joan's Story Joan shares the story of adopting her daughter from Russia. She talks about what adoption is like and some of the struggles that come with adoption. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 03:31 I’m Joan Oleck, and my daughter whom I adopted in 1996 in Russia is now 26 years old. I ended up adopting Anya through an agency in Russia that had a connection with Spence-Chapin back in New York where I was living, and that connection was open to single women adopting which was still kind of unusual back then. So, I jumped on it. My grandparents had emigrated from Russia, what was then Russia in the nineteenth century and I had always loved Russian culture so it was a good fit for me. I passed all of the screenings I had to do. In October of 96, I traveled to Russia with another couple who were also adopting from the same orphanage. I got a tiny little baby, just five pounds, very undernourished and I named her Anya. And on the car ride back, 200 miles back to Moscow, she was on my lap, somehow I picked up on the fact that she wanted to look out the window. So I picked her up and held her against the window, and she, you know, quieted down and that was a very sweet moment. We were passing a lot of birch trees and a lot of American towels that people hung in their yards to sell for some reason. Anyway, that week will stay in my memory forever. Ali: What is something that you wish more people knew about adoption? Joan: That aside from the genetic issues, because sometimes, you know you need to see if you can match on a kidney or stem cells or whatever. That aside from that, that child is as much yours as if you had given birth to her or him. And I just really want people to understand that. You know when Anya was a little kid, kids would come up to her and say, “Well who’s your real mom?” and she’d go “Joan is my real Mom, that’s the only Mom I’ve ever had”, even though she and I were in touch with her birth family and exchanged letters for several years. I want people to know that these children have feelings. I, on the other hand, told Anya as soon as she could understand “you are from a country called Russia, here it is on the map”, and everytime Anya heard Russia on the news, she’d go “Mommy! They just said "Russia, where I’m from!”, and she was always very comfortable with it as a result. I was very fortunate to be adopting at a time when single women were slowly being accepted as adopted parents, and the same thing was happening with gay couples. At the time being 97’ 98’, I wrote a widely disseminated piece for a platform called Solan, and it won a national award, just interviewing singles and gay couples who were adopting, and just about the discrimination against them. To this day, it still remains that some church groups in Southern states block gay couples from adopting which is terrible because a loving family of any kind is what any child needs. It doesn't really matter what kind of family. If there’s love, there’s love. Previous Next

Ngozi's Story Ngozi Okeke talks to Tamar Shadur about traveling to Nigeria, dad's special pancakes, and how she would like to be remembered Scroll to listen Ngozi's Story 00:00 / 02:15 ​

Norma's Story Norma talks about how she found herself in the later stages of life identifying with something new- being an athlete. She talks about the skills she has acquired through this sport apply on the water and in her personal life as well. Listen to Norma’s journey to discovering one of her new passions of whitewater kayaking. Norma's Story 00:00 / 03:39 Interviewer: Norma, I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit of how you first got interested in the sport of whitewater kayak. Norma: Well, I loved water since I was a little kid, I was the one that was not afraid to just jump right in there, but um, I grew up with EDD so my parents were not real happy about letting me go near water. So it may have been making up for lost time but I actually started canoe camping with some friends after my divorce, and that was wonderful. But then, one of those friends and we decided to take on a whitewater workshop just let us to be able to let us tackle a few more rivers that had some little rapids on them, and I just got hooked on that. So I took some lessons, started going out with Appalachian Mountain clubs and other groups like that. I do that all spring, summer and fall pretty much. I feel like I have not come as far as I might have because I just don’t get out enough. But it’s really about practice and not being scared, not giving up, you know there is a lot of discouragement, but you got to push through that. Sometimes you just feel like ‘I’ll never get through this’ but gradually, you do, getting a feel of balancing in the little boat and maneuvering what sometimes are quite subtle shifts of your weight and leans, it was not an automatic process getting used to that but I finally have it, more or less. So that’s, you know, every little step is empowering, it’s really special because when I was a child I was not athletic at all, I was more like the kid that got picked last for the volleyball team, or got sent out into the out field, so I never identified as an athlete at all. But now I have discovered what that feels like, to be active, and enjoy it and think about skills, and pick up skills. It's a whole different outlook. It’s a rapid on a particular river that they say its a mile of continuous rapids and of course when I first ran into it, I was just like “Let’s just get through this” boom, right along, and then people said, try some turns, try to stop and rest and look at what is ahead of you, and see what’s coming, and I mean, that kind of applied to anything in life, you know. If you stop, and rest, and get calm, and look outward a bit, then you’re going to do better. And it’s like a puzzle, you know, you’re working your muscles but you’re also thinking of it like an obstacle course, like, how am I going to get through this rapid? Or what do I need to avoid, where do I need to be? And then execute that. I think that’s good for the brain, I hope it will help me as I get older, and I hope I can keep at it as I get older. That is a worry but, I really hope so. Previous Next

< Back Eileen's Story Eileen discusses gender roles present in her childhood in the 1950s and how it caused her to choose her career in teaching. She then goes on to talk about how she was able to be successful in her career choice. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 04:20 “How did you originally decide you want to do teaching as a career?” You know I’m not sure how I decided that I kind of wonder if, well I think I can be fairly relational, I mean I really like kids. But um I’m not sure I saw a lot of choices. I'm not sure I realized that there were all these kinds of things like be an engineer, or be an architect, or a doctor, or a therapist, or be a researcher. I think if I, I have no clue if I saw all of that what I would've chosen. I think I really felt that I had two choices, I could be a nurse or I could be a teacher. So I don't really know what I would choose to do, I mean I could've been a good motorcycle mechanic also I kind of like that stuff. But at the time I think I felt I had two choices, and I wasn’t really into the whole blood thing. “Do you regret that in a sense, do you feel like it was because of the time period you grew up in and how women were viewed? That you only really saw those two careers as an option” Do I Regret it…I don't think I have regrets about my teaching. You know I learned a lot all the time, you know as much about myself as about anything else. And I mean I could keep learning, it's endless. So um I don't really have regrets about that. I do imagine I probably wouldn't have done this, you know if I knew then what I know now. But I don't know what I would've done. You know in my world, I mean, there wasn't a mom of anybody that I knew that did anything. I mean I didn’t even know teachers or social workers. I mean I got put in a school with some really good teachers and I got placed there with two or three of my very close friends. And so It was kind of a hoot. It was hard, we were an inner-city school and the kids were tough. I don't know if they were really tough but they were tough for us, like fifth or sixth graders. But I was not alone, and I had this team of teachers, I worked with three teachers, not one. And they were really helpful. And I had my friends there and you know we would literally go to someone's apartment and figure out our week's lessons and kind of do all this stuff and do it together. You know, have some beers and you know just plan it and go down the tubes in terms of being successful and not being successful. I think I worked with some talented people. I think I was pretty average. Some of my friends were remarkably fantastic. And I learned alot from them. And that's kind of how I taught. I always met with other people and friends. You know that kind of hung out together and figured shit out together. Well, that was nice not to do it alone. I was lucky I had very good people. I just fell on really wonderful friends and support, that's the positive thing about teaching, you know you could get really lucky. I suppose you could get really unlucky too. But I got really lucky, you know I worked with great people. I think that's key in life. Who you work with is really, really important. You gotta have people you admire around you, or at least I did, or else it’s kind of doomed. And on the one hand, I didn’t feel like I had all that much choice. I just kind of went down this path, and with going down that path, I at least had a path. You know and I just took it and I didn’t really at the time, well I flailed here and there but I didn’t really question it and I was okay with it and it worked out. Previous Next

Janet's Story Janet gives voice to her late older brother Jay and recalls the significant impact he has had on her early life and professional career despite struggling in his adolescence and growing up in a time where it was unlawful to be self assured about your homosexuality. This is a story about love and loss but touching upon hope in freedom of self expression in culture today. Janet's Story 00:00 / 03:57 I was born in 1943. Yes, I'm going to be 80 years old. A middle child and a working class post World War II family near Flushing, New York. My older brother named after my Father William Henry Ruloff Nelson Jr was a quiet, deeply sensitive and highly intelligent boy. During those years the 1940s and the 1950s baseball. Mom's at home waiting to put supper on the table for their working husbands was part of the American dream and I lived in a little area in Queens where people's families were very very much devoted to fulfilling that post World War II American Dream. My Brother Jay as we called him did not fit in. He wrote poetry, read deeply and spent a great deal of time alone. Even as a very girl I knew Jay, four years older was different. As he and I grew to adolescence he began to be teased by the other boys on the Block. As we played baseball, Jay kind of withdrew into his room quietly. In his early teens I knew there was trouble my parents talking behind closed doors. Those were years when words like homosexuality were never spoken out loud it was illegal and immoral. With all that he was struggling with as an adolescent, Jay had time and made time but to always be my big brother. In a family overwhelmed by illness, financial issues, and emotional stress, he introduced me to poetry and to literature. As he grew, his friendships of bright enthusiastic gay boys I became a focus of their energy. Surrounded by them I went to my first opera. When my brother moved out when I was 16, his apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan became my second home arrested from my own. His life was not easy despite his high intelligence and a full scholarship to Princeton University, he dropped out of college unable to reconcile the emotional stress that marked those years. My course was different. At each juncture of my growing professional life, it was my brother who championed my success and kept me motivated when I questioned my own abilities. My doctoral dissertation was dedicated to him. In 1982, Jay showed the early signs of AIDS. The years ahead were marked with anxiety and fear. We talked honestly and after 4 years we knew he was dying. I saw him 36 hours before he died at the age of 46. I read a favorite poem of his, Edna St. Vincent Millay at my younger son's wedding. A piece of it is “love in the open hand, no thing but that; ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt.” Like my brother it's a poem about the freedom and the trappings of love. My son's daughter's middle name is Jay, named after him. Over these past decades, I've watched with amazement and joy at the changes in our culture. I often find myself smiling as I think about how Jay’s life would have been had he had such freedom and affirmation. Previous Next