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< Back Sarah's Story 00:00 / 04:34 Previous Next

< Back Sean's Story Sean talks to his match about the differences between them and their values caused by the differences in their cultures and generations. He also discusses the impact of American values and how media and modern technology play a role in individualism. 00:00 / 03:24 I don't think the biggest difference between us, if I'm being honest, is our age. I think our difference is a lot of our upbringing. Which we talked a lot about the difference in how in Russia there is no concept of privacy, but to me privacy is one of my most fundamental things, one of the most fundamental concepts that America has is privacy, everyone I know is obsessed with it, every person I consider to be in a different generation from myself especially - my parents loves their privacy, it's just such a fundamental thing in America. I think that our cultural differences from you growing up in the Soviet Union are the big differences between us. But the older generation, if we are talking about the American generation, is so different from people like myself. I think the older American population is very very individualistic. I think at times, this is an experience I have with a lot of people in older generations. Their thought process is “me first, me first, me first.” it's a product of the society they grew up in. In America for society, the cold war was going on and America had to be the pinnacle of the top. How do you get to the top? - You work hard! That is where the health concept of pulling yourself by your bootstraps comes from in America, which I don’t really believe in. I just think the older generation just has this idea that individualism is more important than having a community or having different world views. I think that I see that a lot in my life that it is - well I need to help myself first before I can help anyone else first, I think that comes into the American economy, and I think the American economy is run by the older generation. It is not run by people my age, this individualism leads to a lot of dangerous concepts in America too. We look at the failures of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was the individualism that people didn't wear masks, it was their body, they didn't have to wear a mask - to hell with if they gave another person COVID, if they wanted to get COVID that was their prerogative. I think that that was such an awful and dangerous ideology and I think it led to a lot of divisions in the country based on that. The biggest difference between the generations is that my generation tends to have more of a holistic world view, we look at the world as a community rather than the older generation looking at themself first whereas my generation looks at other people first. I don't necessarily think that my generation is more compassionate or caring, I think my generation has access to resources that this generation didn't have growing up. In my generation, if I wanted to reach out to someone in Russia, or the Middle East or Europe, I could do that if I wanted to, I could. I think that comes with a lot of, I'm not so different from this other person. Social connectedness on social media and text comes with a lot of drawbacks, there are a lot of dangers to it. I think one of the best things it has done for my generation is connected the world and made the world a smaller place and shown people that we are more human and more alike than we thought we were. My upbringing really got this idea of “you are different from other people around the world, you are very very different” but then growing up I have had instagram twitter, everything at my fingertips and then I realize - oh no I'm not that different. We all had a lot of the same childhood experiences, we all lived in the same cultures and even if we didn't live in the same culture, you are still human and you still have this - I should still care about this person even though we are different and come from a different culture. Previous Next

< Back Djenabou's Story Djenabou talks with Rene about her family. She shares her exceptional relationship that she has with her sister. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 03:08 Djenabou: So my youngest brother is named TJ, that’s his nickname but his name is Tijani. He is 17 years old. And then higher from that is my brother named Hamadou. He is 18. Then there is me, 22. And then my other sister named Fanta, she just turned 31 a couple days ago. And then my eldest sister's name is Isha and she is also 31. I'm closer to my sister, Fanta since Isha, my eldest sister left when she was 16, had to leave the country. So I grew up with my sister Fanta for all of my life; all the bickering, arguing, we grew really, really close because we were always together. We would go to the movies together like each week or go to the mall each week and stuff. Rene: “What was it like when you were little?” Djenabou: I think one moment that I remember with Fanta was we were watching High School Musical together on VHS and I love musicals now because she had High School Musical so that was a really connected bond between us. And another thing, I think when I was in elementary school, she would always go to all of my award shows because my parents were always working and stuff like that so my sister would always be there for my award shows and stuff. And it was always important because when she went to see me receive all my awards and even at my graduation too, when my parents weren’t there. Rene: “You know I’m a big sister and I have two younger sisters and I was a stand-in mom for them frequently, so I understand the tenderness of that relationship. So she was like your mom at times, your big sister, tell me a little bit about how you would characterize your relationship with her.” Djenabou: I think about tough love, like she is very honest, very brutally honest. But I know she does that because she cares about everyone in the house. And I know that if I ask her for something she'll do it. No questions asked shell do it. She will ask questions a little bit after but she’ll definitely do it. She's very caring, she's funny too. She has her moments, I guess. She's such a perfectionist also, a very high maintenance person. She's very very independent as well. Rene: So what would you most like, if you could tell her thank you, what is it you would say to her? Djenabou: I would thank her for a lot of stuff, like being the person I can go to. Also, just being the role model for me too. And always making sure I’m good and I have everything. If I don't have anything she will provide me with that. Even planning for my birthday too with my group of friends, she'll pay for it even though the bill is high. She will go out of her way and pay for it. Just like that second motherly figure and stuff. Rene: Really, how lovely. Previous Next

< Back Noleen's Story Noleen describes her and her family’s migration from Ghana to the U.S., navigating constant transitions before finally settling in Massachusetts. 00:00 / 04:35 So I will be telling the story of my migration from Ghana to the United States. So from what I remember, it was just a random day. I was in either second or third grade, and my parents pulled me out of school, my siblings and I out of school, to go and take passport pictures. My parents were going through the paperwork process and just getting everything together. I remember that after third grade, my dad was like, "Okay, so we're gonna take a trip to the United States.” And we're like, we were so excited. We left Ghana, like I wanna say, a month after school had ended. We, you know, took a trip here. Everything was so smooth. We got here, it was, it was a totally different world from what I was used to seeing. We had a blast. We lived here for, I wanna say, about two months. And then, um, my parents had at some point decided that they didn't wanna live in Massachusetts. My dad decided that it was best that my mom should live in the US and move somewhere else. And then my dad would take my siblings and I back to Ghana to continue schooling until my mom, you know, was settled down. Cause he didn't feel like it was best for all of us to move together to start a new life somewhere else, where we didn't really have anyone. So she moved to Chicago, and we went back to Ghana. Um, but when I got to school, school had already started. So it was like a, maybe like three weeks, three weeks or a month into school, and I just got there, and everyone was like, “Oh my god, where were you?” And you know, with African tradition, people usually don't like to say what they're doing unless things are actually set in stone. So my parents like, you know, keep things a secret, like don't tell them, like, any details, don't tell anyone, anything. Then my mom decided that she didn't wanna live in Chicago cause she felt like it was not the best fit for us. So she got into contact with her friend, and she moved to Texas, and she lived in Texas, she felt like, you know, life there was very different. She liked it, but she still didn't feel like it was the best decision. And then she eventually wanted to actually come back to Ghana. Now things get a little chaotic here. My dad was like, you know, to keep our status active, we would need to live in the United States. So my mom had to make up her mind. Then my mom moved back to Massachusetts. We took another trip to the US, and we lived here for, I wanna say, like a month, and then, um, we went back to Ghana after that because things were still not settled. We went back to school. I started fifth grade, and I think this time, though, I did get to fifth grade when it started, and I knew that this was probably going to be the school year that would be my final school year in Ghana. Um, I still had to keep everything a secret. And then now things are really, really set in stone as time went on. My dad would pull us out of school to go through the immigration process, um, take us to do paperwork. Now we're doing immunizations, gathering all our belongings so we would move to the United States. Near the end of the school year, my dad had written a letter to the school telling them that we were not going to come back anymore, but this was just with the administration, like this was when no one else. I remember the last day of school, I was really sad. I felt like I had no proper closure with people that were around me because I, again, was told to keep this private, so no one knew what was going on. But I decided to tell a few of my friends. I told about one or two people that I actually was moving to the United States and was never going to come back or at least not return as a student to the school anymore. And I remember I was just really trying to savor all my last moments with my friends because I knew within like a month we would be gone. So now school ends. Um, now we started, like, you know, packing, finalizing everything, and then the day came where my dad, my two brothers and I, we moved to the US. And I will say it wasn't really like a hard difference because first of all, we lived here for a few months, so we kind of expected, you know, what was going to happen. Like it wasn't anything totally new experience, because in our little short moments during our trips here, we did, you know, move around, we did explore stuff, so we knew what to expect. So it wasn't really like a hard transition for us at all. Um, I remember I lived in a really big apartment, so a lot of people that were young were my age. And that's how I started meeting connections here. I wanna say maybe like a month before sixth grade began, they took us to do paperwork with the, I forgot what it was called, but they took us through the paperwork to begin school. And then I was like, oh my god, wow, like things are actually, you know, starting. And then during the summertime, I had a blast. I was making memories with people that I kind of still know today. And it's been, honestly, a blessing. Previous Next

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 Liya's Story Liya Liang speaks with Nina Kleinberg about her experiences attending a preparatory boarding school and leaving all she knew behind. The two discuss the effects that it had on her life reflecting on the aspects of race, class, and socioeconomic status had on her experience during her four years. 00:00 / 03:29 My high school self-looking back on it, I was just, I think a big fish in a small pond. I like never stepped out of my comfort zone. I never really pushed boundaries. I wasn’t a person to take risks. I think that my college experience is different than my high school experience in the sense that I’m learning to learn and learning for myself and about myself discovery. So, a big part of my identity I’m from Lowell Mass, and that’s the second most populated Cambodian refugee community. Being Cambodian was always an important part of my identity, but since I was immersed in a lot of Cambodian culture, I didn’t see why it was special or why it was different. My parents until I was in middle school never really talked about what they have went through, what they have gone through, same thing with my grandmother until I asked. So, that kickstarted me looking into my identity more, but back then I didn’t really think about my Cambodian identity that much. I knew it was a strong part of me because I was living in it, but I didn’t really get to deconstruct my place in the greater scheme of the world because I was in the middle of the ethnic community of it. I knew it was different, I’ve never really been around that many rich people, and I’ve never experienced that before, it was just a culture shock in the sense that I felt like I didn’t connect with people that much, since we were so different, but I ended up making friends. Initially, I was “oh these people are so different, they dress different, they look different, they talk different” and I was in a different environment, I felt really insecure, and I didn’t have that much confidence in myself, it was really the first time I pushed myself. Within weeks I just got more comfortable talking in how I spoke whether it was different and whether it was ineloquent, and I think that really helped a lot. I just thought that the student body would be more diverse. There were Asian people, but they didn’t really deem me Asian since I am Asian American. That was really hard for me because I am not a white person, I’m not a black person, I’m Asian, but I am Asian American. And I often found myself counting the amount of people of color in the room just to make myself feel a little more comfortable, I was also sometimes really hyperaware that I was the only person of color in the room. That was like the first time that I experienced that. It really made me insecure I think the first couple years. But then I realized that not that it was all in my head, that I needed to grow comfortable in my place, and that my place in the grand scope of things wouldn’t change. If I just couldn’t figure out a way to navigate these spaces, that I would struggle. And if I really really struggled that would be at the expense of why I was here, my academic and just to do well. I just knew that I had to do great, because of my identity and because I was purely there I guess, because of my identity. I was really really stressed, I wanted to be perfect. My junior year and my senior year, I was really focused on I have to do well because I am here because I need to excel, I need to represent my community as home, represent my own Cambodian community. I think my identity of Asian American grew stronger because of it, and I was in a different environment, but I think I was very sheltered being home. Previous Next

< Back 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. 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 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. 00:00 / 02:15 Previous Next

< Back Tolu's Story Tolu talks with Bob about her immigration to the US 00:00 / 04:44 Previous Next

< Back Barbara S' Story, 2022 Barbara shares her story of becoming the owner of a bookstore, specializing in antique books. She shares memories from these years including her knowledge of books. 00:00 / 04:14 Previous Next

< Back Bert's Story Bert speaks about her life journey and how not everything went as she planned. She talks about her adventures with her husband and kids and how she found her way to her career as a Speech Language Pathologist and how that career changed her view on life. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 03:33 It seems to me that lots of people have kind of a plan in their life of what they would like to do, and they set about doing it. I never had such a plan. I was kind of a vague wanderer among libraries and was really interested in English literature and English history and studied for a bit in England for a little while and I didn’t have a glamour of what I wanted to do with my life. It seemed like it would be good to be useful, but I didn’t have much other plan than that. I got married shortly after college and we had a child and then because I had been an only child pretty much in my life, I thought we don’t want this child to be all alone we should have another one pretty soon. And it turned out that that one turned out to be twins. And suddenly wooo, I had three babies, they were less than two years of age, and I was supposed to figure out what to do with them and I had to stop wandering around wondering what book I was gonna read next. So, it was a pretty hectic and transformative time for me. I had to think of myself as a very different person, responsible for these three little babies and then three wild little boys and I started to sort of become somewhat more assertive I think. I had never been before. After being at home for quite some time with them I thought I really gotta get out of here a little bit and I saw a notice that Children’s Hospital School for Kids with Hearing Loss was looking for some volunteers and I thought well I could probably do that. And I arranged for a baysitter and went down and helped out mainly in an art class with kids with severe hearing losses and they were very interesting. But the director of the program kept saying you gotta go to graduate school. And so after a year of so of prompting I did start a graduate program in speech language at Catholic University. A friend from graduate school who was a little bit ahead of me called and said Bert I’m working at this great school you’ve gotta come and work here with me. It’s a school for preschool children, very young children, with a variety of pretty serious physical and neurological problems and they need another therapist. Okay, here I am. It turned out to be wonderful. The schools had a wonderful transdisciplinary approach so that instead of passing kids around from therapist to therapist or teacher to teacher or whatever, we were in teams. The parents, teachers, physical therapists, the occupational therapist, speech language therapist, we were in a team and we all had to understand what everybody else’s goals were for this child so that anytime you interacted with them whether you were changing a diaper or you were helping somebody have lunch, or you were playing together all of those goals had to be integrated. It was an incredible learning experience and it taught me way more than any course ever could ever have taught me. I never imagined so many interesting, challenging situations just kept unfolding one after another and with the enormous good fortune of always having very good people to work with, not a lot of money but a lot of really good, strong coworkers. I feel very fortunate in my unplanned, kind of wandering way. 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