You’re home. You talk to your family and friends on Zoom or FaceTime every day. Why not take one more step and record their stories? After all, what are you doing that’s more important than preserving your legacy, your precious memories? Pull out your telephone, and record your uncle’s, your sister’s, your best friend’s life journey. #MyArmenianStory, a part of the Institute’s Digital Diaspora program, is intended to help YOU record, gather and preserve individual stories forever.
Follow these 5 simple steps:
1. Click on #MyArmenianStory and look at the guidelines and questions.
2. Decide who you want to interview (or who you’ll ask to interview you).
Connect and set up a time to conduct the interview in person, on the telephone or computer.
3. Record your conversation following the question guidelines (or ask your own questions).
4. Upload the recording to armenian.usc.edu.
Why do this, you ask?
Because, you learn about your own story, as you ask questions and capture that special someone’s memories. Because, you expand the Armenian Story – beyond Genocide, beyond victimhood. Because, you offer researchers a treasure trove with which to work.
Whether you’re 28 or 82, your life experiences are part of a bigger story. Imagine a database of thousands of interviews that reflect the ups and downs, twists and turns of each Armenian life, a database that researchers need in order to study the global Armenian experience of war, migration, integration, and more.
This is when we capture the stories of those who lived through the Soviet collapse and Armenia’s early independence, the Lebanese Civil War, life before and after the Shah, life before and after the Perons, the generations of factory workers in Michigan or farmworkers in Fresno. Do these categories include you? No? Then please add yourself in. YOUR STORY IS IMPORTANT.
This initiative will complement the various current and future academic projects that delve deeply into specific aspects of the Armenian experience. There simply are not sufficient financial resources to professionally interview each person whose life trajectory is a chapter of the Armenian Story. So, let’s do it ourselves. #MyArmenianStory.
In the days and weeks to come, we’ll hold periodic online chats to walk you through these steps. Sign up and join! Send an email to armenian@usc.edu and we’ll send you an invitation to several online conversations with Institute staff to answer your questions and make you a part of #MyArmenianStory.
— The Team at the USC Institute of Armenian Studies
|
