VOLUNTEER
If you are eager to be involved and can volunteer your time, the project is especially in need of:
- Storytellers
- Interviewers
- Khmer-English Translators
- Videographers
- Transcribers
TELL YOUR STORY
If you or anyone you know would like to be interviewed as part of the oral history project, please contact us.
“The process of talking itself, the process of hearing the story – it’s a healing process.” ~ Mardine Mao, Cambodian-American Community of Oregon
FOR EDUCATORS
Training students to interview Cambodian elders will be a key strategy in the educational component of our work. Beyond the technical skills learned through the process, we believe the students will gain a more nuanced perspective of their community, facilitating intergenerational understanding and building greater unity and civic participation. This also will serve to bridge the gap between Cambodian generations, forging a new appreciation among the young for what their elders have triumphed over and sparking a renewed interest in preserving their history and heritage.
Similarly, the students involved in conducting interviews as a part of this project will come away with a deeper appreciation of a segment of our community – and an era of history – with which they are largely unfamiliar. They also will have developed a foundation of technical skills for conceiving and executing oral histories of their own. Further, we will produce lesson plans on both the process (oral-history and documentary-film production) and content (the personal narratives of Stockton’s Cambodian community) that can be reproduced and used by local schools and organizations.