ORAL HISTORIES

Thanks, Audrey, for reminding me of these important perspectives about the difference between text-based and oral histories. I heard Portelli speak last November (at the AIHA conference in LA), where he elaborated on some of the ideas suggested in these quotes. Indeed, there’s no reason why I should be expecting any particular sort of story from the people I interview; in fact, it will be more interesting if no one tells me what I’m expecting or hoping to hear.

My father, also responding to my reaction to the interviews, recently made some insightful comments to me via email. I hope he doesn’t mind if I quote some of them here.

A returning emigrant of sorts himself he commented on my frustration with some of the returning emigrants’ stories of their experiences abroad. (He and my mother, both retired, now return annually from the U.S. to Italy.) He echoes their statements (referring to my terms, “exploited, discriminated, etc.”):

"If you had interviewed us, we would be among those who came here [to the US] 40+ years ago, and would probably give you the type of answers that you got. With very, very few exceptions, we were not exploited, discriminated or made to feel outsiders. It has not been a pleasant holiday, but we cannot complain. Actually, we feel that the American experience has been and is a plus for us. Yet, if you kids were not here, we would have gone back to Italy when we retired."

In commenting on the trend of the returning emigrants to speak unkindly about recent immigrants to Italy, he said something that I hadn’t thought of before:

"As for what they say about the emigrants to Italy, it simply means that they [the Italian emigrant] did not know what the Americans thought of them when they arrived in America. "

In fact, just yesterday, a woman who spent ten years in Venezuela told me that she and her family were not mistreated by native Venezuelans, but then she clarified, almost under her breath, that what she meant is if they did look down on her or treat her badly she didn’t realize it or recognize it as such.

Tomorrow: we’re off to Naples for a few days.