Oral History and Migration

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Moving Stories: Oral History and Migration StudiesAuthor(s): Alistair ThomsonSource: Oral History, Vol. 27, No. 1, Migration (Spring, 1999), pp. 24-37Published by: Oral History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40179591 .Accessed: 16/06/2014 18:14

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MOVING STORIES

O R L HISTORY N D

MIGR TION TUDIES

byAlistair Thomson

article - which started as a way of reading myselfinto a new oral history project about postwar migrationbetween Britain and Australia - reviews the contribu-

tion which oral history has made to migration tudies overthe last quarter century. The various national oral historyjournals and the proceedings of national and internationaloral history conferences, some of which have been pub-lished as anthologies, provide a rich and indicative resourcefor this study1; indeed, migration emerges as one of themost important themes of oral history research.2 My pri-mary sources are the writings of oral historians fromBritain, North America and Australasia, though I also drawto a lesser extent upon English ranslations of studies fromLatin America and continental Europe.

I define 'migration' o include both interna-tional and intra-national migrations and, likemost oral history tudies, see the physical passageof migration rom one place to another as onlyone event within a migratory experience whichspans old and new worlds and which continuesthroughout he life of the migrant and into sub-sequent generations.

This broad definition highlights an overlapwithin this field between the study of migration

and the study of migrant or ethnic communities.Many of the writings referred to here rangeacross these two, inter-related areas of study,without necessarily problematising he distinc-tion. On the one hand, migration history s con-cerned with the processes by which migrantsindividually and collectively establish them-selves in a new region or country, and the waysin which networks and lifestyles from the placeof origin are recreated and changed in the new

24 ORAL HISTORY Spring 1999

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world. Clearly, a particular ethnic group's com-plex experience within the place of destination sa necessary lement of migration history. ndeed,as I discuss later, changes within establishedethnic communities and the contested relationswith a dominant culture are often motivationsfor recording and promulgating the stories ofmigrant origin and arrival.

On the other hand, there s a danger n seeingsuch communities only in terms of their migrantorigins, especially where they may have deep his-toric roots from a continuity of residence andmay sustain elements of cultural difference manygenerations after an initial period of migration.In the experience of members of a particularethnic community, he history of migration maybe less significant han the current ssues withinthat community and concerning ts relationshipwith the dominant culture. Conversely, thenotion of 'ethnicity' may not be appealing or ap-

propriate or some migrants who choose not toidentify hemselves n terms of ethnicity or placeof origin. And just as individual migrants andtheir descendants struggle with the labels ofidentification, migrant ocieties have fought overthe labels which define and shape the migrationexperience: alien', immigrant', refugee', ethnicminority', ethnic community' and so on.

Whilst we might distinguish he processes ofan initial migration from the on-going experi-ences of individual migrants and migrant com-munities, most migration oral history recognisesthe complex inter-connections between migra-tion and the formation and development of mi-grant communities and ethnic identities. For thesake of clarity I focus here on studies which ex-plore migrations which have taken place withinliving memory, and in which the experiences ofmigration and of ethnic communities are equallyimportant parts of the story.

Family at the BelleVue studio,

Bradford. FromHere To Stay.

Spring 1999 ORAL HISTORY 25



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THE UNRECORDED, LL-DOCUMENTEDAND HIDDEN HISTORIES OFMIGRATIONFrench historian Phillipe Joutard writes that'modern migrations... could scarcely be studiednowadays without first hand accounts from theemigrants'.3 A central and abiding claim of oralhistorians of migration has been that the mi-grant's own story is likely to be unrecorded orill-documented, and that oral evidence providesan essential record of the hidden history of mi-gration. For example, this was the motivation ofan oral history project nitiated n the early 1980sby the Ethnic Affairs Commission of New SouthWales as a contribution o Australia's bicenten-nial history:

...the experiences of large numbers of mi-grants who had come to Australia were notbeing recorded and preserved and therefore

would not be reflected n writing about andunderstanding modern Australia. it seemedunlikely hat many of these mmigrants wouldbe able to write, publish or publicise heir ex-periences, since they lacked the time and re-sources and often had problems with thewritten English anguage. 4

Most previous Australian migration historieshad focused on migration policies and Australianattitudes to migration, and 'the migrants them-selves, their experiences and their impact onAustralian ociety have been relegated to statis-tical tables and plodding accounts of who came

when'.5 Writing n the late 1970s Paul Thompsonconcurred hat the history of immigrant groupswas 'mainly documented only from outside as asocial problem', and that an 'approach rom theinside... is certain to become more important nBritain'.6 n this regard, migration oral historyexemplifies he interest of many oral historians nthe undocumented histories of marginalised oroppressed social groups.

Such documentary evidence about the mi-grant experience as does exist might be partialand even misleading. For example, in a 1978study of the migration of mining families to theKent coal field between the wars, Gina Harkellnoted the inadequacy of written records pre-served n Ministry of Labour iles which blamedthe high turnover rates in the workforce uponappalling onditions n the mines. In fact the oralevidence from old miners suggested that theywould have put up with bad conditions for thesake of a job, but the testimony of their wivesshowed that the main reasons why mining fami-lies left the Kent coal fields were local hostilityand the absence of familiar upport networks ormining wives.7

Even when documentary sources produced

and preserved by members of migrant commu-nities exist, oral evidence can still act as 'a pow-erful corrective', as Bill Williams argued in hisstudy of Jewish mmigrants n Manchester. Thesurviving documentary vidence was almost en-tirely the product of the majority society and ofan Anglo-Jewish elite with a vested interest inrapid assimilation and in projecting defensivestereotypes of a cohesive and harmonious Jewishcommunity. Thus 'a communal history drawnfrom documentary ources tends to be a re-en-actment of community myth, since most surviv-ing documents were formulated by those mostconcerned o keep the myths alive'.8 By contrast,the oral evidence collected by Williams evoked aJewish 'community' with stark internal distinc-tions and complex interconnections with thewider Mancunian ociety, and demonstrated, orexample, that the occupational hoices of Jewishmigrants were more likely to be due to residen-

tial networks than historical stereotypes aboutJewish character and 'entrepreneurship'.

As an aside, it may be significant hat some ofthe studies which emphasise the importance oforal history evidence for the study of twentiethcentury migration, make little use of other formsof personal testimony.9 Histories of earlier mi-grations - such as the nineteenth century Euro-pean settlement of Australia make extensive useof migrants' etters, diaries and memoirs.10 orsome cases of twentieth century migration suchsources may be unavailable; or example, Car-olyn Adams explains that this was almost uni-versally rue of the Sylheti seafarers who settled

in the East End of London.11 ut I wonder if theopportunity readily presented by oral history torecord the apparently hidden histories of mi-grants has displaced historians' fforts o unearthother forms of personal estimony. t is revealingthat a significant and initially unexpected by-product of the oral history project of the NSWEthnic Affairs Commission were personal andfamily archives of letter, diaries, memorabiliaand, above all, photographs. It is also worthnoting that in recent decades community writingand publishing projects, such as Centerprise ndEastside Writers in London or Gatehouse andCommonword in Manchester, have producedmany volumes of autobiographies nd personalwritings and offer a rich complementary esourcefor the lived history of migration nd ethnic com-munities.12 Many of the arguments n this paperabout oral history could be applied to the use ofother forms of personal estimony - visual, writ-ten and oral - as sources for migration history.

CARVING THEORY OUT OF EXPERIENCEPersonal estimony offers unique 'glimpses ntothe lived interior of migration processes'.13Other sources reveal the creation, implementa-

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tion and contestation of migration and 'ethnicaffairs' policy, or the statistical patterns of move-ment, settlement, employment and welfare. Oraltestimony and other forms of life stories demon-strate 'the complexity of the actual process ofmigration'14 nd show how these policies andpatterns are played out through he lives and re-lationships of individual migrants, families andcommunities. As Rina Benmayor and AndorSkotnes argue, personal testimony 'allows un-derstanding of how moving matrices of socialforces impact and shape individuals, and howindividuals, in turn respond, act and producechange in the larger social arena'. By illuminat-ing aspects of the migrant experience whichmight otherwise be disregarded, oral historianshave been 'carving heory out of ... complex per-sonal histories and experiences', challengingmono-causal, linear and economistic theoriesand reshaping the ways in which migration is

understood.15 he following examples illustratejust some of the ways in which oral historianshave contributed to both empirical knowledgeand theoretical understanding of the migrationexperience.

Though economic pressures often influencemigration decisions, personal testimony revealsthe complex weave of factors and influenceswhich contribute o migration and the processesof information xchange and negotiation withinfamilies and social networks. For example, mi-grant narratives voke the 'cultural maginaries'about prospective destinations and explain howthese imaginaries are produced, disseminated,

received and used. Ethiopian Jews who suffereda gruelling process of migration to Israel weremotivated and sustained by an oral traditionwhich upheld heir Jewish dentity and a 'myth ofreturn'.16 arbadian migrants were attracted oBritain by the idealised image of the 'mothercountry' which had been part of their culturalupbringing. Yet when this dream was puncturedby the realities of discrimination and low paidwork, migrants' letters home sustained thatimage to avoid upsetting families who had lentmoney for the trip.17

In migrant narratives social networks areshown to be a crucial aspect of the migration ex-perience. In her pioneering tudy of interwar mi-gration to Paris from the French provinces,Isabelle Bertaux-Wiame rgued that life storiesilluminated the social relations which lie behindemigration ... networks of relations betweenpeople which leave no written trace behindthem'. The 'migratory path' might be pioneeredby a few individuals from a particular region,who would then promote it among old friends,neighbours and family members: 'These net-works, moreover, were of crucial mportance opeople who came to Paris without either capital,

or qualifications. They provided not only a sup-portive social circle; it was through these samenetworks that migrants would seek out a betterjob, a better place to live, even a wife or hus-band.'18 Much the same picture is provide byMerfyn Jones n his study of Welsh mmigrants nthe cities of North West England between 1890and 1930. Village contacts were vital for socialand economic survival, the chapel was a sus-taining focus for culture and identity, and oralevidence was necessary for examination of theinternal workings of the immigrant commu-nity'.19

Among the networks of relationships, onetook a principal role, according to Bertaux-Wiame and many other oral history studies: thatof the extended family'. For example, MaryChamberlain's ral history of Barbadian migrantsto Britain shows how the focus on family pat-terns and relationships within migration can

reveal much that is neglected n economistic andmetropolitan-based studies. Long-establishedfamily migratory traditions may be motivatingforces which suggest particular models of short-term and return migration; extended familiesprovide vital support networks n Barbados forchildren eft with grandparents) nd in England;family members ake on different roles in the mi-gration process along gender or generationallines; culture s transmitted nd transformed be-tween generations: once ... family histories aretaken as a perspective, hen the motivations ormigration and questions of identity, becomemore complex, ambiguous, and culturally spe-

cific'.20 imilarly, n Celeste De Roche's study ofFranco-American women, 'oral history revealsthe subtleties of the texture of family ife ... theweb of family connections .. the passages of timein the lives of ethnic women... and the forces ofchange'.21

John Bodnar's seminal work on late nine-teenth and early wentieth century migrant com-munities in the United States showed how afocus on the culture and networks of extendedfamily and ethnic community, as evidenced inoral testimony, explained the political 'realism'of America's immigrant workers. Oral historydemonstrated hat family and kin relationshipswere not only vital in attaining work, but alsosustained a preference or stable and secure em-ployment as opposed to individual progressthrough education and socio-economic mobility,and engendered a particular usion of ethnic andworking class consciousness. Bodnar's work syn-thesised a 'new interpretation f the immigrantsas transplanted ather than uprooted peo-ples, whose family and community-centred ur-vival strategies were a practical means for copingwith the demands of the American ndustrial ndurban order'.22




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Just as the complex relationships etween eth-nicity and class are illuminated n such studies,oral histories have also highlighted he particularexperiences of women migrants and the gen-dered nature of the migration experience. As Is-abelle Bertaux-Wiame noted in 1979, mostmigration histories were implicitly concernedwith migrant men and 'all too often in this typeof study women are eft aside, almost gnored'. nlistening to women's stories she discovered thatdespite similar economic motivations, he meth-ods, conditions and significance of men's andwomen's migration were different. Put simply, nthe case of French nternal migration, while menmove through the family network to find work,women move through job networks to find afamily'.23Women also gave different meanings otheir ife stories, emphasising he significance ofrelationships rather than the sense of au-tonomous agency apparent n men's stories. And

migrant women have often played critical roles nethnic community development, for examplethrough the sustenance of cultural tradition orin teaching the language of origin to children.24Over the last two decades feminist historianshave continued to explore the gender-specificcontent and form of migrant women's life sto-ries.25

Oral histories also offer a rich resource o ex-plore the intergenerational dynamics of migra-tion. Rina Benmayor nd Andor Skotnes arguedin 1995 that 'the manner in which familiesevolve and alter transgenerational migratory ra-ditions and identities is, no doubt, a fruitful di-rection for future research'.26 n the one

hand,personal estimony an show how patterns of mi-gration are repeated and evolve across genera-tions. For example, Mary Chamberlain showshow the decision of adult children of first gener-ation Barbadian migrants o return rom Englandto Barbados may be influenced by family and cul-tural traditions about return migration.27 Thenarratives f the children of migrants also high-light the cultural dilemmas and family tensionsexperienced by this 'second' generation. In herlife history study of Asian women migrants andtheir United States-born daughters, M. GailHickey explores he challenges aced by childrentrying to negotiate between the family patternsand values espoused within their own families orby the dominant culture. The daughters' toriesdemonstrate hat the sense of 'dual identity' ex-perienced by immigrants' hildren can be both apowerful resource and a painful struggle.28 im-ilarly, Janis Wilton argues that in Australia ac-counts from the children of postwar migrants inthe form of oral histories, memoirs and autobio-graphical fiction - have challenged the successstories old by and of their parents and reasserteda history of cultural displacement and inter-gen-

erational ension.29Memories and oral traditions also recall the

cultural life of migrant communities. Scottishhistorian Margaret McKay used the oral tradi-tions of twentieth century Canadian rural com-munities to recreate three nineteenth centuryHebridian emigrant settlements n Ontario, andvividly evokes the transplantation nd evolutionof cultural orms and practices n the new world.Customary emedies such as the use of urine fordisinfectant were supplemented by local herbalremedies learnt from native Americans; he in-stitution of the ceilidh, 'the visiting of which wasso central to the community life of the Tireetownships and to the milieu in which aspects ofthe oral culture were heard and learned, contin-ued to be a feature of life in the Ontario settle-ments'; the Gaelic language was sustained bychurches and local associations until it waseroded by centralised schooling and intermar-

riage.30 he importance of familiar ultural prac-tices for the sustenance of migrant dentity andcommunity; he complex interplay between in-troduced, minority cultures and the dominantpractices of the host society; and the culturaltransformations nd tensions across generationsare all illuminated by migrant estimony and oraltradition.

Many of the examples used above demon-strate one of the most important contributionswhich personal estimony can make to migrationstudies, that it is revealing not only on the pat-tern of events which took place, but also on howpeople felt about migration'.31 or example, inher oral

historyof

Senegalese migrantsn

Bari,Dorothy Louise Zinn explores what Roger Rousecalls 'the rhetorical dimension of the interpreta-tion that people give to their own and others' n-volvement in migration'. Zinn shows how theassertion and achievement of manhood (grow-ing up, leaving home, and personal growthachieved despite the 'descent into hell' of Italy)was a powerful motivating force for travel andmigration; how the men took peddling jobs notjust because Italians didn't want such work butbecause they offered pride in self-employment;how they constructed ife stories which explainedtheir experiences n terms of tourism and travel;and how the positive stories which they sent ortook home offered further personal affirmationwhile at the same time encouraging others tofollow the same difficult path.32 Used in theseways, oral history is a major tool for under-standing what John Bodnar has described as theimmigrants' 'internal worlds'33, or exploringhow the 'subjectivity' knowledge, eelings, fan-tasies, hopes and dreams of individuals, amiliesand communities nforms and shapes the migra-tion experience at every stage and is in turntransformed by that experience.




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ADVOCACY AND EMPOWERMENTSo far I've explored the ways in which oral his-tory can contribute to greater historical under-standing about the migrant experience. Personal

empowermentand

political advocacyhave also

been important aims in many oral history pro-jects involving migrant and ethnic communi-ties.54 Indeed, such projects have oftendeveloped out of social and political activism atboth local and national levels. In 1978, TamaraHarevan argued that the revival of ethnic com-munity oral history in the United States was arelatively spontaneous movement in the after-math of civil rights and Black Power politics (theterm 'revival' was a reference to the interwarreclamation of rural and Black oral traditions).In part this revival was spurred by the gradualextinction of the culture of the 1880-1920 mi-grant generation; in part it related to a searchfor identity and legitimation; and in part it rep-resented an acceptance of ethnic diversity incivil society:

... the oral history revival s connected withan effort to authenticate the experiences ofdifferent ethnic groups n American culture.It thus represents a commitment to plural-ism and expresses the re-emergence of eth-nicity and its acceptance as a vital aspect ofAmerican culture.35

The political contexts for historical workchange over time. Writing wenty years ater, andembroiled n the 'culture wars' which have pittedassertions of ethnic diversity against the domi-nant cultural orms of white

America,Rina Ben-

mayor and Andor Skotnes are less sanguineabout this 'commitment o pluralism'. Yet theycontinue to assert the importance of 'an activistrole for the processes of personal estimony: hatnot only reports on, but actively participates nthe process of identity construction'.56

There are several overlapping motivations oractivist migrant and ethnic community oral his-tory. A primary motivation is often the need tocombat the silences and stereotypes which afflicta particular ommunity. For example, as a youthand community worker in the East End ofLondon n the 1970s, Carolyn Adams developedclose relationships with local Sylheti, whose sea-faring forefathers had settled around the docksduring the previous century and who were thefocus of vicious racist attacks from white Na-tional Front critics of 'new' immigrants. Adamswas 'fascinated by the story of the early settle-ment, and the need to make explicit the linkswith the past, in large part as a counter to racistpropaganda'. She discovered that Sylheti elderswere equally keen to tell their stories becausethey were 'feeling rather marginalised and ne-glected by the new generation. They were also




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life stories of their parents and grandparents, etthe stories published hrough projects ike hers -or dramatised by theatre and reminiscencegroups such as Age Exchange n London - haveengendered cultural transmission, understand-ing and identity.41 t a 1979 British Oral HistorySociety conference, school teachers fromLondon's East End explained the importance ofencouraging Bangladeshi children - many ofwhom had been subjected o racist intimidationand violence - to discover the histories of theirfamilies and communities: 'the recording andwriting of their own experiences had helped tostrengthen voices and confidence in use of bothlanguage and self-image'.42 imilarly, he oral his-torian Akemi Kikumura xplains how interview-ing her Japanese-American mother was 'atransformative xperience or me':

... for in the process, I was able to reshapemany of the negative mages that society hadascribed o people of color and I was drawncloser to my mother, my family and my com-munity. By peeling away the layers of secrecy,shame and guilt obscured by a history of cul-tural genocide, racism and discrimination,and by placing my mother's life within abroader social, historical, and cultural con-text, I began o reexamine nd reinterpret ldbeliefs I held about her and, finally, o rede-fine my own self-concept within a more pos-itive framework.43

I want to highlight hree general points about

politically-engaged migrant and ethnic commu-nity oral history. Firstly, he examples I've citeddemonstrate he interconnection between publichistories and personal empowerment. They showhow the articulation nd communication of pre-viously silenced or ignored memories can be em-powering for the narrator, but also how thegeneration of public narratives bout the historyof a particular community can provide wordsand meanings which enable the telling of privatestories. There s a 'cycle of recognition' betweenpersonal testimony and public history. For ex-ample, an adult education project at a Centre orPuerto Rican Studies n New York encouraged agroup of Puerto Rican women to narrate nd col-lect life stories. The emerging hemes of struggleand survival sparked off new remembering andgave shape to the individual accounts, and chal-lenged media stereotypes which had in the pastmis-recognised women's lives and silenced theirstories. The project generated stories to live by'for the women, for members of their amilies andfor other Puerto Ricans n New York.44

Secondly, migrant and ethnic community oralhistories are generated within and against par-ticular political contexts, and need to be under-

stood in relation o their specific time and place.The contrast noted above between North Amer-ican ethnic politics n the 1970s and the 1990s isone example. Another example might be a con-trast between ethnic community history n Aus-tralian and Britain. In Australia ethniccommunity oral history projects emerged along-side the profound transition in the 1970s and1980s from the assimilationist white Australiapolicy to a more multicultural olitical ethos andcivil society. This was no smooth transition -indeed there has been a fierce backlash in the1990s - and oral history projects played an im-portant role in contesting mono-cultural histo-ries and asserting ethnic Australian identities.The 1984 'Migrant Oral Histories' issue of theOral History Association of Australia Journal spacked with examples of politically-engaged ro-jects, including: he Oral History Project of theEthnic Affairs Commission of New South Wales;'Art in Working Life' adult education groupslinking migrant oral histories with visual art 'asa very positive way for people to reclaim theirpast, and begin to take control of their present,lives'; and a public radio series about 'Aussiesfrom Everywhere' ponsored under the recom-mendations of a government report which urgedprofessionals to increase levels of 'understand-ing of cultural differences'. An impressive direc-tory of migrant oral histories cites dozens ofprojects with Chinese, Italian, Greek, Lebanese,Vietnamese and other ethnic Australians. Signif-icantly, there is almost no mention of oral his-tory work with the most numerous category of

postwar migrants those from Britain who hadnot felt personally or politically motivated todefine themselves as a community with a dis-tinctive history and needs.45

Rob Perks' British oral history bibliographyalso lists many migrant oral history publicationsproduced by local organisations, such as theBradford Heritage Recording Unit, the JewishWomen's History Group, the Multicultural Ed-ucation Centre n Leeds, and so on.46 These pro-jects are often supported by local communitiesand, in some cases, have benefited from localgovernment or national charity funding or na-tional employment raining chemes such as theManpower Services Commission's CommunityProgramme n the 1980s. Yet central govern-ment commitment to projects which assert thehistories and needs of ethnic communities - ev-ident in the Australian context - is in Britainstriking by its absence. Ethnic community oralhistory in Britain continues to be marginal andoppositional within a stubbornly mono-culturalstate and civil society (some might argue thatprojects therefore avoid co-option within a gov-ernment agenda). It remains to be seen whetherthe New Labour government and the wide-




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spread celebration of recent migrant anniver-saries - such as that for the 50th anniversary ofthe arrival of the first postwar Caribbean im-migrants on the Windrush - will significantlyalter the British context for migrant and ethniccommunity oral history. My point is that thefunding, aims and parameters of oral historyprojects are situated within and shaped by spe-cific political contexts.

A third and related point is that politicallyengaged migrant and ethnic community oral his-tory has sparked fierce debates about the politicsof history. In 1979 the British Oral History So-ciety's conference on 'Oral History and BlackHistory' caught fire as Natasha Sivanandan andAmrit Wilson took issue with the conferenceand with the methods of oral history. Theyargued that whites should not talk or writeabout black experience; that there should bemore stress on racism as a common black expe-

rience ('segregated' conference sessions aboutAsian and West Indian migration concealed thisshared experience); and that oral history wasjust another example of whites prying into blackcommunities and patronising them by 'givingback' their histories. Underlying the race issuewas concern about academic research and ex-ploitation.47 The conference lunch break wascancelled as participants debated and contestedthese claims, and the Oral History Society wasreluctant to organise subsequent events aboutblack history.

In effect, the conference had articulated forblack and ethnic community oral history a set ofconcerns which continue to trouble

politically-committed oral historians working in a varietyof fields. What are the rights and roles of 'insid-ers' and 'outsider' in ethnic community oral his-tory, and do those labels respect distinctiveidentities or sustain a false polarisation? In whatways might academic researchers and commu-nity members participate on equal terms, con-tribute their different expertise and have a'shared authority' in the processes and productsof historical work?48 What are the appropriatelanguages for recording and disseminating oralhistories? Sav Kyriacou argues that ethnic com-munity oral history should be published in bilin-gual and even multilingual forms.49 Indeed, howmight conventional approaches to oral historyinterviewing be culturally inappropriate withinparticular communities? Janis Wilton discoveredthat elderly Chinese Australians were uncom-fortable with probing questions about their ex-perience of racism, in part because of a culturalpreference not to speak ill of the past.50

Finally, how might historical projects exploreand even challenge the myths and romanticisa-tions which sometimes sustain individual andcommunity identity but which conceal significant

points of tension. For example, in 1984 the or-

ganisers of the Oral History Project of the EthnicAffairs Commission of New South Wales wereconcerned about how they might deal with mi-

grant life stories which celebrated Australia andproudly concluded that 'I am an Australian now',but which also contained detailed evidence aboutthe painful struggle to become 'an Australian'.51The next section considers how oral historianshave come to see such contradictions as an in-

terpretative resource.

'UNRELIABLE' MEMORIES: A RESOURCEAND NOT A PROBLEMThroughout the 1970s and early 1980s, oral his-torians of migration shared the usual concernsof social scientists and historians about the reli-

ability and validity of memory as an historicalsource. Elizabeth Thomas-Hope, for example,explained in 1980 that oral evidence about West

Indian migration to Britain, if used in isolation,could be misleading and should therefore be cor-roborated by other sources. She also believedthat the perceptions and motivations of an earliermigration experience could not be reliably re-called in later years, and conducted a parallel setof interviews with West Indians still living in theCaribbean in order to ascertain West Indianideals and expectations of Britain.52 Akemi Kiku-mura adopted several strategies to ensure the re-liability and validity of her mother's memories:she asked the same questions over a long periodof time so that she could check for discrepancies;she checked her mother's account against inter-views with other

family members;and she ob-

served family dynamics to see whether or not hermother's information was reliable.53

The early oral history handbooks offered sim-ilar strategies for making memory a more reliablesource of evidence for historical reconstruction.But by the late 1970s oral historians were be-coming less defensive about their source andwere arguing that the 'peculiarities of oral his-tory' might be a resource rather than a problem.By listening to the myths, fantasies, errors andcontradictions of memory, and paying heed to thesubtleties of language and narrative form, wemight better understand the subjective meaningsof historical experience. This profound transitionin the theory and method of oral history is ex-plored in other writings.54 Here I want to outlinejust some of the ways in which new approaches tooral history have been applied in migration stud-ies. One point to make at the outset is that newinterpretative interests have suggested alternativeresearch methodologies. For example, in theirstudy of overseas students in Italy, Francesca Bat-tisti and Alessandro Portelli use an 'horizon ofpossibility' methodology: 'we do not attempt togeneralise from a broader sample but focus on




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the meanings and implications of a few signifi-cant narratives'.55 second point to note is thatthe sophisticated theoretical awareness aboutmemory and subjectivity which characterisesrecent work should not displace or discredit heearlier, more empirical and political claims fororal histories of migration. There are valuablelessons to be learnt from different stages in thehistory of oral history, nd as Elizabeth LapovskyKennedy has argued, the empirical and subjec-tive values of oral evidence are 'fully comple-mentary o one another* nd should not be 'falselypolarised'.56

Oral testimony reveals he interpenetration fcollective histories and individual ife stories, andcan help us understand ow collective motifs andmyths might be resonant and meaningful or mi-grants. In the New South Wales Ethnic AffairsCommission project, or example, the narrators'determination o present a positive mage of Aus-

tralia and of themselves as Australians s evidenceof the complex processes of identification n themigration experience and of the power of publicnarratives. Bill Williams' work, as noted above,used the detailed evidence of personal estimonyto debunk collective myths and stereotypes boutthe Manchester Jewish community around theturn of the century. Yet Williams was alert to thereappearance of some of the communal mythswithin the oral testimony, even when they con-tradicted he remembered details of personal ex-perience. He concluded that this incongruityrevealed the role and power of such generalisa-tions as mechanisms of solidarity and defence. Itis for this reason that communal

myth mayco-

exist in oral testimony with contradictory per-sonal experience'. Similarly, Pnina Werbnerargued hat elements of a 'poor man made good'motif evident in the postwar life story of awealthy Pakistani Mancunian were relished andused by Pakistani men of the same migrant gen-eration. These men had less 'successful' ife his-tories, but they romanticised a common and'heroic' pioneering past, a time before they werejoined by their amilies, where here were no richand poor, high and low; a shared past when allmen were brothers'.58

In an autobiographical ccount of his experi-ence as a Chilean exile, Ivan Jaksic writes elo-quently about the linguistic consequences ofdisplacement: I wanted someone to understandwhat it was like to see your life suddenly cutdown, your points of reference blurred, yourability o express emotions and feelings mpairedby the pervasive presence of a different cultureand language.'59 he language used in oral his-tory nterviews can offer clues to the centrality flanguage within most migration xperiences. Forexample, Nancy Carnevale ocused on languageuse in her interviews with elderly Italian- Ameri-

can women. The linguistic shifts and tensionswithin the interviews as the women struggled ofind words for their lives and moved betweenItalian and English to represent particular xpe-riences - echoed and revealed he struggles overlanguage n their lives, the ways language struc-tured life chances in public and private arenas,and how the continuing use of Italian preservedold identities while maintaining marginality. hewomen's relationship with Nancy - as a young,well-educated and English-speaking econd gen-eration Italian-American woman who repre-sented aspirations which had been impossible orthemselves but lived out through heir childrensuggested the aspirations and tensions whichmarked intergenerational relations within thewomen's own families and communities.60

More generally, he forms n which life storiesare narrated the emphases and silences, inguis-tic patterns and metaphors can be richly reveal-

ing about the nature and meaning of migrantexperience. Isabelle Bertaux-Wiame rgues that'the forms of life stories are ... as important s thefacts which they contain', and points to the dif-ferent expressions nd speech orms hat men andwomen use in their accounts of internal migrationin France. Men's tories emphasised heir own in-dividual agency and used the pronoun T muchmore than did the women, who were more likelyto use pronouns such as 'we' or 'one ('on' inFrench) o denote the significance f relationshipsin their ives.61 rancesca Battisti and AlessandroPortelli highlight he importance f metaphors nmigrant tories, and argue that memories of lossor violence

maybe articulated

hrough magina-tion and symbolism: exiles, migrants, ethnicstravel back and forth between the memory andnostalgia of the olive tree and the desire of self-hood and difference of the apple detached romthe branch'.62 ycontrast, Janis Wilton notes thatsilences n the life stories of elderly Chinese-Aus-tralians about he racism which s evident n con-temporary sources - offer subtle clues aboutsignificant aspects of their lives: the importanceof survival through becoming 'Australian', hevalue of community espect and a determinationnot to repeat tories of humiliation. While strivingfor success in 'the lucky country' hese men andwomen had absorbed ts value system and struc-tured heir own accounts n its terms.63

There s often a congruence between he wayspeople conceptualise the past and how, at thetime, they experienced nd responded o the socialenvironment. Ron Grele and Virginia Yans-McLaughlin ave shown how the life histories offirst generation Jewish and Italian New Yorkersreveal culturally distinctive patterns of historicalconsciousness a Jewish metanarrative f agencyand gestalt by comparison with a more atomisticand fatalistic talian world view - which structured

34 ORAL HlfTORY Spring 1999



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the oral testimony but which had also shaped lifecourses within the two migrant communities inrather different ways.64 Using examples from in-terviews with Scandinavian migrants in Idaho,Samuel Schrager argues that we can use oral nar-ratives to explore both the significance of oral tra-ditions and the social relationships of the pastwhich are inscribed in narrative:

When we talk of what has happened we draw

pictures of our folklife. We act in the capacityof chroniclers for events that converge in ourlives and are made history through our inter-

pretations. We give our audience access tothese experiences by means of the different

points of view we are presenting. By enteringfor a moment into the perspectives of others,listeners get to feel the social relationships thatare inscribed in events. Oral historians, byworking to recover these messages and their

import, can better understand what the nar-ratives are really about.65

Many of the above examples attest to the sig-nificance of memories in the construction of in-dividual migrant and ethnic community identities.Recent studies highlight the dialectical relation-

ship between memory and identity. Our memo-ries of who we have been and where we comefrom shape our sense of self or identity in the pre-sent and thus impact upon the ways in which wemake our lives. Life stories are 'explanatory nar-ratives' (to use Giddens' term) which play a cru-cial role in everyday life. In turn, our current

identity (or 'identities',a term which better ex-

presses the multiple, fractured and dynamicnature of identity) affects how we structure, ar-ticulate and indeed remember the story of ourlife.66The experience of migration, which by def-inition is centred around a process of acute dis-

juncture, presents both an urgent need for, and

particular difficulties in, the construction of co-herent identities and life stories, of a past we canlive by.

For example, Nicola North makes the intrigu-ing but convincing argument that Cambodian

refugees in New Zealand do not exist in a singletime or place: 'Rather, their consciousness is oc-

cupied intensely and simultaneously with multi-

ple places and times'.67 Migrant oral testimony - inwhich narrators describe the process of learningto live in a new world, the collisions between oldand new ways, and the forging of new under-

standings of self and society - offers evidenceabout the changing nature and complex mean-

ings of identity in the migrant experience. Indeed,migrant testimony is itself an exemplar of the

processes and difficulties of identity construction,as Mary Kay Gilliland's oral history work withmen and women from the Croatian island of

Huar demonstrates. She found that the testimonyof islanders who emigrated to the United States

emphasised the hardships of their earlier lives onHuar, whereas the stories of men and womenwho had remained on the islands emphasised the

community spirit in the days before mass migra-tion.68 In effect, the stories can be used to explainthe different motivations and life courses of thetwo groups, but also as evidence of the process ofself-validation implicit in autobiographical narra-tive.

The retrospectivity of remembered oral testi-

mony - so often the object of methodological con-cern - is in fact a unique opportunity. The

migration experience continues throughout thelife course of the migrant. For example, an in-

creasing proportion of British migrants who hadsettled in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s, most

notably elderly widows, are now returning toBritain. In old age, as psychological, social and

practical needs evolve, they are changing theirminds about where they want to live and die;'home' is an uncertain and troubling category forthese and many other migrants. The meaningswhich migrants ascribe to their past experience,and the ways in which the life story is understood,remembered and told, also change over time. For

example, in the last few years elderly Chinese-Australians have begun to talk publicly for thefirst time about aspects of their experience whichhad previously been taboo, such as the racismthat tainted their earlier lives. Janis Wilton ex-

plains that this is partly because government poli-cies and public attitudes have changed and aremore

sympatheticto such memories. In old

agethese men and women are less concerned about

offending people who are no longer around; theynow want to review their lives and bear witnessto their histories, and to communicate these his-tories to younger Chinese-Australians and to 'out-siders' like Janis.69

Oral historians need to attend to the 'sociallife of stories', to use a resonant phrase coined byJulie Cruikshank in her work with Inuit oral tra-dition.70 Samuel Schrager writes that 'the oralhistorian is an intervener in a process that is al-

ready highly developed'.71 The stories that we aretold in interviews are often versions of accountsthat were created soon after events and that havebeen used and reworked by individuals andwithin families and communities over the years.Migrant stories have always been a central partof the migration experience: in the imaginationof possible futures; during the physical process of

passage; and as migrants have lived with andmade sense of the consequences of their migra-tion. At each stage life stories articulate the

meanings of experience and suggest ways of

living. When we record these stories we not onlycapture priceless evidence about prior experience

Spring 1999 ORAL HtSTOOY 35



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and lived histories. The stories themselves rep-resent the constantly evolving ways in which mi-grants make their lives through stories. Viewedin this way, migrant oral histories provide evi-dence both about past experience and about thelife stories which are a significant and materialfeature of that migrant experience.

'Moving stories' is a crude but useful punabout he oral history of migration. These oral his-

tories centre on the physical experience of move-ment between places. They are often redolentwith the emotionality of disjuncture, and aredeeply moving for the narrator nd for his or heraudience. And the stories are themselves con-stantly evolving and moving, presenting livinghistories n every sense of the term and a uniqueresource and opportunity or social and histori-cal understanding.

Notes1. Significant nternational ollections nclude:Rina Benmayor nd Andor Skotnes eds),International earbook f Oral History nd Life

Stories, Vol. ll,Migration nd Identity, Oxford:Oxford University ress, 1994; Memory andMulticulturalism:Proceedings of the VIIIInternational ral History Conference, Siena:

Comitato nternazionale i Storia Orale andUniversita degli Studi di Siena, 1993;

Communicating xperience: Proceedings of theIX nternational ral History Conference,

Goteborg: International ral History Committee,1996 (Section 1: Migration nd Ethnic Identity).Significant ational ollections nclude; Oral

History Association of Australia ournal, no 6,1984, special issue on 'Migrant Oral Histories';Oral History, ol 8, no 1 1980, special issueon 'Black Oral History'; Oral History, ol 21 , no1 1993, special issue on 'Ethnicity nd Oral

History'; Canadian Oral History Association

Journal, no 9, 1989, special issue on 'Oral

Historynd

Ethnicity';ral

History Review,vol

16, no 2, 1988, special issue on 'Oral Historyand Puerto Rican Women'; Oral History Review,vol 23, no 2, 1996, special issue on 'MigrantWomen'.2. A related question, requiring urther esearch,concerns he impact of oral history pon thewider field of migration istory nd migrationstudies more generally. n he United States, for

example, Matthew S. Magda argues that oral

history as had, among the various

specialisations n the historical profession,perhaps ts greatest mpact on ethnic and labour

history': Review Essay: Immigration nd Ethnic

Communities', ral History Review, vol 15, Fall

1987, p 152. See also, KH Halfacre and PJ

Boyle, 'The Challenge Facing MigrationResearch: The Case For a BiographicalApproach', Progress n Human Geography wo\17, no 3, 1993, pp 333-48; AM Findlay ndLN Li, An Auto-Biographical pproach o

Understanding Migration: he Case of HongKong Emigrants', rea, vol 29, no 1 1997, pp33-44.3. Quoted by Consuelo Soldevilla, An Exampleof the Use of Oral Sources n the Global and

Interdisciplinary tudy of Populations Movements:

Emigration rom Cantabria o America, 1880-

1930', in Memory and Multiculturalism, 785.4. Judith Winternitz, Telling he MigrantExperience: he Oral History roject f the EthnicAffairs Commission f N.S.W, Oral HistoryAssociation f Australia ournal, o 6, 1984, p45.

5. LouiseDouglas and Janis Wilton, Editorial',Oral History Association f Australia ournal, o

6, 1984, p 1.

6. Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past: Oral

History, Oxford: Oxford University ress, 2nd

edition, 1988, p 7.7. Gina Harkell, TheMigration f MiningFamilies o the Kent Coalfield Between he Wars',Oral History, ol 6, no 1 1978, pp 98-1 13.8. BillWilliams, The Jewish Immigrant nManchester The Contribution f Oral History',Oral History, ol 7, no 1 1979, p 52.9. Family nd community ral traditions ave alsobeen used to illuminate pre-twentieth entury

migration xperiences,such as those of mid-

nineteenth century cottish migrants o Canada.See Margaret McKay, Nineteenth Century Tiree

Emigrant ommunities n Ontario', Oral History,vol 9, no 2, 1981, pp 49^0.

10. Andrew Hassam, Sailing o Australia:

Shipboard Diaries by Nineteenth Century British

Emigrants, Manchester: Manchester UniversityPress, 1994; AJ Hammerton, migrantGentlewomen: Genteel Poverty nd Female

Emigration, 8301914, London: Croom Helm,1979.1 1 Carolyn Adams, 'Across Seven Seas andThirteen ivers',Oral History, ol 19, no 1,1991, pp 29-35.

12. For details of relevant publications ymembers f the Federation f Worker Writers nd

Community ublishers, mail [email protected],or write o FWWCP, 67 The Boulevard, Tunstall,Stoke on Trent, T6 6BD.

13. Rina Benmayor nd Andor Skotnes, SomeReflections n Migration nd Identity', n

Benmayor nd Skotnes, 1994, p 14.

14. AAerfynones, Welsh Immigrants n the Citiesof North West England, 189O1 930: Some Oral

Testimony', ral History, ol 9, no 2, 198 1 p 34.

15. Benmayor nd Skotnes, 1994, pp 13-14.16. Gadi Ben-Ezer, Ethiopian ews EncounterIsrael: Narratives f Migration nd the Problem f

Identity', n Benmayor nd Skotnes, 1994, pp101-117.17. Mary Chamberlain, Narratives f Exile nd

Return', n Communicating xperience, 1996, pp1-13.

18. Isabelle Bertaux-Wiame, he Life HistoryApproach o the Study of Internal Migration', Oral

History, ol 7, no 1 1979, pp 2632.19. Jones, 1981, p 33.20. Mary Chamberlain, Family nd Identity.Barbadian Migrants o Britain', n Benmayor nd

Skotnes, 1994, p 120.21. Celeste De Roche, ILearned Things TodayThat Never Knew Before : ral History t theKitchen able', Oral History Review, ol 23, no

2, 1996, p 61.22. Magda, 1987, p 158. See John Bodnar,The Transplanted: History f Immigrants nUrban America, Bloomington: ndiana UniversityPress, 1995;

JohnBodnar,

Immigration, inshipand the Rise of Working-Class ealism nIndustrial merica', ournal f Social History, ol

14, 198081, pp 4665.23. Bertaux-Wiame, 979, p 29.24. See, for example, Ima Imran, imSmith ndDonald Hyslop eds), Here To Stay: Bradford'sSouth Asian Communities, radford: radford

Heritage Recording Unit, 1994.25. See, for example Oral History Review, ol

23, no 2, 1996, special issue on 'MigrantWomen'; Oral History Review, ol 16, no 2,1988, special issue on 'Oral History nd PuertoRican Women'; and Chamberlain, 994.

26. Benmayor nd Skotnes, 1994, p 12.

27. Chamberlain, 1994.28. M Gail Hickey, Go o College, Get a Job,and Don't Leave he House Without Your Brother:Oral Histories with Immigrant omen and Their

Daughters', Oral History Review, ol 23, no 2,1996, p 64.29. Janis Wilton, Oral History nd Ethnic

Community tudies n Australia', npublishedpaper delivered at the International onferenceon Oral History, New York, 1994.30. McKay, Nineteenth Century Tiree Emigrant

36 ORAL HISTORY pring 999



15/15

Communities n Ontario1, 55.

31. Elizabeth Thomas-Hope, Hopes and Realityin the West Indian Migration o Britain1, ral

History, ol 8, no 1 1980, p 35.

32. Dorothy LouiseZinn, The SenegaleseImmigrants n Bari: What Happens When theAfricans eer Back', n Benmayor nd Skotnes

1994, pp 53-68.33. Quoted in AAagda, Review Essay', p 153.

34. For his activist tendency n oral history, eethe section on 'Advocacy and Empowerment' nRobert erks nd Alistair homson eds), The Oral

History Reader, London: Routledge, 1998, pp183-268.35. Tamara Harevan, TheSearch orGenerational Memory', Daedalus, Fall 1978, pp137-1 49, reprinted n David K Dunaway andWilla K Baum eds), Oral History: n

Interdisciplinary nthology, Walnut Creek:Altamira ress, p 25 1

36. Benmayor nd Skotnes, 1994, p 15.37. Adams, 1991 , p 30. The oral histories fHolocaust refugees and survivors might lso beseen as part of a process of public advocacy and

personal mpowerment: ee Naomi Rosh White,

'Marking bsences: Holocaust Testimony nd

History', n Perks nd Thomson, 1998, pp 172-182.38. Sav Kyriacou, May Your Children SpeakWell of You Mother Tongue : ral History ndthe Ethnic Communities', ral History, ol 21 , no

1, 1993, pp 75-80.39. William Westerman, Central American

Refugee Testimony nd Performed ifeHistories n

theSanctuary Movement1,

n Perks ndThomson,

1998, pp 224-234.40. Laurie . Serikaku, Oral History n EthnicCommunities: Widening the Focus', Oral HistoryReview, ol 17, no 1 1989, p 77. See also,

Gary Y. Okihiro, Oral History nd the Writing fEthnicHistory: Reconnaissance nto Methodand Theory', Oral History Review, ol 9, 198 1

pp 27-46.41. Pam Schweitzer nterviewed by JoannaBornat, Age Exchange: A Retrospective, ral

History, ol 20, no 2, 1992, pp 32-39.42. Joanna Bornat, udithBurdell, ridget Groomand Paul Thompson, Oral History nd Black

History: onference Report1, ral History, ol 8,nol, 1980, p 23.43. Akemi Kikumura, Family ifeHistories:Collaborative enture', ral History Review, ol

14, 1986, p 7.44. Rina Benmayor, lanca Vasquez, Anajuarbe

and Celia Alvarez, Stories o LiveBy: Continuityand Change in Three Generations f Puerto Rican

Women', in Raphael Samuel and Paul Thompson(eds) The Myths We Live By, London nd NewYork: Routledge, 1990, pp 184-200.

45. 'Migrant Oral Histories' ssue of the Oral

History Association f Australia ournal, o 6,1984: Judith Wintemitz, Telling he MigrantExperience'; ndrew Hill, Oral History s a Basisfor Visual Art1; ane Fleming, Accents n History';'Migrant Oral Histories: Preliminary irectory1.46. See under 'immigration' n Robert erks, Oral

History: n Annotated Bibliography, ondon: heBritishLibrary ational Sound Archive, 1990. A

question or urther esearch oncerns he

comparative xtent and significance f academic,

government nd community-based igration ral

history rojects.47. Bornat, Burdell, 1980, pp 21-23.

48. Janis Wilton explores ways of resolving uch

dilemmas n Talking Beyond Racism: Aspects ofthe Chinese Contribution o Australian History', n

Communicating xperience, pp 73-8 1 See also

Serikaku, Oral History n Ethnic Communities';Michael Frisch, A Shared Authority: ssays onthe Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public

History, Albany: SUNY Press, 1990.49. Kyriacou, 1993.50. Janis Wilton, 'Identity, acism, andMulticulturalism: hinese-Australian Responses',in Benmayor nd Skotnes, 1994, pp 85-100.

51.Wintemitz, 1994.52. Thomas-Hope, 1980.53. Kikumura, 986.54. See the introductions nd

chaptersn the

'Critical Developments' nd 'InterpretingMemories' ections of Perks nd Thomson,1998; and Alistair Thomson, FiftyYears On: An

International Perspective n Oral History1,Journal f American History, ol 85, no 2,

September 1998, pp 581-595.55. Francesco Battisti nd Alessandro Portelli,The Apple and the Olive Tree: Exiles,

Sojourners nd Tourists n the University1, n

Benmayor nd Skotnes, 1994, pp 37-38.56. Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, Telling Tales:Oral History nd the Construction f pre-Stonewall Lesbian History', n Perks nd

Thomson, 1998, p 354.

57. Williams, 1979, p 51.58. Pnina Werbner, RichMan Poor Man - Ora Community f Suffering: Heroic Motifs nManchester Pakistani LifeHistories', Oral

History, ol 8, no 1 Spring 1980, p 48. See

also Alexander Freund nd Laura Quilici,

'Exploring Myths n Women's Narratives: talianand German Immigrant Women in Vancouver,1947-1 961 , Oral History Review, vol 23, no

2, 1996, pp 159-182. Not all migration ralhistories have explored and challengedconventional mythologies. For example, JoanMorrison nd Charlotte Zabusky's nfluential

book, American Mosaic: The ImmigrantExperience n the Words of Those Who Lived t

(New York: EP Dutton, 1980) has beencriticised as a history which validates rather han

challenges conventional mythologies bout

migration, ssimilation, pluralism nd theAmerican dream. See Perks, 1990, p 103.

59. Ivanjaksic, InSearch of Safe Haven1, n

Benmayor nd Skotnes, 1994, p 26.60. Nancy Carnevale, 'Narratives f Italian

Immigrants', aper delivered at the AnnualConference of the Oral History Association,

Philadelphia, October 1996.61. Bertaux-Wiame,1979, p 29.

62. Battisti nd Portelli, 1994, p 50.63. Janis Wilton, 1994.64. Ron Grele, 'Listen o Their Voices: TwoCase Studies n the Interpretation f Oral HistoryInterviews', Oral History, ol 7, no 1 1979, pp33-42; Virginia Yans-McLaughlin, Metaphors fSelf in History: ubjectivity, ral Narrative nd

Immigration tudies', n Virginia Yans-McLaughlin(ed), Immigration econsidered: History,Sociology and Politics, New York: Oxford

University ress, 1990, pp 224-290.65. Samuel Schrager, What Is Social in Oral

History1,n Perks nd

Thomson, 1998, pp284

and 288.66. Anthony Giddens, Modernity nd Self-

Identity: elf and Society in the Late Modern

Age, Cambridge: Polity, 1991 . See also Alistair

Thomson, Anzac Memories: LivingWith the

Legend, Melbourne: Oxford University ress,1994, pp 8-1 1

67. Nicola North, 'Narratives f Cambodian

Refugees: Issues n the Collection of LifeStories',Oral History, ol 23, no 2, 1995, p 33.68. Mary Kay Gilliland, Performing he Past',

paper delivered at the International onferenceon Oral History, New York, October 1994.69. Wilton, 1994.

70. Julie Cruikshank, ngela Sidney, Kitty mithand Annie Ned, LifeLived Like Story: LifeStories of Three Yukon Native Elders, Lincoln:

University f Nebraska Press, 1990.

71.Schrager, 1998, p 284.

Spring 999 ORAL HKTORY 37

Documents

Oral History and Migration