Resources
How to Self-Record
Step 1: Select Your Equipment
First you will need a device to record your story with. Many smartphones, tablets, and laptops already have recording apps installed. If you have an iPhone (or Mac) the default is Voice Memos. For Android users, there are many free options out there if your phone doesn't already have a voice recording app.
Step 2: Find a quiet space
Find a quiet room where you won't be interrupted and place. If you have an iPhone, the standard earphones have a microphone built in -- but refrain from touching and moving it around too much as you talk. If you don't have a microphone to speak into, you can place your phone or other recording device in front of you, about one or two feet away from you.
Step 3: press record and talk
Under normal circumstances an interviewer would ask questions for you to answer. For this project, you will need to be both the interviewer and interviewee. To help you with this process, we have created a set of questions for you to answer, following Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis' COVID-19 Oral History Project sample questions.
Think of these questions as starting points to create your own oral history. You can add your own questions, skip around, or talk about whatever is on your mind. You do not need to answer them all, only what you are comfortable discussing. You can record your answers across multiple sittings, but if you chose to do this, please include the date and time at the beginning of your recording. At the beginning of every recording, you should state your name, the date, and where you're recording from: "Hi this is Moana. Today is Sunday, April 5. It's 7:15 am and I'm recording my oral history in my living room. Let's begin."
Step 4: Upload Your Oral History
After recording your oral history, you will need to fill out the Google Form below. Please click on the link below and fill out the necessary details before uploading your oral history file to our database.
Sample Questions
These questions are suggestions. You do not need to answer all of them. We recommend starting with the background questions and then picking and choosing from the other categories to share your experience. Consider these questions as prompts to get you talking, but if you already have a clear sense of what you want to share you do not need to follow the questions here.
Background Questions
What is the date and time?
What is your name?
What are the the primary things you do on a day-to-day basis (for example, your job, your extracurricular activities, exercise, family time, etc.)?
Where did you grow up, and what high school did you graduate from?
Where do you live now, and what is your neighborhood like?
When you first learned about COVID-19, what were your thoughts about it? How have your thoughts changed since then?
What issues have most concerned you about the COVID-19 pandemic?
Employment
Has COVID-19 affected your job? In what ways?
Has COVID-19 changed your employment status? In what ways?
What concerns do you have about the effects of COVID-19 on your employment and the economy more broadly?
Has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the employment of people you know? In what ways?
In what ways have you, your family or friends coped with loss of employment? What was your/their experience in applying for unemployment?
What changes in employment status do you anticipate in the next year or two? (Furloughs, etc.)
Lifestyle
How has COVID-19 affected you and/or your family’s day-to-day activities?
What changes have you made to your day-to-day activities in your household?
How have you altered uses of household spaces?
Can you describe any changes in family responsibilities?
What are any changes in shopping, eating and cooking patterns?
How are responsibilities for children and their education shared in your family?
Has the COVID-19 outbreak affected how you associate and communicate with friends and family? In what ways?
How frequently do you see family/friends in person?
What precautions do you take? How did these precautions change throughout the pandemic?
What have been the biggest challenges that you have faced during the COVID-19 outbreak?
What are your skills/hobbies/interests? How has COVID-19 affected these interests?
What have you, your family, and friends done for recreation and exercise during COVID-19 (feel free to include details about shows, games, books, etc.)?
How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your participation in activities and events? (Family gatherings, church, movies, in-person shopping, travel, sports, school events, gym, etc.)
Community
How has the COVID-19 outbreak affected your community (Remember, you may be part of many communities including school, club, church, job, etc. You are welcome to speak about all of these communities)?
How are people around you responding to the COVID-19 pandemic?
Have you seen the people around you change their opinions, day-to-day activities, or relationships in response to the pandemic?
“Self isolation” and “flattening the curve” have been two key ideas that have emerged during the pandemic. How have you, your family, friends, and community responded to requests to “self isolate” and “flatten the curve”?
Has COVID-19 changed your relationships with family, friends, and community? In what ways?
Health
Have you or anybody you know gotten sick during the COVID-19 outbreak? What has been your experience in responding to the sickness?
How has COVID-19 affected your mental and/or physical health?
Have you or anybody you know gotten the vaccine for COVID-19? Can you please describe your reaction and that experience?
Have you or anybody you know tested positive for COVID-19? Can you please describe your reaction and that experience (treatment and recovery)?
Information
What have been your primary sources of news during the pandemic?
Have your news sources changed during the course of the pandemic?
What do you think are important issues that the media may is or is not covering?
Government
How have municipal leaders and government officials in your community responded to the outbreak?
Do you have any thoughts on how local, state, or federal leaders are responding to the crisis differently?
Island Lifeways
What are the positive and negative aspects of living on islands during a pandemic?
What are ways your community has come together and organized around COVID-19 issues?
What is unique about how your island has responded to COVID-19?
How have you become more aware of our island resources at this time?
What changes in the ʻāina - land, ocean, resources, animal life - have you noticed with the social distancing, stay-at-home orders, and restrictions on travel policies?
The Future
Has your experience transformed how you think about your family, friends, and community? In what ways?
Knowing what you know now, what do you think that individuals, communities, or governments need to keep in mind for the future?
Given your experience, what are lessons you have learned in how to prepare and respond to any future pandemic?
What are some permanent changes you might adapt from this experience? (Wearing masks while traveling, sanitation measures, etc.)
How will you remember 2020?
When do you think your lifestyle will get back to “normal”? What will normal feel like to you?
What do you think you will tell your children/grandchildren about this experience?
Mental Health Resources
Oral history is not therapy. COVID-19 and its implications from lockdowns to loss of employment has been, and continues to be, a traumatic experience. If you have mental health concerns and are a student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, the Counseling and Student Development Center is available to help if you need support. UH Mānoa students also have access to Therapy Assistance Online (TAO). The Student Success website has a complete list of resources available to UHM students to support wellness, academic needs, mental health services, and more.