Oral History Samples
Below are excerpts from previous years' student oral histories. Students were instructed to remove all identifying elements.
1. My mom, was, in Manila, Philippines. She and her younger sister were raised the old-school Filipino way: follow your parents and always do what they say, no questions; “my house my rules.” It didn’t matter if my mom didn’t think it was right, she had to do as her parents said. Having a boyfriend was not allowed till she graduated college. She couldn’t work either, even if it was part time. School had to be her first priority. She was raised in an environment where education was the only way to success. Having an education was something no one can take from her. Sleep-overs were not allowed and she had a curfew even though she was over 18 years old already. She lived under her parents roof, so she had to follow their rules or move out. Moving out was not an option as she couldn’t afford it anyway, and it just wasn’t done. Traditionally, children lived with their parents and only left the house when they married.
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2. When I was in my 20’s I always wanted to have a child or even children. Due to circumstances, I could not conceive and my biological clock was slowly ticking down. Meaning there is a certain age to have kids. The best time to have kids is between your twenties to late thirties. Each year you get older, there’s a higher risk for not getting pregnant. At the time, I wasn’t thinking of having a child because I was working on my career. I was in my 40’s and wanted a child but wasn’t in a relationship at that time. At that point, I was traditional and wanted to be married or at least be in a committed relationship before I had kids. I really wanted to become a mom but since I wasn’t able to conceive, I took a different route and decided to adopt. To me, it’s the same as having your own child. You would love the child like your own. If was younger, I would adopt again and would’ve given my child another sibling. However, I started late and adopting a child takes a long process. The process took about a year and a half. If you were to adopt now and didn’t adopt back then, the process would take even longer than a year.
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3. It was at this time when all this pressure finally left her since she had enough money to support her family and make a living with her husband. She and her siblings managed to buy her mother and father a house in the Sunset District and she and her husband rented a house for their first child together. It was one of the happiest times of her life having a child and getting their own place to stay in. After staying there for 3 years she and her entire family made a decision to buy a bigger house in the Outer Richmond for everyone to live under one roof. She had another child and this time it was a baby girl, she was filled with joy to have another child join the family. After all the hardships she had overcome and all the challenges that were set for her to overcome she managed to get through all of it from just a young girl who hardly new a thing about America to now a mother of 2 children living as a citizen of the United States.
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4. I think being a bilingual nurse in my career can be an advantage for the patient at the hospital. When they arrive to the medical center and find out that you are able to speak their language they feel relaxed and at ease just like being at home. It also makes it easier for myself because it wouldn’t be necessary to go through an interpreter. Therefore, being a translator I can meet the patient’s needs right then and there. Another advantage of being a nurse is that i'm able to provide for my family, having a satisfying career with financial security.
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5. When I have free time, I would go fishing with friends. We go fishing at San Joaquin River usually at dusk. There are lots of fish to catch, but we catch mostly sunfish. The largest fish I have ever caught was about 26 inches, I was really happy after I caught the fish. My friends were really jealous of my big fish. Another thing I do when I have free time is resting in bed or going out to play with my sons.
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6. My family farmed everyday to make a living but is wasn’t enough to feed us. There were lot of things my family needed but couldn’t afford. My father grew plenty of yam, rice, sweet potatoes, mango, sugar cane, and other things to support my family. He could not afford to buy meat, fish and seafood to raise the family. Which was very difficult for him because he had lost his eyes from the Vietnam war. On April 30, 1975 the communists had invaded our country and life was much harder. The communists had took everything that were valuable from the people. Like my family, people wanted to leave the country as soon as possible even though we knew it dangerous to escape by boat out of the country. To move to America we had to go to a refugee camp in Hong Kong for about one year. We went to Hong Kong on a big boat which was difficult because there were many people on the boat. Some families could not come to the United States because they had big families. We had to wait until my uncle sponsor in order for us to go to the United States.
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7. He was hired to create a new studio under 2K Games, with everyone he worked with and cares about, called Hangar 13. At Hangar 13, he spent 4 years working on Mafia 3, the continuation of the Mafia saga, a very unpopular series. His job was to take the old, and make it new and take it in a new direction, like he’s always done since the beginning of the industry. The game released to above average scores and above average sales. The process was long and tiresome, leading to many long nights. After Mafia 3 shipped, out of form for the industry, he wasn’t fired, but in fact is in charge of spearheading a new project and a new IP, completely designed by him and his work partner -REDACTED-. “I’m a design director now, I have my own team, my own game. It’s great."
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8. My brother is 26 years old, born March 18 1991 in China. When my brother turned 5 years old he immigrated to America with my parents . My brother had many hardships when he first arrived in America. It was a completely new life for my brother and my parents, it was hard at first to adapt but slowly it got better. My parents did not understand English very well so it was up to my brother to figure everything out for himself. My brother went to Lafayette Elementary School where he picked up English quickly which allowed him to help the family with all the paperwork that needed to be completed.
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9. Sometimes I come across a certain song that I haven’t heard in years. If I associated that song with bad memories, I probably have let go of those memories. Now that I am older, but it brings me back to a particular time in your life. I just hear the song for what it is...just a good song! I try to disconnect the memories that I connected to it. Music has always helped me all through my life. Music is still my therapy.
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10. My mom grew up in a small village in China. She was born on February 15, 1971 and already had 6 older siblings when she was born. She got a younger brother, who made her the second youngest child. Growing up she enjoyed taking walks to school with her brothers and sisters. She also enjoyed planting vegetables with her mom. They first dug holes then planted different types of vegetables such as, chinese broccoli, bok choy, yam, beans and many more. She believes that school today is way different than when she was in school. In a school year she only had one pencil to use and it lasted throughout the whole school year. She would sharpen it with a kitchen knife until it was unusable, then resorted to borrowing one from a friend. She also carried an old shoulder bag to school, that was handmade from her mother and continuously used it for five years.
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11. She was about 27 years old when she moved here. She was the only person in her immediate family to move here at the time because her parents owned their own land, her older sister had a pharmacy, her younger sister was a teacher at a school, and her younger brother and her other younger sister were still in high school. She even had to leave her 3 year old daughter. My grandma arrived to the airport with only one suitcase. She didn’t have a lot of clothes, or anything, really. When she arrived to the airport, she immediately started crying because she was homesick, missed her daughter, and had no idea how to contact her uncle to pick her up. Everyone who was on her flight had already left and she was the only one left waiting. Then, two police officers saw her crying in the corner and asked her if she needed any help with anything. She told the police that she had no way of contacting her uncle to pick her up, so the policemen directed her to the payphones and payed for her call. She had no idea how to use the phones in America so the police had to dial the number for her. Finally, her uncle came to the airport and picked her up.
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12. As a new Chinese immigrant to America, my dad attended the Chinese Education Center Elementary School in Chinatown. The CEC is a one year transitional school for the newly arrived Chinese speaking immigrants. It was difficult learning and adjusting to life in America. He overcame many cultural and language differences during that first year. After that year, he attended Edison Elementary School in the Mission district. This was his first experience attending school with a diverse student population. He said it was great interacting with friends from various ethnic backgrounds and learning the diverse cultures. It was also at this school where he learned about the various racial problems in America. He was bullied by African American boys. He said they were intimidating and often called him all types of racial slurs.
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13. Before coming here to the U.S. for school my mom went to school in the Philippines, my mom had a very good experience in high school in the Philippines. My mom said,” High school there in the Philippines was better than high school here in the U.S. They had a lot of help around campus, like when you needed help with anything there would be a staff or teacher ready to help you. Left, right, up and down anywhere you go no matter what they will be people around helping you.” But when my mom came here to the U.S. she had a total different experience. My mom said,” When I came here to the U.S. for high school it was very different to the Philippines, there was not that much support around the school and there was not that much explaining when I was thought here, back in the Philippines they explain the lesson very very clearly and had a lot of teamwork but here in the states not really. In the US when you get a question wrong you will be okay with it, but in the Philippines when the teacher asks you a question and you get it wrong you get an F for the day and in the Philippines when the teacher asks you a question you have to stand up because that shows sign of respect to the teacher, but here in the US students shown no respect for their teachers.
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14. Another significant time when someone pointed out his age (that he recalls) was when he was with his daughter at Costco. While she was getting a sample cup, the demo lady asked him “Are you her grandpa?” He replied simply with “No, I'm her father”. In addition to that comment the demo lady blurted “but she’s Asian.” In response he picked up his daughter, looked at her, and turned his head to the lady and said “WOW, YOU'RE RIGHT, I NEVER NOTICED THAT.” and walked away. He was not deeply offended by this, he actually thought it was quite funny, however this experience does rest as a keen memory in the back of his head, to this day.
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15. She was born on August 4, 1975 . The first thing asked was how did she feel growing up in Mexico? She told me it felt good because she was born there and she felt good because she had her friends and had her family. Second, asked what she did as a child she told me that she played with marbles. It was little game they played, and volleyball.
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16. I was born in Palestine. I lived there until I was 9 years old. In 1948, all the Palestinians in Lit were kicked out of their homes and forced to move elsewhere. My family and I were very few among hundreds, even thousands of people who were forced to walk to the nearest city they would take us. I remember that trip as if it happened a week ago, it was the hardest 3 days of my life. We had no food, no water, no cars, and no shelter. We would walk for many hours at a time in very hot weather. Dehydration killed many people on the trip. Unfortunately, There were no funerals, and no time to mourn. The deceased would get covered with a sheet and the group would continue to walk. Our living conditions on the trip were just horrible, some people were so desperate for something to drink, they resorted to drinking their own urine. My mother, my father, my ten siblings and I all walked to a city. When we arrived, thousands of Palestinians were starved, dehydrated, and on the line between life and death. This was an awful experience for myself and many others, but looking back now I know why I suffered through life. My family, this is who I do it for, in the arabic culture family is everything. They come first no matter what, you put them before yourself, always.
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17. The military gave me many memories to remember such as my most traumatic experience. In was in 1977. It was my first year and I was flown over to South Korea. It was in the middle of the night and all of a sudden someone yelled the enemy was attacking. Our tents were placed on the border near the mountains. The orders were to go to the bunker, but it was pitch black outside. The pathway to the bunker wasn’t in sight, in fact nothing was really in sight, not even my own boots. I didn’t want to hurt myself, but I knew I had to follow orders. So, I continuously stepped one foot in front of the other until I finally somehow arrived to the bunker.
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18. My father's life went from a smooth sailing ship on a sunny day to sounds of thunderstorms and ocean water crashing into rocks. “The day was scary, I was afraid and worried. I did not know what would happen.” His family had no choice but to leave Vietnam near the end of the Vietnam war. During this time, the restriction of freedom was what made him feel the need to leave. He felt like he was limited to the things he could do and say. My father didn’t have any plans or know what his next step was but all he knew was that there was a place somewhere else in the world with more opportunities and services to allow him a better life.
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19. I was born in South Korea. I am a happy and also a really curious person. I lived with my mother, father, and with my two siblings. I was the oldest sibling out of the three. My father is that he was a three star officer and my mother stayed at home, doing the house chores and watch use.
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20. I’m sure you remember this but you were young, I’m not sure how young but pretty young. You had wanted to put the incense at the altar where we pray to the ancestor. Your father was putting one and you started to say,” Hey I wanted to do it!” And you had kept trying to take the incense. You had pulled hard and a little amber had came off and fell onto your eye. You’re lucky that you had closed your eyes right before or it would’ve fallen onto your eye. It fell on top of your eyelid and you had cried for so long. Whenever you had gotten hurt as a kid I would’ve always had to boil and egg for you. Whenever you hit your head on something I would boil and egg and wrap it in a paper towel and put it on where u had gotten hurt.
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21. She was born in Mexico January 28th 1985. She was born to a poor Mexican family in San Marcos with ten brothers and twelve sisters living in a small village in a small dirt house. Her family was always working because they are farm folk with lots of animals and lots of work. Her entire community was poor, along with most of the country. In her youth she was happy, she had a strong relationship with her mother, her mother was always more strict than her dad. She had a temper that she couldn’t control. Sometimes she would hit her sister but she never hit her. Because of this she always did what she was told. She never had many interactions with her dad because of the fact that he would wake up early to do his work on the field. He was fairly calm and didn’t ask much of her because of her age.
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22. Her trail to the San Francisco People’s Palace leaves prints of barriers. While her White American counterparts were practically handed federal jobs, she received minute recognition for her passion for San Franciscans until one day, she politely erupted into a San Francisco Supervisor’s office demanding her application be considered. In the face of the effervescent actions undertaken by District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey two years ago, she soon became, and still is, the only Afghan woman to work in City Hall, opening the door for herself and countless other women of color to legislative positions.”