Description
Oral history project (35 pts total) Each student will conduct an oral history interview of a person at least 40-years-old who has ancestral roots in Asia* and has been in the U.S. for at least 5 years. There will be two work products required.
Part I a 5-page transcript (double-spaced (?), 12-point normal font) of the interview. Examples of transcript styles given on iLearn. The interview can be conducted and transcribed in another language. Phone, Skype, FaceTime, etc. can be used for interviews.
A 3-5-page write-up including:
- A description of the interviewee (the interviewee’s background, relationship to student, etc.)
- A description of the interview itself (when and where it took place, interesting details, etc.)
- An exploration of the interviewee’s story. Respond to the following:
- How is your interviewee’s story useful in your understanding of American history?
- How is your interviewee’s story useful in your understanding of present-day America?
- How is your interviewee’s story useful in your understanding of yourself?
- Extra credit possibility (up to 5 points): A line-by-line analysis of your transcript. Instructions will be given in class on how to do this.
Explanation & Answer
Attached.
Running Head: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
1
Interview Transcript and its Analysis via a Write-Up
Student’s Name:
Instructor’s Name:
Course:
Date:
2
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Part 1: Interview Transcript
Interviewer: Student
Interviewee: Lei Kim Jong
Interviewer: Hello, how are you doing?
Interviewee: Hello, I am doing fine actually, thank you.
Interviewer: First of all, I would like to thank you for making time for me and accepting to meet
with me for this important interview.
Interviewee: The pleasure is all mine, thanks for hosting me as well.
Interviewer: First of all, I would want you to tell us a little bit about yourself. Your name, the
state you come from, your native or ancestral home and other important background details we
might need to know about you.
Interviewee: Thank you. My name is Lei Kim Jong and just as the name suggest I am not a
Native American even though my English is actually pretty great but my name and physical
appearance clearly says I am a Chinese. Therefore I am a Chinese American. I live in Arizona
State at a small beautiful town called Sedona. I am 81 years old and I was brought here by my
parents. My parents were both Chinese. My father was from Shanghai while my mother was
from the suburbs of Wuhan. I have four children and several grandchildren and my wife passed
on some few years ago.
Interviewer: So you were born in America by immigrant parents?
Interviewee: Yes.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
3
Interviewer: Tell us more about your parents and how they happen to have come to America.
Interviewee: Well, like I said, my parents were both Chinese. They came here in the 1920’s. My
mother had come to study at the time when education was known as “gilding the lily” which
meant that girls from middle class families set their children abroad to study. My father on the
other hand was an engineer in the Chinese army and so during the end of First World War, some
engineers had been requested by the Asian army to stop a breach to shanghai and so my father
was sent over land and since it took a lot of time, he got there when the war was over and
decided to not come back for a while. He even decided to go to college and do some part time
classes pertaining business courses as opposed to his engineering course and this was in the late
1920’s. He told me that he met with my mother in one of the seminars which were conducted
between the two colleges. He said that they were the only Chinese in that seminar and
immediately they got along and of course you know how they say the rest is history.
(LAUGHTER).
Interviewer: So they decided not to go back to China?
Interviewee: Not at all. In fact they were planning to go to China and get married there but it
was when communism started in the early 1930’s. The American government were afraid that if
the students who had come to America were to go back, they would help the communists. They
even signed a contract with the Chinese government to make the already existing Chinese
students Americ...
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