The stories of 10 immigrants, told in their own words to students of Brooklyn College, make up the multimedia exhibition “We Are Brooklyn,” will which be on view in the lobby of the school’s library through November.
It started with the Brooklyn College Listening Project, an oral history initiative developed in 2014 by Brooklyn College professors from different fields in which students interviewed an individual and produced a podcast. The director of BCLP, Jessica Siegel, spoke to Bklyner‘s Zainab Iqbal.
“We just thought the students could be the people that are going out there and are doing real reporting, interviewing, and coming back and sharing that with other people,” Siegel, the director of BCLP, told Bklyner. “Our students have so much to offer in terms of doing their own research, their own interviewing. And because they have access to their communities, they can bring back stuff and hopefully share it with the larger world.”
The idea for the exhibition emerged after Siegel “felt that the oral histories were all being archived and the only people listening to them were students or faculty.” She narrowed the scope to immigrants for the show since many of the stories centered on immigrants or their children. Continue reading