A Holistic Partnership Approach to Oral Histories with Ethnic Minority Refugees from Burma

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

In response to Ethnic Minorities of Burma Advocacy and Resource Center (EMBARC), we created an oral history project called EMBARC Voices in summer of 2013. The objectives included advocacy for resettled refugees in Iowa communities, greater public awareness of the fastest-growing migrant population in Iowa, and oral testimony of the need for resources. Since 2008 more than 6,000 ethnic minority refugees from Burma have resettled in Iowa. They represent more than 130 subgroups divided by ethnicity, language, and religion. The project provides an opportunity to reflect on how holistic partnerships can help create and sustain community-based oral history projects.

Our holistic partnership model is the heart of civic engagement at Central College. Holistic partnerships leverage college assets to meet community-identified needs and also leverage expertise that resides in community for the education of our students. Our Center for Community-Based Learning (CCBL) liaises with more than 100 partners serving a wide range of communities and endeavors including children and families in poverty, refugees and immigrants, LGBT youth, and others. Sometimes a community partner requests oral histories. We do our best to accommodate them, even under the complex challenges associated with interviewing recently arrived ethnic minority refugees from Burma.

Because of their status and a severe lack of resources, refugees from Burma tend to be even more marginalized than other migrant populations. Most of them lack time to participate as interpreters or narrators in an oral history project. All of their time and energy go toward trying to survive. In addition the interviews conducted so far indicate oral history can revictimize narrators who relive recent trauma from ethnic cleansing and displacement camps. Also, oral history may threaten refugees who gave false statements on resettlement documents. Our panel explores the question of the suitability of oral history for communities without privilege.

Sub Unit

• Oral History Association Annual Meeting

Individual Presentations

• Moving Oral History into Communities through Holistic Partnerships - Cheri Doane, Central College

• The Risk of Oral History and Advocacy for Ethnic Minority Refugees from Burma - Katie Gaebel, Central College

• Controlling the Narrative by Holding Back: Refugees from Burma in Their Own Measured Words - Keith Yanner, Central College